Letters to the Editor | 24 March 2007

Nations need borders

Sir: Austen Ivereigh (‘Let’s sort out the migration mess’, 17 March) argues that giving an amnesty to the 500,000-odd illegal immigrants in Britain offers a practical solution to our immigration problem. The policy sounds wonderful and comforting, but the reality is that it will send out a trumpet call to people to come here illegally in the knowledge that they will be made legal later. The experience of the United States makes the point. Since 1986 alone, it has given seven amnesties covering millions of illegal immigrants. The result has been that the number of illegal immigrants has rocketed from below four million in 1980 to around 10 million today (accounting for 30 per cent of the foreign-born population).

Frank Field
MP for Birkenhead
House of Commons, London SW1

Sir: Austen Ivereigh’s proposal of an amnesty for illegal immigrants is an insult not only to the indigenous citizens of Britain but also to the millions of immigrant citizens who have entered this country legally and who work hard and pay their taxes. Mr Ivereigh cites some anonymous examples of gainfully employed immigrants denied benefits, healthcare and the rights of free movement (to attend the deaths of close family members, naturally). How about the example of the legitimate, church-going immigrant Zainab Kalokoh, murdered at a christening party in Peckham  by a gang of three illegal immigrants, led by one Roberto Malasi, who had killed another British woman two weeks earlier? Perhaps Mr Ivereigh would welcome Mr Malasi as a fellow citizen; I’m rather glad that he will be deported at the end of his lengthy sentence.

The idea that an amnesty would somehow address the problem of terrorism and criminality — presumably by reducing the field of inquiry for a freed-up immigration taskforce — is ludicrous. Does Mr Ivereigh imagine that illegal immigrants, here for criminal or terrorist purposes, would be easier to find? No, in the real world, as opposed to the state-funded charityworld that pays Mr Ivereigh’s wages, nation states need borders and immigration controls as well as properly and fairly applied immigration policies.