The Migration Watch UK think tank has slammed Boris Johnson’s latest proposal to give amnesty to illegal migrants who have been in Britain for 15 years, saying it would be “manna for traffickers”.
Migration Watch issued a press release seen by Breitbart London after the proposed illegal migrant amnesty — a policy Johnson pushed for years as both Mayor of London and Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary, in spite of his arguably unjustified reputation as a right-wing populist — cropped up among a raft of other policy proposals, including replacing the 20,000 fall in police numbers during Theresa May’s time as Home Secretary and Prime Minister, and lengthening time in custody for convicted sex offenders.
“It seems Mr Johnson is considering an amnesty for illegal immigrants in order to avoid another Windrush,” commented Migration Watch vice chairman Alp Mehmet, in reference to the so-called Windrush scandal in which a relatively small number of legal migrants, including convicted criminals, were wrongfully deported.
“This makes no sense,” Mehmet insisted.
“Those wrongly caught up in Windrush had every right to be here and bear no comparison to people who have either entered illegally or stayed on illegally and know full well that they have no right to be here.”
“An amnesty for them would be manna for traffickers. It would encourage further illegal inflows, reward illicit behaviour, be costly to UK taxpayers and be grossly unfair to migrants who follow the rules,” Mehmet added.
“Amnesties do not work, as Spain and Italy have proved.”
Migration Watch highlighted estimates that the illegal migration population in the United Kingdom is already over a million, with the illegal population increasing by at least 150,000 per year — or 70,000 a year net, according to their own research.
“The Home Office said in 2013 that each additional person staying on costs the taxpayer between £4,000 and £7,500 in health, education and welfare,” they recall.
“Why should UK taxpayers fund all this?”