Immigration Reform in The United Kingdom
As of 2010, in the United Kingdom, there is some cross-party support for immigration reform, largely under the auspices of the Strangers into Citizens campaign. Although the Liberal Democrats are the only major party to fully support reform, some Labour MPs (including former leadership candidate John McDonald), the IPPR (a Labour-leaning think-tank) and Boris Johnson (the Conservative Mayor of London) also support a selective amnesty for illegal immigrants. Under the Liberal Democrat proposal, this would involve regularisation for illegal immigrants who have lived in the country for at least ten years and who do not have a criminal record.
It is argued that bringing many of these (estimates varying widely from 300,000 to 800,000) individuals into the legal economy would allow police to concentrate resources on tackling people traffickers and criminals - and would raise billions in tax revenue - whereas deporting them would cost £4.7 billion and take 30 years. This issue is still a matter of political debate today in the United Kingdom.
Read more about this topic: Immigration Reform
Famous quotes containing the words immigration, reform, united and/or kingdom:
“I was interested to see how a pioneer lived on this side of the country. His life is in some respects more adventurous than that of his brother in the West; for he contends with winter as well as the wilderness, and there is a greater interval of time at least between him and the army which is to follow. Here immigration is a tide which may ebb when it has swept away the pines; there it is not a tide, but an inundation, and roads and other improvements come steadily rushing after.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“You have to make more noise than anybody else, you have to make yourself more obtrusive than anybody else, you have to fill all the papers more than anybody else, in fact you have to be there all the time and see that they do not snow you under, if you are really going to get your reform realized.”
—Emmeline Pankhurst (1858–1928)
“As a Tax-Paying Citizen of the United States I am entitled to a voice in Governmental affairs.... Having paid this unlawful Tax under written Protest for forty years, I am entitled to receive from the Treasury of “Uncle Sam” the full amount of both Principal and Interest.”
—Susan Pecker Fowler (1823–1911)
“The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which someone found and hid; then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.”
—Bible: New Testament, Matthew 13:44.