Mayor Boris Johnson has opened up a long-overdue but vital debate on illegal immigrants.  Those lambasting the London Mayor are going on about irresponsibility and naivety but seem to be missing an important point:  that there is in fact a business case for the regularisation of illegal immigrants.  Let us therefore not get emotional about the issue, and look at it as a business proposition.

The Government now needs revenue more than ever, as a result of their various actions to deal with the credit crunch and if they ever hope to repay some of the debt they are piling on the British public.  Regularisation of unauthorized immigrants could actually provide an important additional source of funds.  Granting an amnesty would bring in valuable income to the Treasury of almost £13bn at least for the next five years, and it would create a lot of goodwill in all communities. 

An amnesty would provide for regularisation of illegal migrants but not necessarily favouring them over legal migrants, which means allowing them at least to be treated similarly say to the now defunct 'Work Permit' holders.  I know that many of those already in the country are probably already gainfully if illegally employed (for how else would they survive?).  They might as well be made to pay taxes and National Insurance on their income.

They would not be given any extra privileges, which would simply upset those who came here legally.  They would be granted initially only a one year visa which they will need to renew every year up to five years during which time they would need to become productive members of society, and then gain indefinite leave to remain (ILR) or permanent residence (PR) at the end of that period (but bearing in mind the UK Border Agency wants to lengthen the period before ILR or PR could be earned).  They would of course need to pass Life in the UK Test to gain ILR/PR, failing which they would only be granted annual extensions.  While they are on their amnesty years, they would not be entitled to any public benefits (again similar to those on legal annual renewals).  After one year on ILR/PR, they would then have earnt the right to apply for British citizenship and all that that entails.

My projections (see table below) are based on the figures bandied about of 700,000 illegal immigrants in the UK.  We could use the current personal UK Border Agency ILR/PR fee of £1,020 and the annual £665 for personal renewals, and say double these  for amnesty applicants because they are a special case (of course it could even be higher as a punitive measure).  The UKBA would charge an initial £2,040 per person to start an application, bringing in over £1.4bn in the first year.  Annual renewals for a further four years with a more expensive final application in Year 5 would bring in annual revenues of £931m.  This would equate in total to more than £5.6bn over the 5 year period.

We could assume then that the 'amnestinians' would start paying for NI and tax as soon as they are regularised and using an estimate of £2,000 per person this would bring in revenue of £1.4bn a year, or £7bn over the 5 years.   The expected fees, NI and tax paid by the amnestinians would actually bring in potential revenues to the nation's coffers to the tune of over £12.6bn.  To this total could of course then be added the resultant massive savings in police/UKBA time and other direct expenses such as plane fares.

700,000 is a huge number.  It could be dealt with as a separate ten-year project to allow monitoring of the projected income, and all expenditures for the regularisation (eg staffing, office costs etc)  and to fight illegal entry at our borders could be charged to the project.  I suggest that at the end of the period, there would be a massive 'profit' which would prove the business case.

Staffing of the project would of course be the biggest cost.  If we spent just one day per amnestinian, it would require over 3,000 staff to deal with all the applications in one year.  This also however means job creations for those in the UK who are legally allowed to work.  At £24k per staff member, that would cost £72m, plus the cost of housing the project.  The initial processing could of course be spread over 3 years or longer to reduce the pressure on the project, but it will need to show a steady upward trend in productivity.

At present the government seems intent and focussed on stopping illegal migration by deporting those they have already let in to the country, at huge expense.  But isn't a more effective strategy to prevent people from coming in in the first place?  The government should not be terrorising those already in Britain, but instead they should be focussing their efforts on strengthening the role of  Entry Clearance Officers as the first line of defense against potential illegal migrants, as well as fortifying our borders, beginning with the French side of things, and intensifying our efforts against traffickers and the like. 

It should of course be made very clear by the Government that this is the only amnesty they will ever provide, and that following regularisation of the current illegal immigrants the rules would get even tougher to prevent a repeat of this long-standing predicament.  A review could then be undertaken in 10 years time to evaluate how successful the scheme has been, and assess the way forward. 

Regularising 700,000 illegal migrants would also pay dividends for the Government that grants it.  The Labour Government may not be too keen on this as they appear to be on the way out, but an incoming Conservative Government should take note.  A lot of cultures believe in what is called "debt of gratitude" and no doubt this gratitude would manifest itself straightaway in better community relations, and in votes come election time.  If the monetary savings and benefits of amnesty do not persuade, then goodwill surely must show them that there is indeed a business case for regularisation.  Until we do it, we would not really know.

[Gene Alcantara is an OISC-registered Immigration Caseworker – alcantara.gene@gmail.com ]