About the "women illegally trafficked here for sex trade"

If we're assuming they'd like to be rescued and sent home it would be easy enough to announce that if they can get to any police station we WILL protect them and send them home without punishment for being here.

That is the easy one to deal with.

My objection was only to rewarding criminals (since that's what they are), but I see people have come up with consequences that I didn't see at the beginning either. It now sounds like a total disaster to even consider an amnesty.

Much as I hate the whole ID card thing I think we have to have one to sort this and things like it out.

I'm not sure why it has to be so elaborate and expensive anyway. What was wrong with a debit card with a thumbprint+photo on. Open a simple bank account for every citizen with one of these and use it for benefits and tax rebates/credits etc as well as ID. Eventually anyone left without a card is a criminal or at least needs to be investigated more closely.

And yes I'd favour deportation once you catch them. If they won't say which country they came from you could drop them off mid atlantic and let them swim to one of their choosing.

Okay I KNOW... but it annoys me that we are seen as such a soft touch that people go through the rest of Europe to get here.

Madam,

I know there is a difference between asylum seekers and illegals, but as soon as an illegal is caught they claim asylum, again taking a spot from someone who needs to be here, hence the grey area.

"if brown or CAmeron have better more sound and feasible ideas about those who are already here rather than those who have not come yet than we would love to hear about it for God's sake.. "

They do it's called rounding them up and sending them back, a much fairer policy for people who didn't jump the queue and waited for their turn.

and errrr I apologise profusely for my many typos

I think many people would rather ignore the fact there are so mnay illegal immigarnts living here as do the other two parties and start to sound "tough" on "new" immigartion..but the fact of the matter is these people live HERE and NOW and have done for ages..nobody knows for certain how many they are or where they are from or where they would go if they were to leave..so you either dab that away with concealer or you face it and try to do something about it..like what the lib dems are proposing or not it is at least an effort to face the problem and deal with it rather than wish it away..they are here and they ahev been so for ages and have kids etc..it would be stupid to say we can just deport them and and it is silly to say we can tell who has been "good" and who has been "naughty"..life does not work like that except in fairy tales..so i say all parties should work together on this rather than squabble and try to score points by pointing the finger at Clegg like schoolboys chanting " he wants to give them amnesty nah na na na"..
if brown or CAmeron have better more sound and feasible ideas about those who are already here rather than those who have not come yet than we would love to hear about it for God's sake..

I think people hate this policy because it appears to reward illegal activity.

But pragmatically it is probably the best thing to do.

I don't know whether I agree with it or not.

It is probably against someone's human rights to not give them benfits that others are claiming - so you couldn't put an amount on how many years they had to contribute for - after all there are lots of people NEETS why are claiming but have never contributed.

You would have old Cherie banging on in court getting paid shit loads more money for their cause!

Atlanstis - there is a difference - economic migrants and asylum seekers - they can;t just all be classed as illegals. Sorry am agreeing with you but they are not one in the same and shouldn't be referred to as such.

"
I am woefully uninformed on immigration issues"

As are many, myself included until I looked at it in depth, but personally I would rather give 2.000000 people who had humanitarian reasons for being here the chance to live here rather than 2,000000 who jumped the queue for financial gain.

Maybe they do, but if they feel that they could go to the authorities in the first place perhaps they would have a greater chance of doing so?

I am woefully uninformed on immigration issues, but the amnesty idea has just made me think about it more.

"I assume this will include women illegally trafficked here for sex trade? "

I think ou'll find most of those women want to go home.

Also, (because i'm getting angry now), why should you reward someone who came here illegally with an amnesty when more deserving people have done the right thing and queued to get in?

I would much rather that we send the illegals (who are here for economic, not persecution reasons ) home and allow people in who are being persecuted in their own countries in.

Vesela, if you were making the decision and you had an illegal immigrant who wanted to be here for financial gain, or a mother and her daughters from sierra leone who had been tortured and raped by rebels who would you allow to stay?

Because for every illegal you are giving a space too there is one less space for people who need sanctuary.

WRT the benefits vs tax thing, perhaps it could be agreed that they are only entitles to any benefits after they have contributed tax regularly for a period of time?

Illegal immigrants can't be 'put on the first boat out' as the authorities have no idea who/where/how many there are. Surely facing a problem is better than ignoring it? I assume this will include women illegally trafficked here for sex trade? Wouldn't it be a good thing for everyone if the gangmasters were out of a job?

Just musing really.

Oh, I agree - no eligibility for benefits, definitely.

It just seems totally unfeasible to me. Most people who are here illegally would be on very low paying jobs anyway, as atlantis says...

"longfingernails, it does come down to finding a solution that works. "

There isn't a solution that works, as Madame said whichever way you look at it we will be paying them not the other way round.

I think lib dem voters assume illegals are all brain surgeons and would be paying 'taxes' when in fact they would more than likely be taken out of the tax bracket by the lib dems £10,000 policy.

longfingernails, it does come down to finding a solution that works. (I don't think 65% tax would, though...)

OFGS - who is saying they will be paying tax - and will the amount they pay in tax be outweighed by the amount they claim in benefits or the WFTC they get or the CTC or the family allowance??

Getting them to start paying tax is a great idea if they cannot claim for anything else - if not it is like pissing in a pot with a hole in it.

I just don't agree with incentives to do the wrong thing. And the Lib Dem tests of community service and speaking English just aren't punitive enough.

At the same time, we do need to deal with the problem.

Maybe if they had to pay a special 65% tax rate or something as punishment (to compensate for all the tax we lost while they were here illegally) for 5 years or something it might be workable - but even then I am very queasy.

I agreed with Clegg when he said (about getting people off benefits and into work) that the incentives needed to be correctly aligned.

It is the same here. If you incentivize doing the wrong thing, you encourage it.

Agree with Atlantis

But it's not just wiping the slate clean for the ones who are here as they would then be allowed to bring in family members.

IMO they have already broken the law by being here illegally so they should be on the first boat out when caught.

The libs dems (as usual) haven't really costed this idea have they, in terms of people as well as money.

If they have a right to be here then they have a right to use the infrastructure, if they bring over family where are all these houses going to come from?

The lib dems admit they don't know how many people are here illegally and so we end up with a floating scale of between 600,000 and 2.000000, add to even the lowest figure a wife and child being allowed to join them nd your looking at 1.8million new people, without other immigrants who are still arriving (legally and illegally until the loopholes are closed) so you now have an extra 2.5 mil ( ?) people who need housing, NHS, schools, G.P's, jobs.

I's also like to know
a) how they are going to prove they have been here for 10 years (as illegals do not use the infrastructure )

b) how they are going to prove they have never done an illegal act (just being here is illegal) if they had been caught they would already have been detained.

c) what the lib dems fiscals are on the ammount of money giving this amnesty in terms of infrastructure would cost they country and if this is coming out of the 'savings' they have identified or would be added to the deficit.

This is just the headline policy, though, and will necessarily have been condensed in the manifesto etc. I haven't read the policy paper on this, but rest assured the Lib Dems will have gone into detail on how it would work effectively, and would do so again before implementation. Because they're like that (and all policy is voted on by conference, which encourages scrutiny and debate about whether section 3 part b is efficient etc.)

I don't think people realise the extent to which LD policy (and thinking) is oriented towards What Actually Works (and I don't mean "what works" in an ends-justify-the-means way, but what works effectively within liberal principles).

I think it's a fantastic policy. If the alternatives are for someone to remain illegal all their lives with all that entails, or to be deported when they've built a life here, I know which I prefer.

Thanks LF, I'd have been searching all night.

Section 442 says that the controls were stopped in two stages, in 1994 (for smaller ports to EU destinations) and scrapped completely in 1998.