Rights and regularisation

On 9th April 2008, The Independent covers the remarkable support from all the London Mayoral candidates for the campaign to allow irregular migrant workers without status the right to live and work legally in the UK. In London, the campaign is led by London Citizens, the capital’s largest community organisation, with the backing of church, political and business leaders. Read the article and candidate Brian Paddick’s column – It’s time to move hardworking ‘illegals’ into society

The Independent’s Leading Article is: Staying power
“Last week’s House of Lords report on the impact of immigration typified the “us and them” approach to the issue which has done so much over the years to poison the debate when it comes to the subject of foreign workers in Britain. The Lords economic committee chose to measure the impact of immigration by asking the narrow question of “How much richer are existing UK residents as a result of immigration?” before coming to the (flawed) conclusion that the answer is “not much”.

The paper follows-up the story on 10th April with a first hand account – Let me escape from this terrifying limbo

There is some more analysis on Our Kingdom, a project of the open Democracy website, which asks the question The mayors and the migrants – was anyone listening?

Strangers into Citizens is a campaign by the country’s largest alliance of civic institutions for a pathway into citizenship for undocumented migrants who have made new lives in the UK. The Citizens Organising Foundation (COF) believes the case for an “earned amnesty” is compelling, on humanitarian, economic, fiscal and administrative grounds; and is busy building an alliance of citizens calling on Government to implement a one-off “earned amnesty” law as part of its overhaul of the UK’s immigration policy.

The Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants (JCWI) leads a migrant workers’ rights & regularisation campaign. JCWI’s publication Recognising Rights, Recognising Political Realities sets out a practical model for a regularisation scheme which would ensure that a large proportion of this vulnerable group could readily obtain legal protection.

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