Amnesty for Undocumented Migrants Debate

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Department: Home Office

Amnesty for Undocumented Migrants

Rushanara Ali Excerpts
Monday 19th July 2021

(2 years, 8 months ago)

Westminster Hall
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Rushanara Ali Portrait Rushanara Ali (Bethnal Green and Bow) (Lab) [V]
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It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hosie. I thank the hon. Member for Ipswich (Tom Hunt) for opening the debate and laying out the strongly-held opinions on both sides of this debate.

It is important for us to have a sensitive and nuanced debate on this important issue, because there are hundreds of thousands of undocumented people in our country. If we do not engage with or discuss this subject, we create bigger problems for our society. I want to focus on those who face severe exploitation because they have found themselves as undocumented migrants in our country.

I have no truck, as I am sure most in our country do not, with those who are deliberately and wilfully flouting our legal system and breaking the law in this country. However, I am interested in what we can do to protect and support those who arrived in this country, often through legitimate means, according to the JCWI, and found themselves becoming irregularised.

In many of our constituencies, there are countless examples of people facing violence or being trafficked, and of women facing domestic abuse. They sometimes arrived on spousal visas and then faced huge amounts of exploitation. Although people who face domestic violence can apply to stay in the UK even if their spouse does not sponsor them, they often do not pass many of the requirements, because if they do not have police reports and so on, it is difficult to prove to immigration officers that they have faced domestic abuse and violence.

This is a complex area for those who face exploitation and who are vulnerable. I have met many individuals who have faced those sorts of issues and, although we may have different views about the text of the petition, it is important to build a consensus around those who are particularly vulnerable and who should be given an amnesty.

Since the pandemic began last year, the issue of what we do with undocumented migrants, what healthcare provision they get and whether they have access to covid vaccines affects all of us. That is why it is a no-brainer to look at some of these issues carefully and to think about how they benefit us as a society, in terms of healthcare and protection for all of us. We have already heard about some of the issues around vaccination programmes and people being fearful about going to get vaccinated. Many GPs require people to register with them in order to access vaccines. There are one-off vaccination offers to undocumented migrants, but that is not comprehensive. On the public health benefits for the whole of society, to combat the pandemic we need to ensure that the estimated 800,000 to 1.2 million people who, according to the JCWI, are undocumented in our country, are given protection.

What should we do going forward? As the hon. Member for Glasgow North East (Anne McLaughlin) said, as recently as earlier this year the Prime Minister said that when people have been here for a very long time and have not fallen foul of the law, it makes sense to try to regularise their status. When he was Mayor of London, he talked about an “earned amnesty” for some 400,000 people who live in the capital. It is important that we look at how to address this issue in a sensible way that does not lead to a pull factor, which many have raised concerns about.

We want a managed migration process with legitimate routes for people to come here to make a contribution, whether to study, to work or to join family members, while recognising that some people came to this country over the past decade and beyond and, for different reasons, have found themselves in the irregular status category but did not break the law. Those are the people I am particularly concerned about—those who then fell foul of the system. I hope that we will look at how to protect people who have been exploited and trafficked and who have faced huge challenges in our country, and at opportunities for them to make a contribution to our economy, given that they have been here for a long time.

Although I do not agree with the exact wording of the petition, it is important that we look at how to protect those who have huge vulnerabilities and ensure that, in the middle of a pandemic, those who are not documented have access to vaccination programmes, testing and treatment for covid.