We cannot continue taking on immigrants indefinitely

@DogsDinner, thanks for the screenshot. Do you have a link?

The screenshot mentions low earning immigrants earning below the average and then there's an opening discussing "average British born workers". It's not clear that the data is being compared like for like in the example. Workers earning low wages are all 'net recipients' (vs net contributors). In fact, the reality is that most UK households are net recipients (53.8%, according to Financial year end 2022 data from ONS).

"Official data showed the government spent £4.3bn hosting asylum seekers and refugees in Britain in the last financial year"

So it's OK to keep spending £4.3b our taxes on people who are migrating here, much of the time for a better standard of living?

I don't blame them for trying but we have a housing crisis. And a climate and biodiversity crisis. Where are we supposed to house another million people that will turn up this year?

https://www.bond.org.uk/press-releases/2024/04/uk-government-continues-to-spend-more-than-a-quarter-of-the-uk-aid-budget-in-the-uk-on-asylum-seeker-costs/

Personally I'd rather spend that money on the NHS or education. Not on other people coming in illegally hoping for a better life. I realise that's selfish but there's 8 billion people on the planet. We cant house them all here in the UK, can we?

The question is not whether it is reasonable for people in other countries to want to come here. The question is whether it is realistic to use 'improving other countries' as a way to reduce mass migration. Do you think it's realistic? I don't think it's realistic in any timeframe that would be acceptable to the British electorate, though I do think it's a generally laudable aim.

A different perspective here, I’m from a European country with a population of about 10 million. In less than a year it grew by an additional 1 million - mainly refugees from Ukraine. The UK are definitely not taking in more refugees than other European countries. Legal immigration, that’s another matter altogether…

Pretty sure immigrants aren't entitled to any benefits. Only if they are British citizens. Immigrants also have to pay an annual amount alongside their visa to use the NHS. I believe that to work here you need a job that has a salary above £30/35k, which is not a huge amount but higher than the minimum wage

Asylum seekers that have been granted refugee status can claim benefits. However, its surely more economic to speed up the decision process, so that they can then find work? Not all asylum seekers will be 'low-skilled'.

YABU to conflate immigration in general with assylum seekers, OP, you do realise that assylum seekers make up only about 6% of immigrants, right? YABVU to blame problems with housing etc on that small group of people. The UK takes far fewer than its fair share of assylum seekers globally.

Well, my life has been saved twice by non-Brit immigrant (not sure what ethnicity, too ill to ask) doctors. So bring 'em on, as far as I'm concerned.

We do control immigration..
We take fewer asylum seekers than many other European countries and they have to prove they are genuine refugees to be allowed to stay.
And we need to attract skilled people from other countries they contribute to the economy.
Research has shown that immigrants contribute more to the UK than they take out.

We should be. That is the real issue.

Durung my recent hospital stay all the nurses were poached from other countries during the Covid era.

Best not to confuse hearsay with evidence, KaylaLS
Naturally those seeking asylum will have a backstory and with those genuinely escaping repression the horror stories may well be true, but with economic migrants trying to pose as asylum seekers that's not necessarily the case

I once went for an interview at our local legal centre (it was actually an immigration advice facility who openly admitted they'd lied to get the funding) and listened to the usual accounts of dads being shot, mothers abused and siblings chucked down a well ... and asking what corroboration there was for this simply brought the usual thousand yard stare

Imagine my embarrassment when they offfered me the job

Awesome idea.

I don't think OP would comprehend the difference. They're stealing her job innit?

Are we discussing general immigration?

Don’t worry we are losing all the wealthy people and being left with the freeloaders, due to labour govenment. So we will probably be net zero in head count but financially in crisis. I guess you get what you vote for. People who have wealth are 90% likely to invest it in the country they live in, never mind all the charitable donations they make, but that loss will be covered no problem by stealth taxing everyone who stays, probably the middle class, though who the middle class are these days I don’t know.

And make obese people pay privately for their health care 🤪

Nailed it!

https://www.concern.org.uk/news/these-12-countries-hosted-most-refugees-2023

in that article countries like Turkey Pakistan and Iran take the most asylum seekers. The majority that Iran and Pakistan take in are from neighbouring Afghanistan. The west certainly had a hand in what happened there

In Europe Poland take the most a birding to that link

Migration always comes down to the immediate need of the economy. It always wins.

I have never seen a government really invest in training and education for its own population in a way that would mean a lot of people who are not working could and have reasonable quality of life. I think the last time there was this kind of investment it was in 60s and 70s.

It is not rocket science to see that with falling living standards and pressure on housing that migration (not asylum seekers, really it's tiny) is a huge issue.

There are quite a lot of policies governments could put into place to make people's lives better. But these are perceived as anti inclusion or nationalism. But really, they are expensive and migration is simply much cheaper to do.

What about Jordan?

Jordan hosts the fifth largest number of refugees per capita worldwide,

As requested:

We need more immigrants. We have an aging population and can't train enough health workers. We need teachers, university lecturers, and talent in tech that we don't train here either. And we CAN'T train it if we don't have enough teachers and lecturers.
We need overseas students or universities won't survive. So we still won't have enough tech workers or teachers, or doctors for the next wave of elderly people.

@TheAmusedQuail Migrants to the UK almost inevitably work and contribute through taxes.

43% of all adults pay no income tax in Britain. That's almost half the adult population. There are an awful lot of immigrants included in that figure. How could there not be?

If an immigrant is working minimum wage and eligible for every benefit going, how can they be contributing over and above what they're costing when a native Briton isn't?

69% do in fact stay in their neighbouring country. Iran, Turkey, Germany, Uganda and Columbia host the most refugees. These five countries host one third of the world’s refugees. Two thirds of all refugees are from Ukraine, Afghanistan, Syria and Venezuela.

Yup. It is really tiresome.