Immigrants but legal ones?

If hes North African wouldn't France have been a more instinctive choice (thinking language and community hubs)

By current standards DH would be seen as a “bad immigrant”. He is a North African Muslim who came here illegally to seek asylum, which he was granted. Being a refugee has huge psychological ramifications you’ve effectively had to disown your country of birth and don’t belong anywhere. It’s not an easy consequence free choice to make.

He has been here for over 30 years now and has worked consistently. Often doing jobs that were low paid shift work in hospitality or public transport. He is a British citizen and we have 2 adult children at university. He is not unusual amongst his friends. All the parents work and they expect their children to study hard and get a job.

How is that a detriment to our society?

Someone with an Oxbridge Masters who has grown up in the UK and will enter an internationally mobile profession has every chance of being a net contributor to society. Why the implicit criticism?

@IceLollyMolly is here legally, making a contribution. Why should she be grateful?

I wouldn’t worry as you are in a previous wave now. Brexit was partly the anti Eastern European vote and that’s now moved onto Middle East and new wave African migration. As you say you are well integrated as a wave now.

I am pretty anti immigration. My background on that is that I studied ecology, landscape and population statistics (as animals and plants - not humans). Primarily it’s a simple numbers game. Nothing personal. I do believe we have a social responsibility to understand the carrying capacity of this island and ensure we can live sustainably without relying on other countries resources.

I also want my children to be able to have the things I have had. Their own home, and as they work up the ladder the opportunity to have a detached home and/or with a garden. This is more a want than a need like above but that’s pure spatial / numbers game too. To me it’s a marker of quality of life. So whilst I don’t agree generally with mass migration (and yes that’s selfish somewhat); it is nothing personal and I like EE attitudes and values.

If I go back to the anti EE Brexit sentiment I think here part of the issue was the scale and speed of the migration and there was a portion of criminality with that which people did not like. It was also a very visible wave and was noticed mainly due to EE competence so not a bad thing at all. But it did cause a direct competition that couldn’t be ignored. Ie. Trades people, middle management, shops, and also organised crime gangs.

I will be honest and say sometimes it can be uncomfortable having a large portion of shops in your town which you feel strange to enter. We have shops here where all the labels are in polish I believe? I don’t know because I can’t read them but they have an incredible array of jams 🤣 and the fruit and veg is absolutely superior quality. But it is disorientating and can see why older people or less well travelled people would be really unhappy about the lack of English language. These are the good shops. We also have black market money laundering cigarettes under the floorboards shops run by EE gangs which stand on the pavement on guard. That is weird.

Why is everything just getting worse? I have no idea. If I was to guess we have lost community, and we are no longer a high trust society. We are a low wage economy. Health is firefighting rather than has capacity for proactive preventive medicine. Echo chambers and the internet/ 24 hour news is not helpful. People do not give benefit of doubt on someone and people can not have honest conversations without fear of being called xyz. Education is also important. We now have student fees for HE, we also have very mixed populations in primary. Which is not helpful for simple language development. My son’s language was quite delayed as his best friend was nearly mute at nursery. It took us a while to realise my son’s best friend father can not speak any English. He’s caught up now and thankfully we realised! We thought the father did not like us as would blank us and walk off when we tried to converse 🤦‍♀️

So there are social complexities from mass migration as well which just causes awkwardness.

Apologies for the long ramble but I think it is important to talk about these things. The lack of discussion is how the far right are able to capitalise on these topics.

But yes in short, just carry on. Dont feel uncomfortable. You’re not necessarily any more uncomfortable than some British people themselves (depending where you/they live). I think everyone just feels a bit out of sorts.

Perhaps we should just give all the racists a designated territory where they can bill their wall and recreate mini England and get some seed capital. And let all their racist mates join and let’s see how well they all get on. There won’t be any more subsidies from London though nor from the “migrants”. They can go create their own hell/utopia.

My thoughts are as long as people are working and contributing I couldn’t care where you come from.

No, I don't work in a museum 🙂 love museums and volunteer in one, though, when I can. It's a lot of fun.

It's very tricky. Racism is always wrong. It is possible, to both like and feel grateful for the many lovely individuals who have immigrated to the UK AND worry about the total numbers.

We need to maintain a sustainable population level in the UK. This has to be sustainable financially. And environmentally (e.g current problems with our water supply!). And in terms of social cohesion and well-being.

Most of the people arriving illegally by boats from France are young men from highly patriarchal and homophobic societies. They will typically (and understandably) have poor mental health and limited English speaking/written skills.

They will, if given leave to remain, usually struggle to find and keep reasonably-paid employment. So they will be a net financial burden on the state. They are likely to want to find a partner and have a family. But, understandably, most women want to settle down with someone who is emotionally and financially stable. So again these young men will typically struggle to integrate.

Underemployed, single men with patriarchal and homophobic views are not a benefit to the UK. This is true whether they are born here or come by boat.

Small numbers of arrivals could be managed, if shared fairly throughout the country. But the current numbers are too high and too concentrated in certain areas.

My view is that we need to tackle the main pull factors much more effectively. Which will include introducing secure ID cards for all UK employment/housing and understanding why the UK has a much higher average refugee acceptance rate than France.

I think that might be a comprehension issue on your part.

The word ‘illegal’ is used to preface ‘immigrants’ to distinguish between legal immigrants and illegal immigrants. There is an important difference and most people make it crystal clear they have issue with the illegal immigrants, not the legal ones.

I think that the root of the problem is that this country has gone to utter shit. Everything is broken from healthcare to education to society in general. I don’t exactly know how it broke, but nevertheless we are where we are. Everything is a struggle, from getting a driving test to getting a GP appointment. There is growing discontent. And people are angry and frustrated and looking for someone to blame.

If I had strong links to another country, I’d be hot footing it out of this shit hole.

Of course the irony is that people like you have enhanced this country very significantly. We have lots of people who were born here who are wasters and criminals and they are the problem.

But I do think the boats should be stopped. We don’t have the resources to help more people. We can’t even meet our own basic needs - A&E looks like the third world with people on corridor floors etc. I bet there are classrooms in the third world outdoors with almost no facilities - but functioning better than the awful stuff that goes on in our classrooms.

We should accept immigrants who can help us - and that primarily means being a net contributor. But why any such immigrant would want to come here beats me.

I guess the point is that its 2025 now, not 2005.
You can use all the words abd arguments you want but people are now acting on emotion/instinct. It's not just a UK thing either. Its happening across Europe.

If @IceLollyMolly works at a museum, she will have earned her job over intense competition. Without recruiting the best internationally, no country can maintain a position in the top leagues of expertise.

This is easy to see in the academic sector, where the UK still punches above its weight (but may not for long). Go to the public websites of Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths Schools, Departments and Faculties of major British research universities. (You may obtain a reasonable list by searching for the membership if the Russell Group, though most would add Bath, Loughborough and possibly St Andrews and/or a few others).

See how many names of the academic staff and postgraduate students are familiar British names, and see how many received their PhDs in the UK. Imagine if these Schools etc were staffed by only those people.

No matter how good they are, a huge amount of knowledge and innovation produced in this country would be lost (to say nothing of international honours of the highest order). The economic consequences would also be vast.

The same thing is true in the private tech sector, but it is not so easy to do the experiment.

I am here since 2000, from an western EU country, since 2019 I also have British citizenship.

You can still hear my accent, at home we speak our mothertongue and I work for a company based in my home country so currently speak my language around 30-60% of the time, depending what I am doing each day.
We are a fairly international bunch, plenty of EU citizens who came her pre-Brexit, some are here as long as I am. We all are integrated, we see the UK as home and don't really have plans to go back, most of us have a UK passport now as well as we don't want to leave.

I start to feel strange now, I haven't come across anyone personally who makes negative comments but I do have thoughts about what I want to do when I retire (around 10 years time).
We are actively encouraging our daughter to go abroad partly for her uni course to see if she likes her other country as well and live there for a while.

We came here because my husband was headhunted, I pay tax and NI for the whole time I am here, the only benefit I ever claimed was maternity pay 7 years after coming.

I am not saying other countries are better, unfortunately even my birth country has it's share of right wing, anti-immigration politics.

@Tiktakmam , hopefully my response will be reassuring. I absolutely do have an issue with those who arrive on our shores by boat because most are young men coming from countries where attitudes to women and many things are greatly different to those you and I share. British people traditionally have an inbuilt sense of fair play and when many of our young people are struggling to obtain accommodation while these people are given housing, food, allowances etc etc while our taxes rise it just feels like we’re being taken for fools.
I hope most people would find it in their hearts to welcome genuine refugees but there will always be bigots wherever we go.
I am very open to legal migration into this country so long as we retain a veto on who we admit (should not be a criminal, should be able to support themselves etc). I really believe many people feel as I do and since you share similar values and contribute positively to society no reasonable person would take issue with you being here.
I really don’t think the strength of feeling about ‘immigrants’ which is being expressed across the country is aimed at people like you.

And your sucidal empathy drips from you.

Can't you understand the different types of migration and the genuine concerns many currently have? Calling all people with concerns racists and xenophobes just gives actual racists and xenophobes the belief that there are more of them than there actually are and gives them the confidence to be openly racist and xenophobic. Just as the remainers did after Brexit.

This is a problem which isn't going away - thanks to multiple governments not getting a grip earlier. It can either be dealt with in a calm and fair manner, or it can be dealt with in a much worse way which is unfair to the legal, contributing migrants who have always been welcomed by the majority of the country.

Do you really think that everyone should just live forever in the country that they were born in? Does that extend further to staying in your region, or your village? How incredibly dull & sad & with no imagination or innovation we would end up

What do the droves of retirees abroad contribute exactly? Do you also have a sentiment about that?

I'm British born, the most diverse I get in my family tree is Welsh...
I married a European and so have a European surname these days.
Pre-Brexit vote, noone batted an eyelid at my name.
Post-Brexit, people asking questions about my surname. My employer all of a sudden needed to see my evidence of right to work in UK again when I got a promotion and my job title changed. They'd already seen and photocopied my passport when I started working with them several years before. Dentist also suddenly needing to check I was entitled to NHS check-up. Random people who on hearing my surname suddenly had all sorts of questions about it and exactly how did I come to have it.
Quite simply, I was being quizzed about where I came from - the question of 'but where are you really from?!'
Brexit created a problem that didn't exist in the majority of people's minds beforehand.
I see you, @Tiktakmam and completely understand what you mean. England is a very different and unwelcoming place these days.

Sorry but what has drop in vaccine take got to do with diversity?

You realise it is possible for people to benefit from coming here while also being net contributors?

It's so sad that you feel that way, and I hate what is happening in this country.

However, I also feel sad that in telling us how you feel, you're kind of making the distinction between people like you (= the 'good' immigrants) and those people on the boats (= the 'bad' immigrants). I'm not keen on this punching down approach. I don't know your reasons for coming here, but many 'legal' immigrants could have had a good life in their home country if they hadn't made the (perfectly valid) choice to come here. Many of the people coming on boats (not all, but many) don't have that kind of luxury of choice, and are coming from dangerous and desperate situations. There is no legal immigration option open to them, and staying in their home country isn't a viable option either. They, like you, if given the chance, will work and contribute to the UK in valuable ways.

So I'd suggest putting less focus on 'I'm not like those other ones' and more on compassion. But yes, absolutely agree, immigrants make extremely valuable contributions to British life, and it's awful that people who've been here for years are being made to feel unwelcome..

Are the women and children raped or murdered by ‘asylum seekers’ while residing in the hotels racist? Do elaborate please

Where have I suggested that?

Please don't start weaponising violence against women and children to bolster racism.

www.endviolenceagainstwomen.org.uk/100-womens-rights-groups-warn-against-racist-weaponisation-of-vawg/

I’m sorry to hear you feel this way, OP, when you are such a positive addition to society.

I think it’s not the brightest people who can’t distinguish between legal and illegal migration. The carers who look after my sister in law so well were all recruited from Africa and I’m very grateful to them for being here and doing such a difficult job. I still want to see failed asylum seekers and serious criminals from overseas deported, though. I’m very conscious of the state of our housing and public services. The economy is as bad as I can recall in 40 years and I don’t know how we can go on as we are. I don’t think my concerns are unfounded and, if/when better times return, I hope we can help more people.

YOU took taxpayer's moneys from services funded in the UK if you went to school, university, got a trade or visited a doctor. People in your country funded your access to those services before you got your first job and were able to contribute to society what others paid thru taxes to you while growing up.

The big majority of adult legal migrants to Britain were NEVER funded by British taxpayers. Their country paid for those services/resources. And when they had to repay the money invested, they left their country, got jobs in Britain and immediately paid taxes there.

FFS!