What would you do about immigration?

I don’t think anyone has mentioned student visas yet? So many people have come here on a student visa, brought a large number of dependents with them, and then never gone home. Some universities are making a very nice profit from this and providing courses of dubious value.

Yes, some of them are contributors to our society but many are not, and have brought their backward ideologies to this country and expect us to provide healthcare to their families and schooling for their children. We do not need these people; they are certainly not all engineers, doctors, and scientists as many politicians will have you believe!

They don’t claim in France because France doesn’t accept them. The number of applications that are successful in France is tiny compared to the UK. Often they will have tried their luck and been turned down by multiple other countries before arriving in soft touch UK.

We can um and ah about the different forms of and levels of immigration but the fundamental problem that underpins it is the rich want to keep the numbers of passive consumers/economically inactive high to push up the cost of rent/house prices/ everything else. It massively benefits rich people to be able to turn on the poverty tap and keep it running, the they know the government will just pay for it..for now at least, god knows what will happen if we end up unable to afford it as it's only increasing.

How would applying for asylum from another country reduce immigration? Those eligible would still come and those who are not would likely to come illegally (small boats, channel tunnel etc. )

Correct. There are three other routes: 1 if you’re from Ukraine, 2 Afghanistan and helped the UK there, and 3 Hong Kong.

Other than that - tough.

What would I do? I would make sure that there is rock solid evidence about the figures. I don’t know on what basis immigration is said to be a problem. I’ve never seen figures, that are accepted, about how many people each year are immigrants, in what circumstances and where from. I don’t know how many people are asylum seekers and from where they come. I don’t know how many people are overstayers and I don’t know what problems this causes. Obviously I can guess, we all can do that, but that’s not good enough.

Above all, I don’t know, and I am mistrustful of people who tried to tell me, what problems immigration causes.

Very much of the debate seems to take as accepted fact the supposition the immigration causes problems. I just don’t know. I’m aware that there are stresses and strange in different parts of our different communities. Nevertheless, I’m not clear how much of all this is attributable to immigration and for what reasons.

Of course I accept that everyone has opinions about this. I’m used to living in places where there are large numbers of immigrant families, but many have been here for generations.

Leaving aside subjective views, what I need to know is how many and with what effect.

So that’s what I do.

Indeed.

The ability to claim asylum from France would be enormously beneficial though - no need to pay £££ to criminals to risk your life in an inflatable. UK pays for France to build and run an asylum centre with the guarantee that anyone applying will have a fast-track decision in four weeks, and if required a fast-track appeal in six weeks.

I think many things.

The first is that the refugee system was designed as a temporary refuge for people from war and persecution - it was never intended for numbers to be so massive that they fundamentally changed the host nation, or for people who are just migrating for money.

The second is that I don't think anybody should move to a country and then behave ungratefully, or show hatred towards the country in which they're a guest.

The third is that I think migrants cannot bring negative ideas and beliefs with them. If they've left a country rife with misogyny or antisemitism, that should not be welcomed here.

The fourth is that I think a host country's citizens paying for hotels or council houses or benefits fir migrants is objectively mad and completely unsustainable as a policy.

The fifth is that I think everyone can't just leave countries that lack things like democracy, human rights etc because then those countries never change or move forward.

The sixth is that I think America has a nice ideology where people can come from all over but that they want to be American. That's a sense of unity. Europe seems to be instead ashamed of its culture and invites sectarianism.

The seventh is that I think Britain has become so fractured because people don't have shared ideals or feel like they're on the same team - mass migration is partly responsible.

I say these things as a mixed race person who's grandma came here as a refugee. That said, she wasn't given a council house or benefits and she became very British. That doesn't mean she gave up her own culture, religion, cooking, customs - it just means she felt lucky to be BRITISH and was a massive patriot.

It's not racist or mean or bigoted or any of those things for people to want their home country to be generally safe, generally in alignment with its own identity, or for nationals to be prioritised over migrants.

I lived big parts of my life overseas and outside Europe that's the norm! Locals come first, ad if you're a guest, remember to behave yourself!

I agree to. I’m sick of our country being so soft, other countries don’t allow this kind of thing, so why do we?!

Hold on are you telling me you’re not allowed to claim asylum until you’re actually here ? wtf ? Surely that’s the answer then to all these boats, change that fact!

Have a look at what other more successful countries like Australia do. Turn back boats, off shore processing, not allowing them to stay on the mainland etc.

Definitely agree!

I think anyone who arrives by unorthodox routes needs to be contained during processing as we have no idea who they are.

Then we need to speed up the system and not allow multiple appeals.

This ⬆

I have name changed as this is outing, but a few years ago our son was working in the USA and met and married a US citizen. His company posted him back to London and the hoops he (and we) had to jump through to allow his wife to come with him were ridiculous, including a personal visit to us by a representative of the Home Office (I think) to make sure we had enough room for them to live with us and that we had enough income to support them both and were willing to do so.

He and his wife are both well-qualified professionals, he was employed and his wife works in a field where we had shortages at the time. It was utterly ridiculous. They have never taken a penny from the state and pay a lot of tax.

I have heard many similar stories from friends (my DH worked in an international industry so colleagues meeting and marrying spouses from other countries was not at all unusual).

We absolutely do not need to be importing people who are from countries where women have no rights, and people who will be a permanent cost to the taxpayer.

As to our citizens being allowed to not work, then I do agree everyone should contribute in some way if they are being supported by the state. Having parents who needed care, I do not want anyone looking after them who resents it, but heaven knows there is enough work that can be done without that; litter picking and cleaning up graffiti for a start!

If you get here via people smuggling, whether a boat or a lorry, then yes, into a detention centre and sent back to where you came from pdq; no wandering the streets getting up to no good or working in the black market. Fingerprinted and DNA tested if necessary so you can’t just keep coming back again and again for another go.

Too many politicians are willing to virtue signal on immigration, but they don’t tend to have to live with the consequences in their own back yard.

But we don't want them here.

There are no routes for immigrants to claim asylum until they have a foot on British soil. So the ‘send them back if they arrive by boat or in the back of a lorry’ doesn’t work. They have no other choice of getting in the country. Or do you mean we should not accept any asylum seekers at all? If so, let’s hope we are never in need of help and asylum from our neighbours.

I’m not sure how well your plan would work though. Fewer than half of the people who come here illegally are granted asylum at the first stage. Those who know they will be refused may well still come here illegally. So how would your plan reduce number?

First, clear the backlog.

Anyone who arrives undocumented and/or on a small boat or in the back of a lorry goes straight to a detention centre.

Anyone who breaks the law while waiting for a decision is deported (to their country of origin or maybe even France) and may not enter the country again.
They all know when they break the law.

One thing the government could realistically do to improve the asylum system is pay caseworkers properly. It's a very stressful job and there are many other CS jobs at the same grade/pay with barely any stress at all, which means that people take caseworker jobs and then leave, either on level transfer or promotion, as soon as possible. It causes sky high attrition rates and huge amounts of time wasted on recruiting, onboarding, and training - often with little to no ROI. If the pay package was fair for the work you might actually get some skilled, experienced people staying and speed the process up a bit.