What would you do about immigration?

global tech billionaires are doing everything they can to avoid contributing to the general welfare

You might dislike the behaviour of their companies but tech billionaires are demonstrably not doing this. You have the OG, Bill Gates (giving c. 100% of his wealth away). Chan/Zuckerberg pledging 99% of their FB shares. 250+ tech billionaire signatories of the Giving Pledge, committing to give the majority of their wealth away, including Musk, Ellison, Larry Page, Sergey Brin, Pierre Omidyar, Dustin Moskovitz, Sam Altman, Azim Premji, Nilekani, etc.

OpenAI shenanigans are pretty depressing but the fact it was founded as a non-profit was a choice, and not one you’d make if you were trying to do everything to avoid supporting the common welfare. All seven Anthropic co-founders have pledged 80% of their wealth, etc.

You are working from a caricature.

Good

I think yours is a good idea in principle but utterly unworkable in practice.

It is hard to assess asylum claims in person and surely almost impossible online.

And on numbers, any online system makes it far easier to apply so the numbers would rocket.

And if the claim is approved before the person travels, you are likely to create a trade in accepted applications.

We are focusing on immigration because that is what the media tells us to focus on. If we just ignore it it will only play in to the hands of reform and such like.

Two issues can exist at the same time, strangely enough

The universities need a new funding model.

Huge amount of suicidal empathy on this thread.

We should do what is best for the citizens of this country, simple as that. Welcoming immigrants who can contribute to society, want to assimilate and make efforts to do so, and follow a proper process to come here is a sensible policy.

Unfortunately, most who obsess over immigration don't seem to be willing or able to focus on the other factors that have a much, much greater impact on the financial well-being of the country and the average UK citizen.

Just the females who value getting an education, a job, speaking whilst outside, choosing their own husband, or leaving the house without being draped in cloth.

Then keep them in a detention centre until they do. Might concentrate the mind if the option is to be stuck there.

The person who says there are millions on welfare 'refusing to work'. I'm just wondering if she means the disabled? Who are all obviously faking it?

I don't know really the 'solution' to immigration as its only fairly recently people have started blaming it for all society's problems. That along with the disabled who are alleged work shy scammers.

People shouldn't be able to receive benefits til they've worked here for a certain number of years.

And it's not really about how skilled they are, more about whether there are jobs that they could do that need filling.

A foreign cleaner is just as useful as a foreign investment banker, if there's vacancies for that job. And that public services can support the population it's meant to serve.

The person who highlighted second rate university degrees and the dependence on overseas students makes a point I agree with. I would only grant student visas for countries with a return agreement (there would be one for the whole EU).

There are 20 million women in Afghanistan. Do you think we should relocate all of them and their children to the UK?

In fairness, you can be concerned about immigration and be simultaneously concerned about something else too.

This is what I mentioned earlier about scapegoating minority groups.

This thread is so gross.

I would ask myself why we are all focusing on immigration when global tech billionaires are doing everything they can to avoid contributing to the general welfare, sowing division and spreading misinformation through their platforms, dodging tax, and influencing elections.

I would scrap the whole asylum system.

I agree with your proposal 100%.
The direct return if the procedure is not followed would stop the boats in about two weeks according to Rory Stewart talking on a recent podcast. Also, your policy would mean the UK hasn’t closed it doors just has implemented a more robust system which would also include, where possible, keeping criminals out of the UK.
its quite alarming that the Saudi states have slowly declined sending their kids to university here for fear of radicalisation. Tells you everything you need to know about the state of the UK migration system.

Do not disagree with some of your arguments but I read your op as being about immigration to the uk? There are more than English people here.

I think you can make a start by looking at people who have overstayed their visas, whether as EU citizens, visitors , students or on limited time work visas. Yes this is probably picking the low hanging fruit, but there is nothing wrong with that. Some of the people will be working and contributing, or have families in which case they can apply and pay for proper visas/ right to remain, if necessary they can return to their home countries while their application is fast tracked processed. People who are not working, or who are surviving by criminal means can leave, and I include people who will claim family ties in the UK.

I think as soon as the UK is seen as somewhere where immigration laws are taken seriously then the UK will be less attractive to those who don’t want to contribute and abide by UK laws.

I also think we really need to reconsider identity cards, I know there is a visceral hatred of them in the UK, but other countries survive with them, they make identification of those abusing the system easier and would also mean that people who don’t have other forms of id such as UK passports or driving licences are able to access services to which they are entitled, voting being a case in point since today is an Election Day!

Only allow people to claim asylum if they have arrived directly from an unsafe country, if they have arrived from France/Belgium that's good enough. If we can't use Rwanda send anyone to somewhere like a disused oil rig with options only to return to their home country or somewhere they travelled through.
We have some poor quality unis, stop them taking in Students who aren't the brightest and the best, if some close so be it. No immigrant is entitled to benefits until they've made NI contributions for 10 years (I'd happily say this for people born here too). If you are earning over £50k you can have a visa, but no benefits. If you are filling a skilled position, you can have a visa, but it probably doesn't have a route to settlement. If you do apply for a settlement, you need to show that you have integrated. Marriage visas, we should outlaw cousin marriage and anyone related should be banned from a marriage visa, if you haven't lived together overseas post marriage don't issue the visa. I'm sure this can be refined, but as a direction of travel it's my starting point.

I think i'd tackle all the shadow economy issues.

I dont know that asylum claims are that large as a part of the overall immigration picture. I read there was 100,000 claims last year.

It sounds like there's a bigger group of illegal immigration who either stayed beyond visas or didnt claim asylum at all, presumably arrived undedected.- So id go with making it harder to work illegally so its less attractive to stay on /arrive. I assume if they are illegal they arent claiming benefits. I dont see how the can.

I dont know how choosy we are about legal immigration. I thought we had quite strict criteria.

I’d need to give it a lot of thought but I think we need to move away from the parameters of the current debate. As far as I can see, the two loudest positions on immigration are:

A. All immigrants, legal and illegal but particularly the latter, are criminals, sex offenders, have no respect for women or anything else, bring nothing whatsoever of any value, don’t assimilate, are a threat to women and girls, and are here solely to sponge. Close the gates.

B. All immigrants are amazing people fleeing war and persecution, we should let whoever wants to come in, anyone who takes a different view is a racist. Open the gates.

The sensible approach lies somewhere between the two.

Even if you had a legal route you would still get people arriving by boat. And once here it would be hard to remove them.
You cannot deport someone to a country unless that country accepts they belong to them.
But there is lots that can be done.

My great grandparents were refugees (I guess illegal in the sense that they just came, and started working, but things were different then). They were fully assimilated into their community and always worked, the whole family did.
On the other side are also immigrants who worked hard. I think some people would say that makes me not really English but I’m very English (except for food!).
Anyway, my feelings about immigration are not from some knee jerk racist point of view, but the post Brexit years saw a massive spike in immigration that we really haven’t been able to manage, so hopefully something can be done to reduce this.
I think allowing people to apply for asylum from their home country is a good idea.
I definitely agree that anyone coming here and committing a violent crime should be immediately deported.
It’s extremely costly to legally process and incarcerate people, and we shouldn’t have to pay for foreign criminals.
The process for claiming asylum should be sped up and if we have to invest in that, we should.

I don’t really agree that we should be importing NHS workers and tradespeople- we should re-instate nursing bursaries, and have really solid training pathways for uk people (young and otherwise). It’s really hard for adults to switch careers, gain qualifications and get jobs nowadays.
I would like to see real investment in training and apprenticeships for young people who are already here so that we don’t have to say “oh we cant fill the jobs” .
We have overflowing prisons, lack of decent housing, tens of thousands of people unable to find jobs or train into new ones and a crumbling infrastructure of transport and health.
I don’t know really what the answer is, but I’m fed up with people saying we need this much immigration to fill jobs when we have a million young people with no work.