If you are against immigration, what do you think about net contributing immigrants?

[IceLollyMolly]

I don't have the nerve to post in AIBU! I am a recent immigrant- I don't even have my ILR yet- and came in on a skilled worker visa in 2020, as did my DH. Both of us are high earners and pay a lot of tax. Both of us fill positions that were first advertised to British people, but could not be filled.

Lately, of course, there has been a lot of press about high immigration and how it should be curbed. There seems to be a simmering resentment against all immigrants, spearheaded ironically by Tory immigrants.

So far, I have not taken anything from the state and am unlikely to. I have private health care, and am pretty healthy anyway, so rarely use it. I have not given birth here or used state schools. If I ever had to go on benefits, I would likely return to my home country where I had a good standard of life, just not the international workplace I have here.

I am aware that the country needs both high earners and low earners- I am not saying I am more important than a care worker- but I sometimes get tired of the narrative that all immigrants are low paid unskilled workers taking jobs from British people, and a drain on the system. I am by no means the only one in this position. I work for a company that recruits globally. But many are now going to the US or Canada as they think they will be more welcome there.

I think that by paying high taxes, my colleagues and I are giving back more than we take. We are of course not eligible for benefits until we get our ILRs. Am I wrong? I also think the British economy should encourage high earning immigrants and global talent by making immigration easier and cheaper. My ILR next year will cost £2885 per person and may take 6 months! I think that is rather unfair. Prepared to be told I am being unreasonable even though this is not in AIBU.😊

But if we don’t already have ‘shared values’ then it’s a spurious argument with relation to immigration.

You have immigrated legally, therefore there is no problem.

Some countries do require people to align with values, the last application I did for a passport not here had a page of values which you had to say yes to

Because they anti-immigration people have no issue with white uneducated Australians coming solely to work in a bar, get residency after 5 years etc. use public services

As we saw during the riots, vitriol is reserved for non-whites (inc. those born here)

A population with many shared values, and a few people having slightly different values but still agreeing on the big ones I mentioned at the start of the thread: democracy, a secular state, women's rights, other protected characteristics - and also sharing expectations of acceptable social behaviour - doesn't usually cause a problem to community cohehesion.

A large part of the population having very different values, different ideas of acceptable social behaviour, and no desire to integrate does.

Your argument is like saying 'you're OK with me staying at your house tonight, why would you object to my whole family staying for a year?'

Ie it's nonsense.

Some people are racist.

Some people are not racist but can see the serious social problems caused by excessive immigration. And 1 million in a year into a population of 68 million is too much.

It's lazy thinking to conflate those two groups.

Odd question. I should think nobody could be against net contributing migrants, assuming you mean those with a job, or who make a useful contribution to society rather than being wholly subsidised by the taxpayer. I have also lived and worked in other countries and had to fulfil their conditions eg paying for a visa, having a medical, proof of money in the bank and job to go to, health insurance etc. All fine by me. What most people ARE against is those who enter the country illegally and deceitfully, having passed through many other countries, and who will then live at taxpayers' expense (I am excluding of course the relatively small number of genuine refugees from war etc). Surely you must know this?

As an immigrant I've never had an issue within my work circle who are high earner at least university educated middle class. But DH family are working class and I do get comments such as we hate foreigners. Not immigrants even. And I am not white so I fit into that category. I put it down to them being ignorant. They think I'm out to compete for their benefit but I've never claimed and I'm a higher bracket tax payer though they don't know that.

I am however against illegal and uncontrolled immigration. So you might label me a Tory Immigrant though I've never voted for them. I just want fairness, not people who disregard the law, and for Britain to have a good future, you need people who are willing to assimilate. I'm from a peaceful Muslim country, my fellow countrymen and women here don't want say Sharia law. But there are many immigrants from other countries who do want to change Britain and those are the ones giving us a bad name.

Zombie Thread.
I don't believe for a moment that most people who argue there are too many immigrants to UK truly only care about the 3% who arrive undocumented and asylum seekers. They dislike the > 95% who got here by legal means individually & broadly.

I certainly don't dislike migrants either individually or broadly. I like most people. I do dislike some people. It doesn't particularly correlate with their nationality or their race.

But you're right that I don't only care about illegal immigration. I'm not really sure how anyone can look at our net migration figures and not realise that there's an immediate, urgent problem.

Isn't that people voted for when they voted For Brexit? Taking back control = letting in the types of migrants who will do valuable jobs/bring scarce skills. I swear UKIP actually said as much, this was their argument. People replied "the Australian points system is designed to encourage immigrants": UK adopted a similar system and now we have high immigration. This is what Brexiters voted for.

Does that mean that cutting immigration would be an anti-Brexit thing to do? Food for thought ?!!

Farage saying how an Aussie points system was good thing, in 2016.

I work in a hospital. Most departments would close without our overseas trained colleagues. Certainly my department would.

I believe the issue is structural, and the perceived need for high immigration is an illusion linked to UK citizens not being willing to accept the immediate cost - to our standard of living - of investing in our existing population. Much easier to import skilled migrants. Easier, but we're selling out our future. It's a ponzi scheme.

I'm very glad of all my colleagues and friends who have come here from other countries. I hope that their children always feel fully British.

I want the UK to remain a good place to live, for all of us, and so I want the recent leap in net migration brought back down, and I want greater care about shared cultural values and integration.

Why would you conflate concern over excess immigration with having supported Brexit?

There's that sloppy thinking again!

The Sunderland rioters who attacked Filipino nurses on their way to their hospital were not making a subtle point about high value versus low value immigration Sunderland rioters throw rocks at Filipino NHS nurses on way to work as emergency cover - Mirror Online

No one is condoning racism and violence.

The question of how to make immigration work well for the UK is not that.

I feel that stating stuff like this is so obvious it should be unnecessary, and then I am astounded by the fact so few people have thought through the consequences of untrammelled immigration. We are importing huge problems for the future and sleepwalking into massive social issues - you cannot have a country where large segments of the population have competing values and beliefs, and are not coalescing around shared values.

To me the future of the UK looks very bleak. British liberals have for decades deliberately depoliticised the political choice of mass immigration. Sectarian politics, the emergence of a British ethnic identity, calls for the imposition officially of Sharia law, serious interethnic violence/ conflict, religious unrest are all entirely foreseeable and will take this country over the brink.

Yep! We’ve left the UK now, my white immigrant husband had several colleagues who would rant about immigrants when their only black colleague wasn’t in the office when pulled up on it “oh but we don’t mean immigrants like you”. Black colleague was not an immigrant, but they were very much of the thought that only white people could be british.

This

I'm sorry your husband felt uncomfortable and unwelcome, and I hope you feel settled wherever you live now.

Maybe his colleagues were racists - some people are, in all countries - but maybe in his hurt he misunderstood their outlook.

Like I said, I'm very glad for all my colleagues and friends who came from abroad. I really like them being here and think they each make our country better. Some people who are hugely important in my life weren't born in the UK. I would absolutely hate them to leave, and I'd be devastated if they felt unwelcome in the UK.

I also recognise that having 1 million net immigrants every year into a population of 69 million will - in a fairly short timescale - cause social and economic problems for the UK. Especially if a non-negligible proportion of them have values in conflict with fundamental UK values and/or display anti-social behaviour (unlike my friends and colleagues, who have integrated well)

Those aren't conflicting opinions. In the same way as I genuinely love my friend coming to stay for a night, but I don't want her whole family moving in.

But that dichotomy can be difficult to express without hurting the friend's feelings, as happened with your husband's colleagues. When they said that they 'don't mean immigrants like you', he's assumed that's because he's white, but it's equally likely that they would feel exactly the same about a non-white colleague.

They liked and valued their colleague. They also saw social problems around them which they recognised as being caused by excessive immigration, without care for shared values or integration.

You say they ranted. Did he actually listen to what they were saying, make the effort to understand the underlying concerns, and think about how any genuine problems could be mitigated? Or did you both just assume they were racists and nothing they said could be worth listening to? As an individual - feeling hurt at their words - that's understandable. When governments do the same, that's a problem.

What is the point of the ‘special relationship’ if the people aren’t going to have a special kinship with fellow Anglos like Americans, Canadians, Australians and New Zealanders?

Just throw it all away because you might be ‘unfairly’ favoring white people, with whom you have a lot in common?

I lived and worked in developing countries for many years and native English-speaking Westerners do gravitate towards each other, because of this shared linguistic and cultural identity.

it does no good to deny it and then berate people for being anti-immigrant! Of course the average person would get along better with, say, an Australian instead of an Indian.

(and don’t come @ me with your ‘I get along better with Nigerians!’ I don’t want to hear about your specific circumstance. We are talking the average person)

1 million immigrants a year is not sustainable on a small island with limited funds, housing and creaking public services, whether legal or not.

Importing people with conflicting cultural beliefs, for example the treatment of females, is a recipe for disaster.

This.

I am happy for any immigrant to come to Britain and work. Doesn’t matter if they are highly skilled and highly paid or doing a low paid job - they are all contributing.

I think undocumented chancers are the problem.