to be surprised by how many people are anti-immigration?

[Mimstar]

I was called naive today. Apparently 'if you aren't concerned by immigration, you've got your head in wonderland'.

And I thought - actually, I know hardly anybody else who isn't anti-immigration.

I'm trying to understand this attitude, it seems so common nowadays. Maybe I do have my head in wonderland.

I'm so tired of hearing 'job stealers!' type comments.

Revenge the person who told you couldn't claim because you hadn't worked enough was talking utter bollocks. Unless its a benefit whereby any British person has to have worked before claiming.

As far as I know its always been the case that you can claim whatever you're entitled to as if you we're British once you have ILR.

Whether or not you can claim anything on a more short- term visa depends on which visa it is and what you want to claim ie. child benefit is not usually prohibited because its the child who is eligible, not you. But nowadays not many visas are available that aren't without recourse to public funds.

I presume you have to have worked to claim JSA? That's the only one I applied for, and the letter stating I hadn't earned enough credits explicitly stated that it started when I was a citizen. Otherwise we earn too much and have too much savings to claim anything else. But again it was six weeks between ILR and citizenship so I don't see it being much of a difference for me there.

Most visas except EU are the same. No recourse to public funds. Not for students and certainly not for Tier I-III migrants.

I'm quite horrified by how many daily mail readers there are commenting on this thread. Educate yourselves, people, for goodness sake!

A lot of people have said that the problem is the system, the infrastructure. But it isn't the ones who build, maintain, and run the systems at their current breaking point that are getting hurt, abused, and living in fear. They are able to bring about these problems, possibly on purpose for profit and to continue the elite tradition of pinning us against each other to take the ire and attention away from them, they get to live in security even when almost everyone can see that they are the real problem.

I am an immigrant, when my face doesn't give it away, my accent does even after living here ten years. I've spent most of that caring for my British husband who has disabilities (most caused by an assault done by Brits), and running our business, so not not directly taking jobs. We don't have a council house (and even when we considered it at his family's repeated suggest, my name and pregnancy were not allowed on any forms - and I wasn't able to get child benefit, my husband was though), my children aren't taking up places at "your" schools, I can't use the local park most of the time because opening my mouth with my foreign accent has brought my whole family abuse repeatedly, and my local corner shop, also run my immigrants, is a no go zone after a certain time when the local EDLs park themselves out front.

I live in fear because those in charge are happy with the system as it is, they're quite comfy with there being little at the bottom for people to fight over. My daughter, who is only 6, is often desperately sad because of how often she loses friendships because of their parents' issues (which they are quite vocal and clear about, the amount of tiring conversation for them to determine if I'm an immigrant that's good enough which never seems possible). We're actually currently thinking of moving to part of the city that's mainly immigrants mainly in hopes she'll find friends. I'm still hoping to find an activity she can do this autumn that will help. She is suffering because the systems and the media and the rest that backs them up, is designed to make us the enemy of our neighbours when really we should be working together against those who built the system to be this way.

When a lot of the immigrants already here, think that there are now enough immigrants in the UK, then there probably are.

Why?

And do a lot of immigrants think that? I know shitloads of immigrants and none of them think that - did you have a survey in mind?

Concur. None of the immigrants I know think that either.

I hear immigrants say it.

I think it's quite simple maths really. Irrespective of where an immigrant is from, why they are here or how long they intend to stay, we must ask ourselves two questions. Are they doing a specialised/highly qualified job that there is a genuine shortage of available qualified British people to do?

Are they earning enough money to pay enough tax that they end up making an actual net contribution, as opposed to paying a bit of tax then getting most of it given back in one form of benefit or other, tax credits etc, and adding burden to the NHS and education system? If yes, then we need them. If not then we don't. that's not a judgement on whether they should be allowed to be here, just on whether we actually need them. And whether we would be better off economically in the long term if we didn't have them. I know we would have a falling birth rate if it were not for the immigrant baby boom, but unless those babies are all going to go on to be higher rate tax payers they will do little to ease the looming pensions crisis - merely add to it.

Surely it's better to train/encourage/cajole British people to take the jobs that immigrants are coming here to do, instead of allowing perfectly fit and healthy people to live on benefits, while hundreds of thousands of people pour into the country year on year to do all these jobs that apparently don't exist?

How dare those humans cross an imaginary, meaningless, line in the dirt! coming over here, to a bit of Earth that we baggsied, to make a better life for themselves by earning our little pieces of inked paper. It makes me sick! They didn't earn the right to benefit from a system that benefits me because they didn't happen to be born on this side of that line.

Sadly too many people take a black and white view to immigration. This country couldn't survive without them, and who can criticise someone for wanting to make a better life for their families.

Subliminal and God forbid that a British Citizen should fall in love with someone who is foreign and not in a highly-skilled shortage occupation.

subliminal - " Are they doing a specialised/highly qualified job that there is a genuine shortage of available qualified British people to do?"

I've arrived here 8 years ago, and have begun working fulltime about 1 week after arriving. I compete with British and non-British people for jobs, trying to work my way upwards. Is it unfair when I get a job instead of a British (born) competitor? If so, will it stop being unfair once I've obtained citizenship? I'm still an immigrant after all.

It's a question of fairness or unfairness - I have no particular opinion on that. It's a question of need, as I said, and whether your being here ultimately benefits the UK, or merely benefits you.

Sublimal - the gov is apparently trying to get those 'perfectly fit and healthy' British people to work and contribute rather than go on benefits, but there was an uproar here and in rl about how unfair it was to various groups of people!!

People move countries for many reasons. When I was recently back in the country I was born, I saw many people who clearly didn't look (physically) like they were born there. They didn't sound like they were from there either. A huge mix of accents. And a huge range of jobs. They were on the buses going to work, they were not just in the higher executive senior management roles. Quite a few expat mummies on the playgrounds too with their dc attending private schools. Even some kids attending local schools.

Same here.

Of course that happens, and I have no problem with it whatsoever Trazzle. Read what I am saying again - I am responding the comments about whether we need immigrants, not whether we want them. two different things.

It's a problem because the minute you question immigration (legal or not) you are labelled a racist.

Our services will cater for a finite number of people. It's not racism, it's maths and all those that seek to stifle the discussion by calling it racism are just plain wrong.

Why would bring here 'merely benefit' me? I am not allowed to claim child benefits - the reason my kids have it is because my dh is British. Surely you cannot begrudge that he can claim for his children given that he has paid taxes all his life?

I pay higher tax rates.. Someone further up the thread said that it was the higher tax rates people who benefit the system...

I competed with other British/eu people for my job. Based on my cv and my interview I was offered the job. I have been headhunted.

Telling me to 'go home' isn't as simple as me packing my bags and off I go. It might have been if I was single and had no other ties and paid basic rates etc. but it's not. My kids will have to leave their home, my
family might be split up (because that's what the gov has been known to do) and my dh will have to shut his practice which also pays corporate tax rates.

So... What would you have us do?

By 'benefit you' I did not mean to imply that you do claim benefits, I just meant that you presumably want to live here, you have a job (and a good one by the sounds of things) and are seeking citizenship so there must therefore be some kind of personal benefit to your being here. I don't necessarily mean financial benefit. I just mean benefit in the general sense.

Benefit and benefits are not the same thing!

Who is telling to 'go home'? Certainly not me.

If we (and most other countries in this global world) accept that we will have to deal with immigration, then the gov will need to have strategies in place
to ensure that the infrastructure is robust enough to take the increase in numbers. Be it schools, hospitals etc.

You cannot say 'we don't want you because you aren't born here' because that then probably means about what.. 50% of you should start packing your bags? Heck my workplace will just consist of the admin staff and no more academics, professors to teach your children. Thinking about it, on my corridor, no one is British. We however have Greeks, Portuguese, Albanians, Australian, Chinese, Bangladeshi. The rest of the place have Americans, Italians, Germans, spaniards, Hungarians, Romanians, Pakistanis, French... And some British.

And funny that, quite a few of them have British other halves.

What these people have in common is a fluency in English, and they'd all be paying higher tax rate.

takeaway why can't you claim CB? I thought if you worked and payed tax here you could claim regardless of your nationality? Plenty of non-British people claim on behalf of children who are not even here in the UK with them. Sometimes they can even claim for children that are not theirs, but who they act as guardians to. the children do not need to be British and neither does the mother. And CB is always paid to the mother, unless the child primarily resides with the father, so why do your children only receive CB on account of your DH?

Sorry sublimal - I meant more than just benefits but the example I used was clearly about financial benefits. But yes being here clearly benefits me in more than just ££ but it
also benefits the state and my workplace too. So I believe that if I leave or make an effort to leave my boss will be persuading me otherwise.

I am not allowed to claim child benefits - the reason my kids have it is because my dh is British. Surely you cannot begrudge that he can claim for his children given that he has paid taxes all his life?

Where on earth did I imply anything like that? These threads drive me nuts - so many people going off at totally irrelevant tangents - it's so frustrating.

Because I have no recourse to public funds. It says that on previous stamps. I didn't want to 'do wrong' so I didn't claim them- dh does. And lucky too because according to hr, when I did get round to applying for ilr, they told me that some of my colleagues had done that and their application got rejected.

Incidentally my dh couldn't claim jsa when he was made redundant because he decided to set up his own place, ie he was 'self employed' even though there was no business for a while and even if he did have work from day 1 he wouldn't have been paid till project over which took 6 months...

As far as some benefits go....I knew a lady who came here 8 years ago from Poland to work, she has worked constantly ever since and has a British passport now. It took months and months for her Child Benefit to start being paid while they checked out her right to claim it.

Another lady I knew from this Indian continent was here while her husband worked. He lost his job...made redundant and they HAD to go home....they could use the NHS ex but had no access to wider benefits.

Anyhow....off to read the thread as it looks interesting. I am like you OP, I just accept people who are here and have no thought about being anti or pro immigration.