To think it’s easier to want open boarders if you’re privileged?

[Theselfishsister]

Having an ongoing conflict with my sister regarding refugees, she’s very ‘let everyone in’ I would say I’m somewhere in the middle.

She’s given up spare bedrooms to refugees, spends weekends in Calais helping them and is posting everywhere on SM about letting them all in. As well as attending protests regularly for the last 4 years or so.

What strikes me is that her and her other friends going to all of the events are white, MC (although she is by marriage, we grew up very WC) and live incredibly comfortably. She’s a SAHM and her husband owns his own company, they have never needed benefits or social housing and her children are privately educated with all of them receiving private medical care.

A massive increase in people here are unlikely to ever have much affect on her life, she won’t have to fight for jobs or wait for a house or deal with benefit cuts when too much is paid out, as well as the increase in waits for Medical care and school admissions. Whereas for someone like me, this is obviously a more worrying factor and the thought of just opening our borders to everyone does scare me. As much as I would love to be able to take every person fleeing a great life, it just causes me worry and I don’t think I could support completely open boarders.

She obviously just thinks I’m a selfish heartless bitch for not protesting to remove our borders or similar. When I asked why she let refugees sleep in her spare rooms but never the homeless man on the road behind her (who’s been in the same spot since she moved there 5 years ago!) she called me a racist!

So AIBU to think it’s easier to want open boarders if you’re privileged or am I just a selfish cow?

The actual answer is more nuanced. There are many examples of cases where a (even in some cases fairly large) immigrant influx has increases prosperity to towns but this doesn't happen without careful planning. Just allowing a huge influx of poorly educated and sometimes traumatised refugees into a single (usually low income) area without support can of course have negative impacts on the people living in that area and put pressure on resources.

I think you've made a really good point OP. If you're a privileged middle class educated person with a good job and home, your life is only ever going to be improved by open borders, because it means you can live in any country of your choosing, and you'll have no end of people lining up to serve you coffee / clean your house / do your nails. If you're one of the people who works in one of those minimum wage jobs you may find you lose out on work because you get undercut by other people coming in en masse.

Having said that, refugees are a different kettle of fish than immigrants. But nothing will ever be solved until we sort out the problems at source in the countries they've been forced to leave.

Do you really think hostels housing drug addicts ex criminals etc are out in nice areas

No the poor as in most societies are dumped on their needs are not considered

I would rather see the money used to get people off the streets and give them food, in our own country. It sucks, but we allow people in Britain to suffer and yet give millions to other countries. That could help them out.

What makes you think that people in other countries including children literally being bombed are less important than homeless people? Purely because the homeless people are British?? The problems were both caused by the British government, so they have equal responsibility to help these people. I think those saying that British people are more worthy of help, despite the British government being responsible for the pain of children in other countries as well as over here, just because they have a British citizenship are horrible.

We need immigration, we need people to do those jobs at every level.

Round here 0 unemployment but still loads of locals unemployed and lots of unfilled jobs? Most are unemployable that’s why

Most immigrants aren’t entitled to benefits or houses despite what the gutter press says. So if people want to come here and add to society then let’s welcome them in.

Too many in this country are entitled and lazy. For me I’d scrap cash benefits all together.

Immigration isn't what's pushed homelessness numbers up, it's austerity.

I can certainly see the argument that it does. I think another part is the appeal of an ideological cause, which by their nature offer oversimply solutions and righteousness to complex grey problems and often within them have kneejerk reaction to questioning, much as your sister had to your question about the homeless man (to which there could be a good explanation like some charities who arrange refugee housing like that have solid vetting practices and sadly may not know of one like that for homeless people - I certainly can't think of one. Just calling you racist isn't really an explanation for that).

Personally, as a very much not middle class immigrant, I do find it frustrating how much effort is put into bringing more in (rather than other ways of supporting refugees elsewhere) while immigrants who have been here years, decades, are so often ignored when issues arise by continuous changes. Some notice has arisen with Brexit and the horrible Windrush generation situation, but there are also those caught out with the Biometric Residence Permit which was a massive change to how long term residency works in the UK, many still struggling with it, and little being done or notice being taken by news or the advocacy groups one might expect. I mean, on how many Brexit threads has it been said that non-EU migrants 'knew what they were getting into, but EU ones...' as a reason for Brexit being unfair which shows a complete lack of compassion and understanding on how much things have changed even over the last couple of decades for non-EU migrants and how many, women who arrived on spousal visas particularly who are among the least likely to be able to prove continuous residency over decades to get BRP, have been left in an incredibly vulnerable position, some unable to work or get services, due to changes no one could foresee to the immigration system if arriving in the early '00s or '90s or before.

Bringing more people in isn't going to help with the refugee and immigration systems as they currently are. Refugee housing has been abysmal and under private contract for many years. Immigrants are having to fork out more and more for documents for less security. I think maybe, yeah, that you'd need to be a pretty privileged position to think just letting people in is going to be any solution with everything else so fucked up, but I think quite a few working think it's the best first step to reduce suffering and improve wellbeing whereas I think it would be better to work backwards from the problems of those who have been here a while and work back so that it's smoother for any potential arrivals.

Of course you are right but you’ll be shouted down by hundreds on here. I’m also stunned (and grudgingly impressed that she is putting her money where here mouth is) that she would open up her home to strangers while having vulnerable children living there also.

YANBU. It's not the MC that have to live in poor neighbourhoods which are now deteriorating further. She is very naive.

It's a very difficult situation. You are both right to some degree.

I'm not sure though that it's actually true that there would be a massive and sudden influx of competition for NHS help and jobs. There are plenty of jobs that native Brits do not want to do, and several industries that rely heavily on immigrants to do them (nursing, carers, maintenance, construction) MC Brits also have to wait for NHS appts too though, it's not exactly like everyone MC can afford Bupa?

Britain has a duty to help other countries, partly because we can but largely because our colonial past did so much harm to huge portions of the planet and that's all linked to why some other countries are in such a mess now.

I've always felt that people who have the bravery and the drive to try to get themselves and their family out of a dangerous country/political situation are those who are most likely to be of benefit to our community long term - maybe some of these are exactly the people we should be letting in?

And there are several charities helping house refugees in spare rooms at the moment (started with the first influx from Syria)- these are all temporary situations, many with set end dates and all with caseworkers assigned to them, so it's a lot less dangerous to ask a refugee into your home than an unscreened homeless person.

I don’t think I’m ‘cushioned by privilege’ whatsoever. I just have a heart and lots of empathy, I can’t abide the thought of fellow humans suffering. I can also see the bigger picture and realise we caused much suffering in many of those countries so we’re to blame 🤷🏻‍♀️

Stop conflating immigrants with NHS waiting times, school places or the housing crisis.

Immigrants are not the reason for those problems.

If you want to know why you're waiting 6 months for an appointment, your school is critically underfunded and can't hire enough teachers, and why there is such a huge problem with housing, then please direct your attention to WESTMINSTER. Not that poor bastard on the street fleeing Syria because Assad is busy dropping chemical weapons and barrel bombs on him.

The only people to blame for the vast majority of problems in the UK are the government. Nobody else.

Migrants and refugees contribute more in tax than they take out in benefits and infrastructure. Therefore, rationally, they CANNOT be the problem. The problem lies in either our tax and economic system as a whole, or government policies, or both.

You're not obligated to take strangers into your house, nobody is. That doesn't make you racist. But stop thinking that somehow anyone except the Tories are responsible for the shit show that is our public services.

YABU.

Why do we deserve to live in Britain more than anyone else? We didn't choose to be born here - it was sheer luck that we were born to families in a peaceful, stable, prosperous country and will never have to flee our country to save our lives or our families' lives.

If I'd been born in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Syria, Yemen, South Sudan, North Korea or Saudi Arabia, then I'm fairly sure I would have been pretty desperate to get out of there. I therefore can't justify to myself wanting to shut these people out of my safe country.

You may be struggling financially, you may be worried about paying your rent and you may even be homeless. But you're not having bombs dropped on your house. You're not having food supplies to your rebel-held neighbourhood cut off by government forces causing you to eat cats and dogs out of desperation. You're not at risk of being forcibly married off by your parents.

You may be less privileged than M/C Britons, but you're far more privileged than the people fleeing these countries.

YABU.

However it should be well off people paying for Open Borders - they can afford them and are the primary beneficiaries. I am a lot more persuaded by Left wingers supporting Open Borders who want to increase taxes to subsidise benefits system and infrastructure than I am by Right wingers who want to use them as a means to undercut Society.

Furthermore, countries like Syria were actually extremely stable before the civil war - the people there were really educated and highly skilled.

The refugees from that country will be from all social classes and will include doctors, teachers, university professors, lawyers. They're not all going to be competing for jobs with the working classes.

Besides, the argument that immigrants take up jobs is bogus. By working, and earning money, and spending that money, they are helping to grow the economy, leading to the creation of new jobs. There aren't a finite number of jobs.

Watch this advert - "if London were Syria" - that was produced by Save the Children a few years ago.

Wouldn't you want to flee to another country if this was us?

she called me a racist!

Its a standard response to anyone that has a point about this to shut down discussions, and is partly the reason way we are in the mess that we are in at the moment.

Couldn't agree more.

Poor neighbourhoods aren't deteriorating further because the government's spending all its money on refugees. Child poverty isn't on the increase because the money's going to refugees. The NHS isn't struggling because it's overloaded with refugees. We don't have austerity because of refugees.

YANBU to think that people living a cushy life don't feel the impact of stretched resources in the same way that people trying to manage with them do. But YwouldBU to think it's refugees doing the stretching.

YANBU. And it’s why we got Brexit. It was the chippies and plumbers and sparkies who used to be able to afford a 3 bed semi and a fortnight in the sun every year who saw their wages massively undercut (look at how wages have stagnated) by qualified immigrants. And it was the well off MC who benefited - cheaper trades, being able to buy their lattes every day because Costa know they can fill their jobs with a steady supply of cheap labour. Not many immigrants doing accountancy or legal work compared to the lower skilled end of the market...l

What always annoys/shocks me is the amount of people who don't understand the difference between an immigrant and a refugee.

Also, I hate the argument, "What about homeless people?" It's not like helping refugees and helping the homeless is mutually exclusive.

We are the 7th richest country in the world - if our priorities were different, then we could easily help both.

It also seems that the people who make the "help our homeless first" argument are frequently the same Conservative politicians (and party supporters) who voted in the austerity measures that made so many of these people homeless in the first place.

I can't see them every actually doing anything to address homelessness, so by saying we have to fix that first, you're effectively saying that refugees should be permanently off the agenda.

What always annoys/shocks me is the amount of people who don't understand the difference between an immigrant and a refugee.

100%. These people don't seem to realise that asylum seekers account for just 6% of all immigrants to the UK a year.

Why do we deserve to live in Britain more than anyone else?

Why do we deserve Britain any less? How else do you want the world to work?

What always annoys/shocks me is the amount of people who don't understand the difference between an immigrant and a refugee.

100%. These people don't seem to realise that asylum seekers account for just 6% of all immigrants to the UK a year.

I’ve thought this too. I’m not sure what the answer is though, because it isn’t ok to leave vulnerable people in desperate situations and we should do something.
My mum is very like this though she has also taken in homeless teenagers over the years. I think she would have felt too vulnerable to take in older homeless people.
My friend who grew up on a council estTe talks about how much her estate changed over the years. When she was younger or the (white working class) mums would stand outside smoking drinking tea and chatting whilst the kids played on the green. Now there is no community spirit, people feel scared and the kids who play out cause trouble.