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?

Open borders isn't just about immigration, it's about those Brits wanting to work and move to other countries too - not wealthy pensioners or those with high-flying jobs - but ordinary people with trades.

Social and cultural impact are brilliant!

Food, culture, festivals. You learn so much from mixing with people from other cultures.

There are issues initially as with any wave of immigration. History teaches us that the majority of most groups blend and adapt given time. However, I do know MrsAriadneOliver history isn't your strong suit.

@Moussemoose

Only managed a History MPhil/PhD from UCL. Not my strong suit at all!

Not often you’re right and you’re wrong again!

Just a thought based on someone who thinks a countries historical actions are of no import to today's decisions. An unusual view for a historian but my apologies.

I am happy to apologise when I am wrong and not score silly points.

Who’s to define what’s fair?

Well you think our fair share of refugees would be zero, so I mean...

Britain has also been rebuked for not taking its “fair share” of refugees. In 2016, Britain received 38,517 applications for asylum (one per 1,664 people in the population). This compares with 722,370 claims in Germany (one per 112), 123,432 in Italy (one per 485), and 85,244 in France (one per 775). The only western European country home to fewer asylum seekers is Spain, which had 15,500 applications in 2016 (one per 2,971).

Is that unfair enough?

Apologies again. That last post is a quote from The Guardian.

Us and them. We are different to you. You are not as special as us. Divisive, separatist, nasty.

Look at it another way. Should you not care about your own family, your own neighbour, your own community first? You actually understand the situation and are in the best position to help those around you.

What do you possibly understand about the problems and issues of a country halfway around the world? I find this arrogant.

It’s only through the efforts of your countrymen/women that life is as comfortable as it is in Britain. Perhaps you should appreciate that. It took lots of blood, sweat and tears to make it that way ... and it could always regress (in fact, it has already started).

In any case, I don’t see why the U.K. should tolerate so many young men there; if it was vulnerable women and elderly folk, there would be less resistance I’m sure. The young men do not share your values, even though you seem to think they are universal somehow

The arrogance of the West is that they believe everyone thinks and will act like they do; and if not, it’s an individual rather than a cultural or societal problem.

The arrogance of the West is that they believe everyone thinks and will act like they do; and if not, it’s an individual rather than a cultural or societal problem

^^This

Not just arrogance, but naivety....not helped by the woke PC discourse and narrative.

We should be more like Australia

Got an island you can dump them in then?

The Channel Islands? Isle of Man? Scottish ones... ?

No, thought not...

I work with 'these young men'. When you say they don't share our values I assume this is based on personal knowledge of individuals?

People from Afghanistan have very different values from Kurds - but you know that don't you. what do I know about the problems in countries a long way away, not enough, but I listen to the people who tell me. I listen when they ask me for help.

Also, the majority of 'these young men' are willing to engage with and learn our values. Although, I would point out I don't think my values are your values.

Immigration causes stresses and strains, it is problematic but leaving people to be bombed and tortured also causes problems. Well it causes problems for me perhaps not other posters on this thread.

I have provided evidence suggesting the financial strain is 1% of GDP. Not massive.

Also, many posters complain about the costs of immigration and then say they want to take families. Families cost the host country significantly more than young men. No one has addressed that issue.

It is complex, it is not easily solved and totally open boarders wouldn't work at the moment. That doesn't mean I am going to shut the door and turn away.

not helped by the woke PC discourse and narrative.

What does that even mean?

Can you put that in plain Engllish?
Thanks.

You may need other entry requirements though, which anyone with the higher level qualifications must have passed

Fgs No You Don't

The place i have picked out for ds in the US You have to be 18 and speak English.

No higher education, no English or Maths qualifications.

If you flunked high school you are welcome.

When you say they don't share our values I assume this is based on personal knowledge of individuals?

I’m not British so I’m not always going to think British values are the best; but yes, they have different values than you. Why is this a controversial idea to you?

I have lived and worked in the MENA and it is an extremely woman-unfriendly society. Do you think they just abandon their cultural beliefs at the border?

It’s not just Islam. Christianity, being a Middle Eastern religion, was once a very violent and misogynistic religion (in some countries, it still retains this virulent nature). We had to fight against this for centuries in the West. We take that too much for granted.

Many activists try, of course, and this is to be support and respected. With asylum in safe countries, if necessary.

leaving people to be bombed and tortured also causes problems

These young men referred to are largely not being bombed and tortured; they are economic migrants. And the more economic migrants the less resources for actual asylum seekers. Let’s not conflate the two.

I agree with you. As the guy said in My Fair Lady "Morals guv'nor - can't afford 'em.".

So based on no actual knowledge at all you are able to make comments on asylum seekers. No facts, nothing concrete but you know they are economic migrants.

Wow - your psychic powers must make you invaluable in your job.

Most asylum seekers are genuine. Have no fear though the U.K. government is very harsh about returning asylum seekers who they decide are economic migrants. I can think of several young men whose families have been killed and who were in genuine fear of persecution who have been returned to Afghanistan. That must cheer you up.

If you think gaining asylum in the U.K. is easy:

The British asylum system is extremely tough. Just 30% of initial decisions made in the year to September 2018 have been grants of protection (asylum or humanitarian protection). However, many refugees had to rely on the courts rather than the Government to provide them with the protection they need. The proportion of asylum appeals allowed over that time was 38%.

That's from the Refugee Council.

This is all bollocks about caring for your own. We're freemasons and Nazi thugs murdered hundreds of thousands of us, amongst others, all over Europe. Then they replaced us all with migrants.

The cultural side is harder to quantify but I think it's fair to say that there are cultures which aren't a great fit with British values.

Also many people, rightly or wrongly, simply don't want to be around groups of people in a shop or on the bus having conversations in another language. Many won't want their kids to be in schools where English isn't the main language spoken or be treated by medical staff not fluent in English.

You do get positives from being multicultural, it can be very enriching and provide new ideas, knowledge and experiences but it doesn't seem like these positives always reach the more disadvantaged people.

I don't know how you would begin to deal with the social side of unwanted migration.

This is all bollocks about caring for your own. We're freemasons and Nazi thugs murdered hundreds of thousands of us, amongst others, all over Europe. Then they replaced us all with migrants.

Eh? Freemasons did what? And Nazis moved German migrants into parts of continental Europe which already had some German population, but they certainly didn’t move any migrants to the UK.

Again, I don't want to get in the way with facts but immigrants improve education. Most immigrants believe in and are committed to education. A high proportion of immigrant children will probably improve the commitment to education in a school.

The groups who disrupt education for all tend to be white, working class boys.

The areas with the poorest education record tend to be areas with large homogeneous, white, working class populations.

I wasn't expecting freemasons to be brought into this

Reading this Moussemoose you’re not exactly giving support to your points.

Also if white working class boys are such a problem group, should our focus not be there?

"The place i have picked out for ds in the US You have to be 18 and speak English"

Do you not need a GED or equivalent? I'd bet your bottom dollar you do.

But don't compare US standards to.UK ones.

The UK is not racist towards British students.

It seems a lazy society to me, if we just constantly throw external talent at a society and don’t fix existing issues.

It also seems detrimental to the countries those people are leaving. Obviously not the case where there is an immediate threat, but we don’t ever seem to take many of those people

My point was immigrants improve education. London has some of the best education results in the country due in part to immigration.

My point is immigration is a positive force and then I describe how in education terms immigration is a positive force.