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?

@BejamNostalgia they are not permanent ones though. It's when there are diversions due to lorry drivers. As far as I kniw. Wasn't it like 10 years back too?

I’m actually laughing at the people who think we should have no country borders. I actually wish I was one of these people. Living in fairyland. Who would be the first to complain when billions of people arrived.

I genuinely wonder how some people make it through the day

Called
Because you misunderstand how open borders work.
Remember that expats are just white immigrants
Why should white folks have the right to move all over the world
when brown folks don't

and open borders allow flow between places of work

disclaimer .... I'm a first generation economic migrant

Apparently most baby's born in London last year were born to women who themselves were born overseas.
Some schools have up to 40 different languages spoken.
We are short of houses.
Hospitals are full of foreign patients.
Some immigrants will not live to our standards and laws, and do not respect them, shariah law prevails.
It is common practice in some immigrant communities to marry a relative, resulting in children with serious health problems.
Girls are subject to rape by foreign grooming gangs.
The list goes on but it doesn't affect the privileged who control this country, and who actually wish to encourage immigration as it serves their own purpose, cheap labour and votes, Corbyn !!!.

Why should white folks have the right to move all over the world when brown folks don't

You’ll find that Japanese have the best passports for crossing borders.

Also...as an expat, we’re expected to go home someday. We are never considered local, no matter how well we speak the language, no matter how many years we’ve lived there, no matter that we’ve married in and had children there.

Some cultures are not prepared to accept outsiders. But I wouldn’t blame them for it, it’s just a fact of life. It’s not a moral issue, is it?

British people can’t just move all the world. Don’t be ridiculous.

I find the whole “brown skin” argument so tedious. This is nothing to do with colour and everything to do with decades of unlimited immigration into the UK

called
So Brits living on the cheap in southern Spain are not economic migrants
so Brits living in France are not economic migrants
so Brits buying holiday homes in greece / cyprus / turkey are not economic migrants
so brits running surf schools all over the world are not taking jobs from locals
and white immigrants have no effect on house prices
yeah right

The immigration issue has nothing to do with skin colour. Why bring it up?

ariadne
So how do you tell immigrants from locals?

What does a Scottish person look like ?

@Ta1kinPeace

That’s hardly an original question is it?

ariadne
Not at all original
but as an economic migrant who was here illegally for my first few years
I find the answers interesting

how would you spot me as an economic migrant
and does that immediately give me less rights
even though I earn more than 70% of Brits?

Were you an adult when you arrived illegally?

Common practice to marry a relative?
Got any statustics?

Foreign patients in hospitals?! Shock horror!! Bear in mind that there are many foreign staff looking after said patients without which the nhs will suffer.

Half my nhs course are immigrants..Many uk citizens loom down on jobs in healthcare due to 'bad pay.'

No
My mother was- she was illegal too

We had to report to the police for years when they caught us

Brits have a different view than the rest of us

@Ta1kinPeace
You do have an interesting history!

So how do you tell immigrants from locals

Through talking to people.

I am not local to the area I currently live in. You can tell when I speak and even though I am white, you can tell if you look at me my family are not from the UK.

Ariadne
My arrival in the UK is a tiny fraction of it.
Immigrants are interesting folks. Don't diss us

Olivers
Through talking to people.
Bollocks
NOTHING in the way I look or speak shows me up as an immigrant
FFS I went to saith london prep school

Ta1kinPeace

Remember that expats are just white immigrants

And for years they have done exactly the same thing that people here complain about.

Don't learn the language.
Make areas where only Expat Brits live.
and generally make the areas in to little Britain.

Not all expats, but some and enough to give them a bad name.

Somehow that sounds familiar. Erie isn't it.

@Ta1kinPeace

I have been an immigrant myself, several times. I wouldn’t insult you personally no, even though I may disagree with what you say.

But usually the Brits contribute financially abroad or are self funding and don't require social housing or other benefits

Don't learn the language. Make areas where only Expat Brits live and generally make the areas in to little Britain

True in my experience, of Spain especially. Locals don’t really mind though, as they make plenty of money out of these folks, and they’re not there in great numbers.

But I do cringe when I talk to people who’ve lived there 20+ years and never learned a word of Spanish. I had no choice, being a school kid.

My uncle lives in Spain some of the time and speaks and reads Spanish and lives in a non touristy area

woodhill
But usually the Brits contribute financially abroad or are self funding and don't require social housing or other benefits

and personal knowledge aside about areas that have suffered due to immigration.

The figures show that the country makes a net profit out of immigrants.