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?

Concern about high levels of immigration isn’t purely an economic argument.

It's definitely easier to ignore borders when you're wealthy.

I'm fairly sure most people support controlled immigration.

MrsAriadneOliver

No its not, but I was replying to a poster that inferred that immigrants pay less in than they receive,

Some do here Boney and some don't.

I think there is some deadwood

@BoneyBackJefferson

My apologies!

MrsAriadneOliver

No worries

woodhill

I suspect that there are some "deadwood" expats as well, but when dealing with averages it will always pan out.

Ta1kinPeace but if you moved from South London do you not think your accent would give you away as not being a local.

Cummings reminds me of me at Uni. I had a weird amount of knowledge not directly related to my BSc and kept being one of those annoying students putting my hand up to link ideas and asking loads of questions. I got a 2:1 mainly because refused to keep the questions as simple as they wanted them. I was arrogant enough to want to show something "new" all the sodding time. I was so enthusiastic and those 68s used to drive me nuts, but now and the I'd get a eureka of 84 which would fire me up again... I see similar when I read his blog. I've realised in hindsight that sometimes focusing clearly on one topic at a time is better than running off with snippets of ideas which may just have interesting links. I find him a bit of an annoying puppy desperate to show off his latest musings for some kind of acknowledgement. Having been there myself it makes me cringe.

Oop's wrong thread - changed when I clicked on it to post, sorry.

Comparison with British ex pat's is bogus. If the Spanish govt said we aim to have at least 5 million British living in Spain by 2030 do you think it would be a vote winner ? Would the Spanish be racist for opposing that ?

Racist, no. Xenophobic maybe, but I wouldn’t agree with that either!

ElonMask

The Spanish government and local authorities can and do make things difficult for expats.
There have been issues with expats buying buildings and not being allowed to renovate, buying land that has building rights and having the rights pulled.

Malificent7.
Google Born in Bradford study.

There is some information there regarding birth defects due to the Pakistani custom of marriage between cousins.

Why is the discussion about immigration solely about economic gain?

There is far more to it than that

The issue with freedom of movement is that there is significant pressure on lower income groups. It doesn't affect the upper income groups quite so much.

I see it here in America. I pay my sitter $15 an hour here in the NYC area. I'd pay $750 a week for FT childcare which is $39k a year. My sister is on the west coast and they don't have the same supply of low cost labour. She pays $20/hr with no discount for PT hours. She would pay about $60k a year for FT childcare. Instead she hires an au pair. The cost of the visa and application is $9k so all in she is paying $28k a year or so for imported childcare. The visa and application fee are required by the government as a way to protect lower income workers.

Jobs which used to pay above minimum wage now don't have a premium. A large part of that is supply. NHS would not have a huge issue hiring or retaining doctors and nurses if they paid doctors £150k and nurses £80k a year.

"The issue with freedom of movement is that there is significant pressure on lower income groups. It doesn't affect the upper income groups quite so much. "

This has been proved time and time again to be untrue. The effect is minimal.

Where you live Want2b, real wages of average workers did not go up AT ALL between 1978 and about 2014.

What is this nonsense about "white people" being able to live anywhere? Australia, Canada, the US? Nope. I don't think if you turn up there intending to settle you'll be welcomed. Without proper documentation you'll be on the next plane home.

What is this nonsense about "white people" being able to live anywhere? Australia, Canada, the US?

I know, it’s so ridiculous. Being able to visit for a week doesn’t mean you’d be allowed to stay for years and work illegally.

I’ve know many white people deported from China for the most minor of infractions, including working illegally as English teachers (not enough legal ones to fill the demand, so of course chancers come to take advantage of that)

Also, the best passports in the world to have include Japan (the best), Singapore and South Korea .... so this white people can go anywhere and brown people can’t is utter nonsense. It’s based more on the wealth of your country (the risk you overstay is less), and how open you are to others (reciprocity is the big reason why the USA isn’t at the top), and not so much your skin color.

Expect Chinese passports to become stronger the wealthier they get.

Without proper documentation you'll be on the next plane home

Absolutely as it should be.

Boris Yes they haven't gone up because there has been minimal increases in hourly rates for low paid workers. Hardly anyone pays OT now because they can hire more people instead of letting employees work 50-60 hours a week and take 10-20 hours home in OT. I know for my field wages have stagnated because they have let in lots of accountants on H1B visas 10 years ago. Those accountants got married and had DC while living here and are allowed to stay legally. What was supposed to be a temporary solution to a shortage has turned into an over supply of accountants causing wages to be stagnant over the past decade. Wages at the middle to upper management have gone up a lot. There are very few people in these jobs compared to lower paid positions so you don't see it in the stats.

No want2b that isn't the reason.

The returns on capital have increased vastly, and so has the proportion of money paid to executives. That's your reason.

Absolutely every economic study concludes that is the reason for the massive fall in real wages in the US.

Attributing it to immigration is erroneous, and based on your own personal prejudices.

Does anyone actually believe the official figures on mass immigration not affecting lower income jobs?!

Boris Please explain how I'm prejudiced. I'm an immigrant myself and have been someone who has moved abroad, settling with an expat in a foreign country. I have a better understanding than most people, who have never emigrated, regarding the challenges and issues faced by immigrants.

I've managed to do ok for myself but my good A'Level grades redbrick education got me nowhere. I had to completely requalify which was time consuming and expensive. DH is an expat, having worked for the same company for 20+ years overseas. People here are floored when they find out he left school at 16, started working at 17 and took his MBA with no bachelor degree.

I know the reason for wage stagnation in my industry but in the lower paid positions wages have fallen because supply is increased from immigration. Accountants are still relatively well paid and it's more than enough to survive. That's part of the reason why the wage stagnation has been tolerated. The other reason is that wages include pension plans. The removal of the defined benefit plans paying out based on final or average salary are no longer. The value of those plans was significant compared to the contribution plans that employees are in today.