To think that they should concentrate on actual illegal immigration rather than legal migration of individuals whom the country really needs.

[SonwflakesAreForWimps]

It's a case of playing with the figures rather than looking at what those figures represent.

I'm not a fan of the stop the boats school of thought but surely concentrating on this is better than stopping people who are going to immediately put back into our society, pay taxes and fill gaps in the labour market.

The problem is that illegal immigration (which consists largely of visa overstayers) is a. a drop in the ocean compared to legal migration and b. really, really hard to police in a country that doesn’t have ID cards.

Tightening up the legal migration route is much more cost effective and much easier to implement if your aim is to bring down the overall migration figures.

My relative lives in a care home.

50 of the staff have moved here from India because they couldn't staff the care home.

How is the care home able to afford to pay higher wages?
LA budget cuts means LA’s can't increase wages to staff.

Those paying privately will have to make up the shortfall. My relative already pays £5,000 a month - her money isn't going to last long.

Care Homes are so short of staff now. My LA has hundreds of job vacancies.

What happens next…where will our elderly go to be looked after?

They seem obsessed with those coming over in boats. It's absolutely irrelevant and really an absolutely tiny number when compared with the 3/4 million net migration number.

Hopefully we'll be able to vote these muppets out of government soon.

Define "illegal" migration. If those poor souls arriving in boats have a genuine asylum claim then they're not "illegal".

Noone knows that when they arrive here.

Dont worry @LahnaMJA They have found a solution to the staffing problem 🙄

https://x.com/getlostjj/status/1731587604955488609?s=20

One of my kids had a schoolfriend whose dad was doing research into cancer treatment. The university wanted to extend the project, but he couldn't get his visa renewed, so he's off curing cancer in the US now instead.

Covid vaccine mandate for care home workers was insanity. But its become the elephant in the room with them. They like to pretend it didnt happen.

Asylum seekers are not counted as illegal immigrants, because they’re not. Illegal immigrants are mostly visa overstayers or people not working in accordance with their visa - for example students with a valid student visa and registered at a language colleges but actually working in a petrol station at the other end of the country.

Disabled people remember!

I can't work out whether this government is evil, or just plain stupid!

The lack of immigration enforcement is due to a lack of expenditure, nothing to do with ID cards which are just a silly distraction. If ID cards were effective, the countries that have them would have no issues with illegal migrants - but they do.

It’s worse than that - they are evil and stupid.

Agree with pp on ID cards as a distraction, it doesn’t solve much

We need people arriving to work but the last figure was pretty high, so if it can come down a bit then fine. Plus I reckon AI will start changing requirements at some point

The irregular migration is likely to become more an issue, but we’ll see that for many countries not just here

Cutting Illegal migration even to zero would have no material effect on net migration. The government has made an ideological decision to get net migration down so this was inevitable. Only thing to do now is grit our collective teeth and wait until the election.

Just who thinks through these policie….. ( or doesn't).

Maybe my relative, with severe dementia should….look after herself…

And added to that….the care home is so short, because, due to Brexit, their Eastern European staff have returned home.

Couldn't write it…☹️

I thought a large percentage of the 3/4 million are students, the vast majority who will leave, or am I missing something?

I believe they will be exempt from the minimum earnings because they are a shortage occupation. But, they are stopping them being able to bring dependent family members. I am not sure if that includes workers already here - I teach a few children from India whose parents work in care homes.

But will they come without their family? You've just mentioned their children…

Difficult to manage care work shifts without your spouse.
Even harder to work here and leave your children at home in India….

This is just another back of a cigarette packet policy and it won't work. We still have enormous labour shortfalls in health and social care. Cracking down on bringing dependents along is a stupid idea, because the UK is competing for those care workers with countries which are offering better terms and conditions. It's also another typical Tory example of performative cruelty. There were two experts (I know, I know) on PM today who set out very clearly the serious problems this policy will cause.

Who's it appealing to in terms of the electorate? Presumably the elderly Home Counties types that historically are anti immigration do know that the health service and social care are propped up by immigration?

The two aren’t mutually exclusive. A competent government would have a robust, fair system in place for dealing with both, that benefited the country. Unfortunately, they’re more interested in slogans and headline grabbing than doing anything effective.

@MrsSchrute evil and stupid!!!

We have a racist, incompetent bunch of narcissists running our country. They are evil and incompetent. How can anyone ever vote Tory.