We cannot continue taking on immigrants indefinitely

[MobilityCat]

I'll probably be shot down for saying this but Immigration should be strictly controlled or we'll all become significantly disadvantaged. While international law doesn't require asylum seekers to stay in the first safe country they reach, some governments argue they should. There is a belief that the UK has a fairer asylum process, more legal protections, and better opportunities for work and education compared to other countries. While the reality may be different, word of mouth and social media often spread the idea that the UK is a good place to seek asylum. Our reputation as a desirable asylum destination is straining social services, housing, and the asylum system. The NHS and schools face increased pressure, housing shortages worsen, and asylum backlogs lead to long waits and high costs. Public frustration is growing, fueling political divisions. The system is unsustainable due to financial burdens, fairness concerns, and security risks.

One of the asylum seekers I worked with was from Ethiopia. Qualified doctor stuck in limbo here.

Offer actual routes to asylum
process faster
let people contribute
invest in education and make some of the lower paid sectors more attractive with better pay and conditions

And house them where exactly?

https://www.migrationwatchuk.org/news/2024/02/16/mass-migration-deepens-the-housing-crisis

Rents are going through the roof for people who already live here.

Where are we going to house all these new people?

Don't care you care about people who actually live here and have lived here all their lives?

I do of course care. But when comparing what asylum seekers go through I can’t turn my back.

I donate regularly to food banks. Im
skint though but share what I have.

@Gogogo12345 possibly. But birth rates dropping.

When the invasion of Ukraine happened there were a number of Ukrainians who accessed the UK via Ireland. Does that make them non genuine?
Quite a lot of them, yes. There's a sizeable number who were already living in other European countries for years at that time, working illegally, and this was the way to legalise the status. They would not have qualified under the Ukraine scheme as for that you needed to evidence living in Ukraine at the start of 2022. Then there also were a couple of fraudulent schemes where people were paying ££££ for "sponsorship" only to find out that there's no sponsor and the UK has never issued any official papers to them.
The Ireland route is a well known scandal in Ukrainian British community.

Bollocks. Misinformation as debunked below.

edmo.eu/publications/disinformers-use-similar-arguments-and-techniques-to-steer-hate-against-migrants-from-ukraine-or-the-global-south-2/

c) The majority of them are men and/or cannot be refugees

Global South – Beyond the socio-economic issues, migrants are blamed on the “moral” level. «Refugees are people who have fled war, violence, conflict or persecution and have crossed an international border to find safety in another country», according to United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). On social media and even by some politicians, it has been claimed that migrants from the Global South cannot be actual refugees, because allegedly they are not fleeing the war and are mostly healthy men who don’t deserve asylum, and/or they pretend to be minors.

Ukraine – This moral blame is even stronger in the case of the Ukrainian displaced people. A particularly widespread false narrative is that they are mostly male as well, so much so that Ukraine is demanding their extradition from host countries in order to put them on the battlefield. This false story accusing them of cowardice has been identified in Poland, Ireland, France, and Italy.

Other false stories claim that they are not or are no longer refugees, allegedly because they want to go home, went on vacation in their homeland, or want to enter the Russian-occupied territories.

This second narrative conveys an insidious message. Spreading false news that leverages on the real economic needs of citizens to point to migrants as the cause of their situation appears to be very effective in fueling racist and xenophobic sentiments

takes no account of additional strain to housing, water, public transport, nhs and education, even national grid can’t keep up with demand and on its last legs.

Convenient and confused information to blame this on immigrants.
For instance, our poor water supply is due to privatisation, with payouts/ bonuses to shareholders and chiefs rather than being reinvested in the fabric of our community. Conservative policies!

@Pinkfluffypencilcase -similar. invest in education and make some of the lower paid sectors more attractive with better pay and conditions
Business owners, shareholders, private equity investment companies don't want to pay more, it affects their profits and bonuses.

Privatising services is a huge issue in this country, but not connected to immigration at all. Immigration us just an easy target.

Everything you say is true, it’s legacy problems but why bring more people into the country when things are already at breaking point? I’m not blaming immigrants for this, that would be ridiculous- if you’ve read my previous posts you’d see this.

Infrastructure in this country is at the max on every front, yet still more people coming.

Immigration policy is about as good as all other government policy, pretty much in the toilet. They just can’t seem to do anything well. I wanted Labour in but so far I’ve not been very impressed. I hope the next few months will be better.

There’s endless focus on asylum seekers, yet they make up about 5% of immigrants. The vast majority of people come here legally. These people are not fleeing persecution. They will actually be amongst the better off in their country of origin because they have to pay thousands of pounds upfront for visas.

They are coming because the U.K. offers them a better life. Fair enough, I’m sure we all would. However, we don’t owe them a better life if it is destroying our country!

1 in 20 of the millions of immigrants over the last 4 years came in on a skilled worker visa, and will likely be net financial contributors. Most of the rest were low paid, low skilled people and their multiple dependents. On average, each one will cost the country half a million pounds by the time they are 75.

Surely even those who are avidly pro immigration can see this is a disaster waiting to happen? We have wealthy people who pay tax into the pot leaving the country, and massive numbers of immigrants who drain money from the pot in their place.

And this is just the financial costs. We have already increased the population by 10 million through immigration, which is putting an unbearable strain on our infrastructure. Everything is getting more difficult to access, more expensive, more crowded, dirtier, uglier.

There’s no point arguing the government should just build more hospitals, schools, social housing, reservoirs, modernise our sewage system, and on and on, if there is no money to do these things.

Judging by reform’s polling, a lot of people share my concern about the way the country is going. But I guess not most mumsnetters, who I assume are planning to become immigrants themselves, or else enjoy paying more tax for worse services. I’m old enough to remember when the top rate of tax was 60%, and I believe back in the 70’s tax on investment income was 98%.

Thinking about the 'stop immigration' plan and the economic argument around freezing low skill immigration until we can get things back on track with public services etc.

People at the lower end of the wage continuum are net beneficiaries, this isn't going to change. Neither is the fact that the lower paid jobs need doing. So...

Say we stop or severely curtail immigration of low skilled workers and their dependents, because people are concerned about the
cost imbalance. Can we fill their roles? We already had a taste of this when Brexit happened and we lost a lot of the low paid labouring workforce (fruit pickers and other agricultural labour for example). Is it realistic to think that these low skilled workers will be replaced by British citizens? Many of the jobs being done by low skilled immigrant workers have poor pay and conditions that British workers (understandably) don't want.

Well Ballad many of us can remember when we somehow managed to run the whole country without importing a million souls a year, and people had more opportunities for a better life open to them on the whole, so I’m going to go with yes on that one. They also had better social cohesion and a bit less lawlessness too.

Say we stop or severely curtail immigration of low skilled workers and their dependents, because people are concerned about the
cost imbalance. Can we fill their roles? We already had a taste of this when Brexit happened and we lost a lot of the low paid labouring workforce (fruit pickers and other agricultural labour for example). Is it realistic to think that these low skilled workers will be replaced by British citizens? Many of the jobs being done by low skilled immigrant workers have poor pay and conditions that British workers (understandably) don't want.

We would have to put in changes to make sure British citizens take on the jobs they currently don't want.
Careworkers for instance, work with schools and colleges to promote this as a career. Work experience, care qualifications etc.
A change of British attitudes, moral purpose, hard work, accepting unsocial hours.
Care and residential homes locally are staffed mainly by people from other countries. The LA website has a huge number of job vacancies, advertised week on week, flexible hours, golden handshake, more than minimum wage.

All of that assumes we have enough people without work who are able to do these jobs. If these people are not working, should they be claiming benefits when there are jobs available?

Without supporting this sector and simply removing immigrant workers our elderly and vulnerable will not have carers. That can't happen.

A change of British attitudes, moral purpose, hard work, accepting unsocial hours.

How dare you ignore the huge numbers of British people doing exactly this and for no real reward in these days of the housing crisis.

Who is ignoring?
My family members work as carers, but clearly there are not enough British people doing this work otherwise my LA would not have 100’s of care jobs advertised and readvertised every week.

@BalladOfBarryAndFreda

To an extent I believe we have to let market forces sort the issue out. Businesses will only behave better if they are forced to because their supply of cheap labour is cut off. I don’t believe the taxpayer should be on the hook for the hundreds of billions these low paid immigrants are going to cost us because employers wont improve pay, terms and conditions, consider anyone over 50, train their own staff, etcetera.

When it comes to essential services such as carers, it would be cheaper for the government to cover the cost of paying these employees a top up on minimum wage. Whatever amount it takes to encourage British people to work as carers, it would still be vastly cheaper than the cost of importing a carer, who will then become eligible to bring in unlimited dependents.

If businesses can’t have unlimited cheap labour, they are also more likely to look at increasing the use of automation and A.I.

"A change of British attitudes"

nice and easy then.

WaryCrow, when are you referring to?

1. The UK birth rate is in decline and so our 'native' workforce is shrinking. We have a birthrate below replacement rate, as has been discussed before. That is something to consider when talking about managing to employ people in the past.
2. Reduced social mobility in recent times isn't down to immigration policies. It's to do with education, health, and housing policy over decades and how we treat the most disadvantaged in our society (who are the ones who experience the lowest rates of social mobility). For example, enormous cuts to sure start centres, designed to support the most disadvantaged children and families.

In the early 2000s there were not enough jobs to go round. Actually there haven’t been enough jobs to go round since the 80s and coal mines shut. At the same time we need fewer and fewer people to do all the needed jobs, thanks to computers and efficiency drives. We have fewer resources available per person because of overpopulation, a destroyed environment and less and less room available, my retirement age was already put back to 68 and now is going back to 71. Yet we’re still told by middle classes that we need more and more humans. Something is not adding up.

The excess of people to jobs ratio is why we have had an employers market for so long, which is why wages are now so low that they often do not pay the cost of working those jobs. That is why there are jobs going unfilled. Traditional women’s work is particularly badly hit and not worth the cost of working. Many women dropped out of the job market during austerity, and never went back, because it is not worth working. That is what overpopulation has done for us. The economics of life are not noticeably changing despite the apparent shortage of workers: nor will it, because it’s an artificial shortage based on lies.

Other countries are much larger than us. France is double the size of the Uk and less populated. Germany is the same. People forget.
Nothing to do with racism!

When it comes to essential services such as carers, it would be cheaper for the government to cover the cost of paying these employees a top up on minimum wage. Whatever amount it takes to encourage British people to work as carers, it would still be vastly cheaper than the cost of importing a carer, who will then become eligible to bring in unlimited dependents.

Isn't that what benefits to working people do now?

It is definitely very complicated with a wide range of issue as we can see by views and thoughts here. Much, much wider than immigration.

I thought some posters might be very surprised at the jobs which allow you entry to the UK. Dog walkers, anyone?

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025/feb/12/uk-skilled-worker-visa-eligibility-list

We really do need the RML reintroduced. This is insane. Dog walkers!!!

Important to note that this was in the 3 years prior to March 2024, under Conservative policy and linked to Brexit.

Labour review due with the white paper in the Spring.

It may be A but it’s not I.