To not understand how tightening legal immigration

[MisunderstoodMe]

I just don't understand how tightening the rules on legal immigration is going to bring immigration down?
surly to 'stop the boats' we need more legal ways for people to arrive?
i feel like it's going to increase the illegal ways of arrival through lack of choice.
i think instead of government funded asylum hotels costing millions and taking years at the government expense, give them a work permit and make people pay their way immediately, pay tax immediately whilst the claim is decided.
Argued about this with my friends last night and want to know if Aibu.

I'm not sure about giving work permits immediately but if they really are running away from dangerous situations they should be happy in detention centres until they are processed. They also don't need games consoles and mobile phones. Phones can be made available to ring family.
But tightening legal immigration will absolutely not reduce immigration. As you say it will increase illegal immigration. Keir Starmer treating us like the idiots he thinks we are.

Why do you think stopping boats means more legal immigration? These aren't generally the same people.

Good or bad the most straightforward way of lowering immigration would just be to reduce spots.

Of course reducing immigration will reduce immigration! The people who migrate here, usually for work, from countries like Nigeria and India, are not going to then arrive on a small boat if they don't get a visa.

You're conflating two separate things op.
Only 6% of immigrants in the UK are asylum seekers or refugees, even if that were totally eliminated (which would be highly immoral and illegal) there impact on total immigration would be negligible.
The only way to have any real impact on the rates of immigration is to tighten the criteria for issuing visas, who h is precisely what was announced this week.

Maybe i am misunderstanding. But i do think there needs to be more legal ways to arrive, and decreasing the legal ways will only increase illegal ways. Its nice to an opinion without an argument!

It’s about appealing to the kind of Reform thinkers who don’t want legal immigrants and consider them the same as illegal ones.

We need legal immigrants and I agree that they should be allowed to work on temporary permits because the wait for application processing is so long.

You’re mixing up two different issues. Illegals immigrants who arrive by boat are an issue that need to be thought about separately from those that overstay. Making it easier for the overstay group to be here will not in anyway cut down on the ‘boat people’. Immigration needs to come down and he’s done something sensible. We are a small island who should be taking only those in dire need such as asylum seekers or those who have demonstrated the wealth necessary to support themselves.

The ukraine sustem appeared to work well - immediate work permits and people paying in taxes instead of the government funding them. It just makes so much sense to me that this could be extended, rightly or wrongly. With the new suggested solution it seems impossible for people to arrive legally so that's why i think it could encourage more people arriving illegally. But it is true these are seperate groups as far as i can tell. A Syrian family moved into our street, having come from a refugee camp and have integrated so well, they work hard they have learnt to speak English and its made me change my negative mind on immigration.

Making it easier to apply, giving them work permits etc, would inevitably lead to increased numbers of people applying, which is the reverse of what the majority of the UK want to see, as born out in the local elections and a recent YouGov poll.

The white paper was announce to make Labour look like they are being tough on immigration, largely as a response to the horrendous battering from Reform.

In reality I doubt much of it will become legislation, judging by the response from Labour MPs and Labour Party members and they will pay for it in the next election.

Without there being a quota on the numbers, making the "Bar higher", will be as effective as "smashing the gangs".

You’re confusing multiple different things, OP.

The government wants to reduce both legal and irregular migration.

The measures recently announced in the white paper were mostly targeting legal immigration routes.

The government is taking separate action to try to cut small boat arrivals.

And as to ‘creating safe and legal routes’, there are hundreds of millions of people worldwide who would be eligible for asylum if they were able to get here and claim it. We cannot possibly accommodate all of them.

The vast majority of immigration is of people here legally. Most illegal immigration is people who arrive legally then don't leave when they legally should. Net migration has been best part of a million for several years- clearly this will impact on UK housing availability & services.

Small boats need action to stop people (including young children & babies) drowning in the channel, but the numbers arriving are small compared to legal immigration.

Even with the Ukrainians, many - likely a majority - of those still here are receiving government funding. A family of three moved in with our neighbours across the street from us and stayed there for a year, but have since moved into a rented house, with their rent heavily subsidised by the council. While all three are working (in minimum wage hospitality jobs), there’s no way they could afford to rent a two bedroom house by themselves in this area.

Sadly, we cannot afford to take on and subsidise everyone in the world who lives in an oppressive and dangerous place.

Sadly with immigration the whole conversation is set by the right wing and has been that way for a long time. It's almost impossible to have a reasonable conversation about it, it's become about feelings and not facts

They are different types of people your Indian student who can’t get a Visa to study here is gonna go to Australia or America or Canada. They’re not gonna jump in a boat across the channel. Likewise if you eased immigration lot of these boat people still wouldn’t qualify and would tell us boats unless the boat mechanism can somehow be turned off.
to me, economic migration should largely be linked to whether you are a net positive or a negative to the national economy if you’re earning 50+ grand you’ll pay more in taxes than your cost that’s the sort of immigration we need to create the economy. Even better if we spend more of the money saved on schools so we have more skilled people in the country in future generations.

Current net migration levels are equivalent to 1% of the UK population arriving every year. That is an incredibly high number with no equivalent among any other western country, and it is completely historically unprecedented. Our infrastructure and services cannot keep up. Limits are needed.

At an individual level, I know (and like!) lots of immigrants, just like you like the Syrian family on your street, but I can still recognise that overall levels are too high.

The priority should be deporting people with no right to be here – illegal immigrants, people who overstay their student visas, etc. And also cracking down on the human rights lawyers and left-wing activists who help them. Above all, we should be deporting immigrants who break the law. It is insane that we even need to debate this. Imagine explaining it to someone in a remote part of Siberia or the Amazon. If you asked them what they did with outsiders who settled in their community and then raped or stole, they'd say "well, we force them to leave...what the f-ck are you talking about?!"

I'm sick of the sanctimonious smugness of the left. Do they seriously believe these boatloads of young men are all 'frightened' refugees 'fleeing war and persecution'? Are they really that brainwashed? The woke left is like some weird cult. Left-wing people have the same glazed, mindless look as religious fundamentalists. Look at the case of Anicet Mayela, an illegal immigrant from the Congo. There were several attempts to deport him which were blocked by activists. In the end, the authorities caved in and granted him asylum. He's now in prison for raping a 15-year-old girl. Those activists ought to be made to meet that poor girl, and her parents, and justify their actions.

Immigration isn't always a good thing. And I include British people in that. There are plenty of British people who would not, to put it mildly, 'enrich' another country. I wouldn't blame the Spanish for deporting all those drunken British yobs who fight and urinate in the street.

Detention centres aren't an option due to the danger of human rights abuses (see Yarl's Wood) and you can't detain people indefinitely. Some cases can take years.

Asylum seekers don't get given phones or games consoles. They're given £50 a week or around £8 a week if in catered accommodation.

Immigration has been rising exponentially and is not sustainable. Asylum seekers are only a tiny percentage of immigrants.

They're not allowed to work in case it attracts more people to come.

A lot of the people illegally entering are doing so knowing they would not succeed via legal channels due to being on watch lists etc. These people know they will not legally get here due to criminal records and as such they take these actions. If they were true asylum seekers they would declare their request for asylum I the first safe country they cross and that would only be the UK if they were running from persecution in Ireland, france, Spain or Portugal in general when you look at where yoh would cross to here from. Those are safe countries. They should be staying in France not trying to get here for the free hotel and benefit system. It's time we made our laws clear that if you enter illegally you are deported if found until your application is processed. If you are successful you may enter or better yet advise that if you enter illegally you will not be deported and need to wait a set time frame before applying legally. If we do nothing this country will be at breaking point in less than a decade if its not already when you look at the NHS, schools and benefits system.

You're talking nonsense. 70,% of people coming on small boats are given refugee status. They're coming from places like Afghanistan, Iran and Syria which have authoritarian governments.

If you're not talking nonsense could you show the evidence of refugees coming here because of criminal records? Thanks

No they are not, they are coming from France.

The new immigration rules on student visas are making many universities close campuses and courses, so that’s not great for home students.

Their countries of origin aren't France.

I’d say more to do with the feelings on the left.

The Ukraine system was different and we could do smaller, vetted and capped versions of those if the uncontrolled issue was addressed.

We don’t need as many legal immigrants as we getting though. We don’t need the country’s population to increase by nearly a million a year.