What would you do about immigration?

[stateofthem]

I’ve seen an awful lot of political posts here recently, generally displeased with labour (other policies are for a separate thread) and taking hard stances on immigration.

I often feel as though people have a very blinkered view on immigration which does sway the argument. It seems to be either “let everyone in” or “let no one in” as such.

One point I wish to make is that currently you must be in the UK to be able to make an asylum claim. This (in my opinion) is the biggest factor in small boats/mass migration.

If I were in charge I would propose the following:

Re-implement the ability to seek asylum from abroad via one safe legal channel. Enforce that applications must be made via this route (obviously with concessions for no internet, poor English etc).

Applications are reviewed on a case by case basis, and if rejected, a person is placed onto a register explaining the reason for rejection (and possibly a timescale of when they could reapply).

Anyone who does not follow this channel is returned to their country of origin.

Anyone who arrives having not followed this policy is returned to their country of origin.

I appreciate that the above would need a lot of work and investment, and it’s not quite as straightforward as how I set it out, but I feel as if it’s a reasonable response which allows some migrants but not uncontrolled.

at the moment it feels as though both sides of the coin are offering very extreme solutions either way, and I feel as though someone needs to offer a more reasonable and middle way approach.

I am interested to hear others opinions on this, and if you disagree, what would you do instead?

Would you be in favour of capital punishment/ death or torture for any white brits convicted of any offence attracting a custodial sentence? If not why not since you think it's a fair consequence for people who have immigrated here?

Then perhaps they will take that into account and not commit those crimes in the first place!

There's massive work to be done across the UK on addressing racism. It's like a bubbling under current in the UK too because people don't talk as openly about it although I think the recent debates about immigration, brexit and the fact people in general are feeling more squeezed is bringing the ugly head much more to the fore. The fact our political parties have been quite happy to use the media to scapegoat minority groups in the UK and divert attention to their hand in the under cutting of public resources is also a big driving force.

We know statistically that's not how crime works.

1.69 million migrants don’t work a further
1.5 million claim uc
then their are illegal migrants that we pay for.

How do you return people to their country of origin if they have no id and “can’t remember” where they came from?

I would make it easier for UK citizens who are legally and legitimately married to non-UK citizens to live in the UK if that's where they choose to live. The income requirements are beyond appalling and cause undue hardship.

My serious answer: I'd start building a very smooth, robust, well-funded immigration system and send the word out very strongly that Britain is very keen to have as many immigrants as possible. In 20ish years countries will be (probably literally) fighting over young people - it's worth getting ahead of the rush now and get them in while they're available, then train them up and encourage them to stay and have families.

My unserious answer: I'd take every person who says they don't want any asylum seekers out of their homes in the middle of the night, airlift them to a remote location and tell them they are no longer welcome in their home town due to some infraction, then see how long it takes them to complain to authorities and try to get help. Every time they look for help, tell them no one wants them, they're complaining about nothing, go somewhere else. It's the only way to teach morons like that the reality of what so many people face and to remind them it is only through sheer luck that they are not currently wandering across a wartorn wasteland wondering how they're going to survive.

I think there are quite a few differences in accessibility to Australia’s borders than to the UK!

I also think it's hilarious that people from the UK - a country that has invaded and destroyed so many other countries - are complaining about immigrants.

It's so so stupid.

All of this. Equally we do not do nearly enough re:sustainability and environmental impact here. "We" don't want refugees and yet we do relatively little to offset our envious impact which is very close to creating significant numbers of environmental refugees.

Because allowing lots of men in to the country presents a whole loads of problems. Problems that the ignorant and stupid use to tarnish all immigrants with the same brush.

I would support a system that was safe and easier for women with children from counties such as Afghanistan to seek asylum.

We don't need lots of unskilled undocumented men

My great grandparents were refugees (I guess illegal in the sense that they just came, and started working, but things were different then). They were fully assimilated into their community and always worked, the whole family did.
On the other side are also immigrants who worked hard. I think some people would say that makes me not really English but I’m very English (except for food!).
Anyway, my feelings about immigration are not from some knee jerk racist point of view, but the post Brexit years saw a massive spike in immigration that we really haven’t been able to manage, so hopefully something can be done to reduce this.
I think allowing people to apply for asylum from their home country is a good idea.
I definitely agree that anyone coming here and committing a violent crime should be immediately deported.
It’s extremely costly to legally process and incarcerate people, and we shouldn’t have to pay for foreign criminals.
The process for claiming asylum should be sped up and if we have to invest in that, we should.

I don’t really agree that we should be importing NHS workers and tradespeople- we should re-instate nursing bursaries, and have really solid training pathways for uk people (young and otherwise). It’s really hard for adults to switch careers, gain qualifications and get jobs nowadays.
I would like to see real investment in training and apprenticeships for young people who are already here so that we don’t have to say “oh we cant fill the jobs” .
We have overflowing prisons, lack of decent housing, tens of thousands of people unable to find jobs or train into new ones and a crumbling infrastructure of transport and health.
I don’t know really what the answer is, but I’m fed up with people saying we need this much immigration to fill jobs when we have a million young people with no work.

Even if you had a legal route you would still get people arriving by boat. And once here it would be hard to remove them.
You cannot deport someone to a country unless that country accepts they belong to them.
But there is lots that can be done.

I’d need to give it a lot of thought but I think we need to move away from the parameters of the current debate. As far as I can see, the two loudest positions on immigration are:

A. All immigrants, legal and illegal but particularly the latter, are criminals, sex offenders, have no respect for women or anything else, bring nothing whatsoever of any value, don’t assimilate, are a threat to women and girls, and are here solely to sponge. Close the gates.

B. All immigrants are amazing people fleeing war and persecution, we should let whoever wants to come in, anyone who takes a different view is a racist. Open the gates.

The sensible approach lies somewhere between the two.

I think i'd tackle all the shadow economy issues.

I dont know that asylum claims are that large as a part of the overall immigration picture. I read there was 100,000 claims last year.

It sounds like there's a bigger group of illegal immigration who either stayed beyond visas or didnt claim asylum at all, presumably arrived undedected.- So id go with making it harder to work illegally so its less attractive to stay on /arrive. I assume if they are illegal they arent claiming benefits. I dont see how the can.

I dont know how choosy we are about legal immigration. I thought we had quite strict criteria.

Only allow people to claim asylum if they have arrived directly from an unsafe country, if they have arrived from France/Belgium that's good enough. If we can't use Rwanda send anyone to somewhere like a disused oil rig with options only to return to their home country or somewhere they travelled through.
We have some poor quality unis, stop them taking in Students who aren't the brightest and the best, if some close so be it. No immigrant is entitled to benefits until they've made NI contributions for 10 years (I'd happily say this for people born here too). If you are earning over £50k you can have a visa, but no benefits. If you are filling a skilled position, you can have a visa, but it probably doesn't have a route to settlement. If you do apply for a settlement, you need to show that you have integrated. Marriage visas, we should outlaw cousin marriage and anyone related should be banned from a marriage visa, if you haven't lived together overseas post marriage don't issue the visa. I'm sure this can be refined, but as a direction of travel it's my starting point.

I think you can make a start by looking at people who have overstayed their visas, whether as EU citizens, visitors , students or on limited time work visas. Yes this is probably picking the low hanging fruit, but there is nothing wrong with that. Some of the people will be working and contributing, or have families in which case they can apply and pay for proper visas/ right to remain, if necessary they can return to their home countries while their application is fast tracked processed. People who are not working, or who are surviving by criminal means can leave, and I include people who will claim family ties in the UK.

I think as soon as the UK is seen as somewhere where immigration laws are taken seriously then the UK will be less attractive to those who don’t want to contribute and abide by UK laws.

I also think we really need to reconsider identity cards, I know there is a visceral hatred of them in the UK, but other countries survive with them, they make identification of those abusing the system easier and would also mean that people who don’t have other forms of id such as UK passports or driving licences are able to access services to which they are entitled, voting being a case in point since today is an Election Day!

Do not disagree with some of your arguments but I read your op as being about immigration to the uk? There are more than English people here.

I agree with your proposal 100%.
The direct return if the procedure is not followed would stop the boats in about two weeks according to Rory Stewart talking on a recent podcast. Also, your policy would mean the UK hasn’t closed it doors just has implemented a more robust system which would also include, where possible, keeping criminals out of the UK.
its quite alarming that the Saudi states have slowly declined sending their kids to university here for fear of radicalisation. Tells you everything you need to know about the state of the UK migration system.

I would scrap the whole asylum system.

This thread is so gross.

I would ask myself why we are all focusing on immigration when global tech billionaires are doing everything they can to avoid contributing to the general welfare, sowing division and spreading misinformation through their platforms, dodging tax, and influencing elections.

This is what I mentioned earlier about scapegoating minority groups.

In fairness, you can be concerned about immigration and be simultaneously concerned about something else too.

There are 20 million women in Afghanistan. Do you think we should relocate all of them and their children to the UK?