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?

Are you of the opinion that all of these women would want to come? By that logic, we should never let in anyone from anywhere ever, as everyone else from their country may follow!

The person who highlighted second rate university degrees and the dependence on overseas students makes a point I agree with. I would only grant student visas for countries with a return agreement (there would be one for the whole EU).

The person who says there are millions on welfare 'refusing to work'. I'm just wondering if she means the disabled? Who are all obviously faking it?

I don't know really the 'solution' to immigration as its only fairly recently people have started blaming it for all society's problems. That along with the disabled who are alleged work shy scammers.

People shouldn't be able to receive benefits til they've worked here for a certain number of years.

And it's not really about how skilled they are, more about whether there are jobs that they could do that need filling.

A foreign cleaner is just as useful as a foreign investment banker, if there's vacancies for that job. And that public services can support the population it's meant to serve.

Then keep them in a detention centre until they do. Might concentrate the mind if the option is to be stuck there.

Just the females who value getting an education, a job, speaking whilst outside, choosing their own husband, or leaving the house without being draped in cloth.

Unfortunately, most who obsess over immigration don't seem to be willing or able to focus on the other factors that have a much, much greater impact on the financial well-being of the country and the average UK citizen.

Huge amount of suicidal empathy on this thread.

We should do what is best for the citizens of this country, simple as that. Welcoming immigrants who can contribute to society, want to assimilate and make efforts to do so, and follow a proper process to come here is a sensible policy.

The universities need a new funding model.

We are focusing on immigration because that is what the media tells us to focus on. If we just ignore it it will only play in to the hands of reform and such like.

Two issues can exist at the same time, strangely enough

I think yours is a good idea in principle but utterly unworkable in practice.

It is hard to assess asylum claims in person and surely almost impossible online.

And on numbers, any online system makes it far easier to apply so the numbers would rocket.

And if the claim is approved before the person travels, you are likely to create a trade in accepted applications.

Good

global tech billionaires are doing everything they can to avoid contributing to the general welfare

You might dislike the behaviour of their companies but tech billionaires are demonstrably not doing this. You have the OG, Bill Gates (giving c. 100% of his wealth away). Chan/Zuckerberg pledging 99% of their FB shares. 250+ tech billionaire signatories of the Giving Pledge, committing to give the majority of their wealth away, including Musk, Ellison, Larry Page, Sergey Brin, Pierre Omidyar, Dustin Moskovitz, Sam Altman, Azim Premji, Nilekani, etc.

OpenAI shenanigans are pretty depressing but the fact it was founded as a non-profit was a choice, and not one you’d make if you were trying to do everything to avoid supporting the common welfare. All seven Anthropic co-founders have pledged 80% of their wealth, etc.

You are working from a caricature.

This sounds very similar to the area I live in. The positives are the way that many immigrants have opened cafes, shops and small businesses. One thing we don't have are any boarded up retail outlets and I really enjoy eating at the variety of cafes. Most people around here get on well and there are some lovely people on my street. However, there are issues with one particular community who arrived here relatively recently, which sound similar to those you are experiencing, fly tipping, littering, street drinking, noise etc. Today, I have just been out and swept up all the rubbish my neighbours on one side have dumped in the communal alley. I use Google translate to politely explain that this is not a good thing to do and am just met with laughter and on a few occasions verbal abuse from them. There is no doubt that they are being exploited by their landlord, the house is a bad state and bad landlords rely on the fact that these tenants do not know how to complain or indeed who to complain to. As you say it is very hard to talk about the issues without sounding like or indeed being called racist. A couple of my mates have moved after having a few years of putting up with neighbours like this, I can't afford to do this and I do feel stressed living here. I was chatting with one of our community workers and they said that they had been told they were picking on a minority community when they fed back local people's concerns. I have searched my soul and felt worried that I am a secret racist, but really the things that are affecting me and others is a partlicular culture that seems unwilling to simply abide by the social norms of the place they have chosen to make their lives in.

The women need their relatives, who may happen to be male.

If people are doing 30 weeks of Community Service, when would they get the chance to, you know, apply for actual paid employment??

So incredibly selective and for political not humanitarian reasons then

@stateofthem
Those on jobseeker benefits to be required to fulfil 30 hours per week of community service or charity work - to be signed off by a member of this organisation personally each week. (I appreciate there would need to be things done to ensure no corruption here).

Those on jobseeker benefits are required to jobsearch for 30 hours a week and to evidence that when they sign on. They can't jobsearch AND do community service. Basic universal credit for a single person over 25 is £424 a month, which means that 30 hours of community service a week would be paid at around £3.50 an hour ...

Also brexit needs to be undone. When we could no longer access european data on asylum we lost the ability to see that Mr X had applied and been refused in Germany and should be deported. That was a quick way to deport people who were serial applicants

We would need some guarantees on transfers. Recent stats from the Republic of Ireland are pathetic to say the least;

16 Feb 2026
Only 2% of asylum seekers transferred back to EU state where they first applied
https://www.irishtimes.com/politics/2026/02/16/only-2-of-asylum-seekers-transferred-back-to-eu-state-where-they-first-applied/

In addition, rejoining the EU would likely mean signing up to the EU's quota system for asylum seekers, makes it more difficult for us to deport EU criminals after custodial sentences (more lenient criteria for EU criminals), not to mention that EU membership was a major driver of immigration to the UK of people born outside of the EU.

One million people born outside of the EU applied to the EU Settlement Scheme (mostly born in Asia, Africa and South America - 40% of whom were family members who did not have EU citizenship).

There are so few legal routes that many are reduced to entering illegally.

**
I have name changed as this is outing, but a few years ago our son was working in the USA and met and married a US citizen. His company posted him back to London and the hoops he (and we) had to jump through to allow his wife to come with him were ridiculous, including a personal visit to us by a representative of the Home Office (I think) to make sure we had enough room for them to live with us and that we had enough income to support them both and were willing to do so.
He and his wife are both well-qualified professionals, he was employed and his wife works in a field where we had shortages at the time. It was utterly ridiculous. They have never taken a penny from the state and pay a lot of tax.
I have heard many similar stories from friends (my DH worked in an international industry so colleagues meeting and marrying spouses from other countries was not at all unusual).

Legal immigration has process here too.

My British Asian staff member married his wife in Pakistan. It was two years before she could move here. He was a primary teacher working as a higher level teaching assistant. He didn’t earn enough for his wife to move here. He added breakfast and after school club to his working day, starting at 7.45 and working until 18.30, so that his earning increased. He needed to earn £30,000 (? or thereabouts). I had to make declarations to the HO, he had to attend meetings.
His wife, a teacher too, had to have a job here too. She found work in the local factory.

There is rock solid evidence about the figures.

Last data set - December 2025, six monthly release. Loads of data and evidence.

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/immigration-system-statistics-year-ending-december-2025/summary-of-latest-statistics

Illegal routes is not the largest group.

Name change. I’ve worked in this area for 30 years. Shabana’s proposals are perfect. She gets it. Unlikely to get them past her fellow Labour members though.
No tinkering with laws will work as we are not discussing people who can or will abide by the laws. They have no choice but to abuse the system to migrate as they wouldn’t qualify otherwise. OP’s idea of online applications would only quickly add a massive pile of extra work from people giving it a punt. Wouldn’t work as a ‘gotcha’ for anyone who failed to apply online and just turned up anyway. They would just say they were unable to apply.
What do I think would work? Detention for anyone undocumented.Removal of the highly abused routes such as domestic abuse and modern slavery. Help those people go home if the UK hasn’t worked out for them. Use AI to screen and speed up casework. Remove legal aid. Detain after refusal pending appeal.
None of that will ever happen.

And what about the connected benefits such as housing and council tax reduction. They also need to be built into the hourly rate.

What do you suppose people who are working full time and job hunting do?

Same as those working 37.5 hours and commuting an hour each way perhaps?

So why iare the Australian rules different?