What is it that riles people up about immigration so much?

[Am99]

I’m really curious at why some people get so annoyed over immigrants. Sure, I’m all for LEGAL migration no matter where the immigrant comes from and I agree that migration should be controlled / monitored to ensure criminals aren’t entering without a solid work purpose. My maternal grandparents were from Jamaica and they worked so hard.

I’m always so happy to see any doctor / nurse in the NHS whether they’re Indian, African, Caribbean, English and I couldn’t ever imagine getting so upset and angry about their ethnicity. I also don’t understand why people get so angry about asylum seekers being temporarily housed in hotels whilst they await their decision

Why are people so annoyed about migrants being housed in hotels? How can they actually be affected by it? On the news it looks like they’re being accommodated at Holiday Inns, not exactly anywhere where the typical Brit would take a staycation. It’s pretty mundane and boring. It’s not The Ritz.

I work, pay my taxes but it doesn’t bother me in the slightest if my tax goes towards that because tax is inevitable and something we never see. It’s just so unavoidable so why complain? I guess it’s like my student loan. Equally, how come these people aren’t annoyed that our taxes can fund royal house renovations or their security etc… I don’t see people protesting outside Buckingham palace? Also what about council housing in the UK? I don’t see people protesting about the fact the council literally gives subsidised housing to brits because they can’t afford it? I’m not sure if the tax payers money go towards this (I might need to educate myself on it) but surely that’s a bigger burden on taxpayers money.

I understand the argument that a country might lose its ‘identity’ with mass immigration. I saw a video with someone saying Japan is Japan because it’s more enough wholly Japanese. India is India because it’s wholly Indian. I get it to some extent, maybe we aren’t typically white and British like we were 59 years ago; but it’s still not enough to convince me that immigration is negative because what would actually happen if we did take all of the ‘foreigners’ outside of the NHS, TFL, cleaners etc etc … I wonder if they’d be enough Brits to fill their spaces? This isn’t sarcastic, I’m curious if anyone knows the answer

That’s a million people in 7 years during the Great famine. 60k French Huguenots over 39 years 150k Jews over a hundred years?

That would be the same numbers as arrived in just 2023 alone. Nothing has ever happen to the UK on this scale before.

Why are young single men of working age putting pressure on schools? Unlikely they'll be flooding the doctors too, given most healthcare is needed in the first or last few years of life.

Ok OP so it doesn't bother you in the slightest? What if a hotel/HMO opened up next to you housing asylum seekers and you had to walk through groups of men staring at you every day. Still fine with it?

Most people just want regulation and to know who is coming in to the country via controlled borders. Nothing wrong with that.

People believe what they read on social media by racist grifters than cold hard truth. They blame all the ills in the country on immigration and not the governments who allowed the immigration. Immigration isn't ruining the country, it's years and years of underfunding, cuts as well as no allowances for allowing millions of people to live here, legal or illegal. Ie - you let in a million people in last year? Well, then we need more housing, schools and hospitals eh?!

Unfortunately people are just ready to blame those on boats for all our ills, rather than those in power. The nasty attitudes, the violence, the hatred, the ignorance is actually making the UK even worse a place to live.

I will just add it my last post. I'm British and mixed race. Moved to Switzerland many years ago and will never come back to the UK. I can empathise with people's frustrations and I can feel each time I come home to the Uk that the mood has shifted, people are more fed up than ever and since I left I can see why.
In Switzerland - things work very well. Jobs are given in order of priority so 1st Swiss, 2nd EU nationals, 3rd Third party nationals.
You can't claim benefits like chomage unless you have been working for 2 years. Yoi are obligated to learn the language if tou want to renew your permit. You pay less tax. Everything is maintained - parks, infrastructure, brilliant schools. But attitudes are different too - people are positive, conformist, take pride in what they do - even in shops i notice it with sales assistants. Healthcare is fantastic but you have to pay for mandatory health insurance. And the roads are quiet - i notice that when I come back to the UK - there are too many cars on the road- traffic is awful but the transport network isn't reliable enough to support alternative options - that is a big downfall compared to other countries.

According to Google, immigrants get older and have children ! Who knew?

It really does people no favours to just assume that people who hold different opinions to you are idiots.

Actually whilst I wouldn’t describe it as hate there has been quite a lot of chat about pensioners. They cost the DWP more than half the budget and use up a disproportionate amount of NHS resources. It’s really unaffordable long term and there will have to be some sort of means testing/ cutting back on healthcare in the not to dim and distant future.

Criminals have come into the UK easily, some countries were allowed in for years without even having to disclose it. We have a home office that is not fit for purpose, underfunded. We don't even know how many people are here illegally, nor remove those who have overstayed visas. While we need to vet all asylum seekers, we also need to do everything else much better.

Before I type my reply, let me tell you: I am not British. Nor plan to buy myself the passport. But: you are speaking with some gusto and you are not Biritish either. So according to you this country owes every migrant up and down the world a place here and this is because? - According to you?

@Fizzink38spectacularly missing the point as my post outlines. The numbers that @ThisCalmLimeZebraprovides show how out of proportion the current figures are.

Nowhere in my post did I say that we had no immigration before WW2. I said that the scale of immigration was totally different. It matters to the discussions we’re having now. It’s not about hating brown people no matter how much people like Fizz keep saying it is.

Well, to be fair the population of the world was a lot smaller back then!

Security checks or lack of them for me. Some of these men are undoubtedly coming from the not long ago supposedly identified axis of terror countries where terror groups who historically hate the west are present and ingrained, and they are plonking these men in communities with zero security checks. I think it's sensible to security screen these men and understand who they are before letting them loose into the community. I don't have confidence this process is being done quick enough though.

I'm certainly not in vote reform mode. I have for the previous two elections actually been politically homeless and think all politicians are slippery self serving power hungry liars Farage included, but the above is the question mark of uncertainty I have in my head over this situation.

Immigration allowed to expand under New Labour has had a seriously detrimental effect on the economy. It has suppressed wage growth for over two decades.

You can spin it all you like but the % growth year after year in immigration numbers since New Labour are unlike anything we’d seen before.

Several things.

An extra city’s worth (Bristol) of people moves here every year.
We can’t add a city’s worth of resources each year to service us all- houses, GPs etc. Schools are ok as our birth rate is falling.

I really appreciate the hardworking, skilled people who come, but I can’t always understand their accent and find it embarrassing to ask them to repeat themselves.

I don’t particularly want the diversity of the country to change. I like the current mix of some really diverse areas, and some more traditional areas. I don’t care where individuals want to live, I like the range of options. Some old fashioned, rose covered chocolate box cottagey places, stuck in bygone times, as well as the towns with every kind of cuisine and clothes shop on the high street. Our local towns are great- polish shops, continental shops, Japanese shops. Every kind of restaurant/takeaway. But I still want a village with a post office and a chippy/pub.

Quick Google as i was genuinely curious
Population of Cardiff c 492k
No of illegal immigrants in 2024 c37k?

Nowhere near comparable?

And geographically we’re really small compared to other countries,

Legal migration is, though. But a lot of ‘legal’ migration recently has been dubious, student visas being overworked.

The system’s been set up so that we don’t train as many doctors and nurses as we need. There are viable candidates. Lots of straight A students get turned down at medical school. It’s politicians who decided to go for the cheaper option of importing skilled people instead of investing in people here.
While I’m thankful for all medical staff that work at the NHS. I don’t like the implications and direct statements disparaging British people.

Immigration rocketed under tories last term too. The prob is that immigrants used to bring in more than they cost the UK - they were traditionally young, working and no children to go through school and didn't use the NHS so much. So that was appealing to governments and that's why we had so many. But people started to stay and the government did not put the money back into our country, as in the case they actually took it away from all the things we need. Of course the UK is broken but is this the fault of immigration or our governments?

Net immigration was 431k in 2024. That doesn’t include illegal immigration, so net 468k in 2024. So yep, just under the population of Cardiff added in 2024.

Can’t speak for everyone but in my area these hotels have laid off their staff because they don’t need them anymore meaning local people have lost jobs. We’ve also got them hanging around various places all day because they have nothing to do and it’s very intimidating, there’s no woman or children around it’s all men. We’ve also got an influx of barber shops that are not even hiding the fact they are selling drugs, how many people go to have a haircut at 11pm? They are open all hours and it’s common knowledge what they are doing plus they are driving around in brand new top of the range cars despite there never actually being anyone in there having their haircut whenever you pass. We’ve also had immigration raid two car washes where people were working illegally and all they got was a fine. Our council is overstretched and social housing is non existent, lots of private landlords are getting contracts from serco because they can get more money from them so it’s causing a real problem for people trying to rent. Until it happens in your area you won’t understand the issues it causes, unfortunately it happens in already deprived areas such as mine first but room is running out so don’t think it won’t happen near you in the future.

Lol, I didn't spin it, I was merely pointing out that the comparisons are ridiculous!

I live near Bournemouth and the town is overrun with young male immigrants. They are being housed in hotels, given phones, money, healthcare. There are no background checks.
My daughter and her friends do not feel safe visiting the town any more. These men have different attitudes towards women. If the hotels were full of vulnerable families - men, women and children, I would have more sympathy.