Does anyone have any actual personal experience of immigration being a problem?

[OrdinarySAHM]

The country is supposed to be deeply concerned about immigration but is there really a problem, or has the media or just people in general, whipped each other up into believing there is one?

DH says that I live in a privileged bubble and that is why I haven't felt any impact on my life from immigration. This may or may not be true, that is why I am asking.

Eg. My children haven't been refused a place at the school of my choice because of immigrants taking up the places. We haven't been in any waiting lists for anything because of immigrants being ahead of us in the queue. We haven't missed out on employment that has been given to immigrants. And I don't know anyone who has any personal experience of anything like this.

Do any of you have any personal experience of immigration impacting negatively on your lives?

No - far from it. For years there was no NHS dentist to be seen anywhere in our (rural Welsh) county. The nearest one was a 100 mile round trip away. Now we have 2 new dental practices and guess what? The dentists are all Polish. Good on them.

where I live there are a lot of immigrants. It is really difficult to get places in schools. Think in a recent report, my town came about second in most over subscribed schools list. Whether this is down to immigration, I can't say and some schools have been difficult to get a place for years anyway. My friend (who is herself an immigrant), says she has noticed a big difference in the overall ethos, attitude, standards etc, in her childrens school (she is a TA there) and she puts this down to the large number of recent immigrants the school seems to be giving priority to.

a lot of council houses here go to refugees. this doesn't bother me but I can see why it bothers other people when the usual waiting list for a house is years and years and years. the fact that this is true and happens is never addressed by any politicians which imo is a big mistake - if it was spelled out to people the kinds of conditions those people had escaped they might be more sympathetic or at least the debate could be opened up about whether we should accept refugees etc etc. brushing it all under the carpet and pretending it doesn't exist is not helpful.

my brother and all other british workers were laid off a few years ago to be replaced by Polish migrant labourers. many were subsequently re-employed a year or so later but it also is not true to say that there are no british farm workers who want jobs in that area etc. it's just there are cheaper labourers from other areas

to clarify - I'm not sure my examples show 'immigration is a problem' but they do show real life examples of things most politicians will deny being true. a more grown up debate would be helpful

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Yes.

Work and sexual harrassment in the street as 2 examples off the top of my head.

Um... can I just clarify that I don't work on the streets?

possibly.

my dd1 wasn't offered a place at any of the 3 schools we asked for.

whether that is because immigrants have taken the places is debatable, but i think not.

immigration has actually been positive for me. i have a really wonderful cleaner, but she's so much more than that. helps me out with all sorts of stuff. she's legal, of course.

the only sexual harrassment i've encountered has been from british men.

white british men, let me clarify.

No, none whatsoever.

I used to work as PA (ie. assistant, dogsbody, secretary, receptionist) for a very small local business that manufactured wooden items in a workshop. The boss was always advertising for new people to work on the machines and we just couldn't find people who were committed to learning how to use the machinery. (or to coming in every day. ) He claimed that British workers had 'lost their skills base' in this regard. He recruited from Eastern Europe and over half the workforce were from Czech Rep, Hungary, etc, where, it appears, the skills for wood turning and associated work haven't been lost yet. I think he'd have gone under a few years back if he hadn't been able to employ Eastern Europeans. He's survived the recession and is still employing a mixed British and Eastern European workforce.

And it might sound really cliched and patronising, but the vast majority of the Czech, etc, workforce he employed were responsible, very committed and hardly ever took days off. The young lads he employed out of technical college in England, however, seemed to try it on with hangovers sickies every week. It was an interesting contrast.

The Czechs brought killer booze with them for work parties, too!

Quite the opposite, but I am on the other side of the issue as I am a British expat in Europe.

One thing that did strike me, reading this thread, is that I was never made to feel that I was taking job away from a German when I lived in Germany.

I am sure that if I were from a different country that I would have not had the same experience.

There is a hierarchy of acceptable foreigners in Germany. This exists in UK as well. It is not fair but it is there.

no personal exp of losing out to immigrants.

meanwhile can i just clear up the housing issues.

asylum seekers are not accomodated in council houses. they are housed in properties owned by private landlords who have been awarded the contract. these proiperties are often in a very poor state, usually below what is anacceptable condidtion for council accomodation.

once asylum seekers have been given refugee status they then qualify for council housing but have no further entitlement than british people. they are just banded according to need ie if it is a family with children then they are likely to be housed under national assistance act (i think) but if they are single people or couples then they are very unlikely to get housed. all refugees are subject to the same housing criteria as the indigenous population.

also fwiw i have seen housing officers throw tantrums when they have had to assign properties to refugee families and make very prejudice comments.

i know all this because i was a sw with a charity for asylum seekers and refugees before i had dd.

Nope. No problems. My father had his own building firm and wasn't effected either. He says people generally hire you based on recommendations from friends/family/your prices/your references and not your nationality. So if you are a good English builder you have nothing to fear from immigrant workers.

Afraid it's the old 'taking up school places'. I was going to move recently, in with MIL (must have been drunk!) but it boiled down to all the Catholic schools in that town being so so so over subsribed. This is a town now called Mala Polska - Little Poland. My town also has a rising no. of immigrants and again, this year many many Catholic children were left without a place (as indeed were many non faith school school kids) because there has been a sudden rise. The school which was my no.1 choice has many children who do not speak English. I am all for immigration but schools/hospitals etc. need to increase along with it.

Interview with Nick Griffin in today's independent;

'I ask Nick if immigration has had a direct impact on his life'

...he tells a story about having part of his finger bitten off by a dog in Birmingham and a south Indian doctor sewing it up.

Er... that's not a great reason for throwing them out of the country, is it?

I asked this exact same question and according to DH, in certain industries there has been a large flux of Polish/Eastern European workers who are willing to work for less than British workers. Salaries in those industries have therefore gone down and the British workers aren't happy about it.

As someone else said, supply and demand. But if this is true then I can see how this might make people negative about immigration.

(I am all for immigration btw).

I don't think Ive taken a job away from a British person. Last time I checked they were still offering £10,000 handcuffs to recruit people into my area of expertise.

Nope.

And I live in a small town, almost 100% white British until a few years ago when people from Poland and Lithuania started to arrive. And now there's lots. And it's great. I like that I can hear other languages and that my children mix with children with different life experiences.

It's quite a deprived area. And I have heard 'those Poles' blamed from everything from littering to drugs . So in theory potentially fertile ground for racism - interesting to see how the BNP will get on next week.

If some situations are just a case of too many people and not enough eg school places then wouldn't it be just as valid to say "stop breeding" as "stop immigration"? Why does a person deserve more just because of where they were born? You have no control over where you were born, so being born here doesn't make you great.

If people's pay is going down because immigrants are willing to work for less, or they lose out on getting the job because they won't work for as little as immigrants - I don't see this as immigrants' faults. I see this as a fault of the employers. Isn't this what Minimum Wage is supposed to address? When work places are 'raided' they should be forcing the employer to pay everyone minimum wage or more. Is this what happens, I don't know?

Have we got to a point where we physically haven't got space for more people yet? What should we actually do if this happens? Sometimes when people whinge about governments I think, it's not that easy, what would YOU do if it was your responsibility.

Do people really come here to live on benefits? I like Gordon Brown's idea to offer unemployed people (non immigrants and immigrants) a job after a fixed amount of time and if they don't take it their benefits are stopped.

Nope!have had 2 transplants both done by 'immigrants' and the second one was touch and go and he was the only surgeon who could do it.Also have serious heart condition which was dismissed as a combo of indigestion and stress until a young polish doctor spotted an irregularity on a scan and saved my life!Thank god for both of them!