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?

I can't think of any negative effects I've personally suffered due to immigration, and I can think of plenty fantastic things I have gained - you can buy all sorts of different tasty foods in the shops that people have brought from abroad, I have had many wonderful friends from all over the world with different habits and ideas and new things to talk about...
(Hmm, I should have put those the other way round, you can tell I'm greedy.)

There are not huge volumes of immigrants on my area (I am one!) but those I have come across are hard-working, reasonably friendly, etc and I appreciate that I can get to know people from other cultures that often get bad press so I can find out what people from there are really like, rather than the stereotypes, iyswim... (maybe I am more interested in this than other people as I grew up in a very homogeneous society)

I know a few people involved in trying to get disadvantaged yoofs into the workplace and tbh I think it is their lack of interest in working (often coming from families where no-one has worked for generations) rather than immigrants, that is preventing them from getting jobs. And this is in a fairly affluent area with low unemployment...

Once about two years ago the beigels I got in Brick Lane weren't as fresh as they normally are.

I was outraged and wrote to the Daily Mail saying send all the Jews back to, like, the place they are flocking, East Angular or wherever they come from. Let white working class people make beigels, i'm sure there are legions of eager bakers in Canning Town.

Yours,
N Griffin.

so aside from posieparker's horrendous experience of Somalians not having the decency to rsvp to a childrens party (I blame the parents), and a few Polish kids getting into school (what do they need an education for anyway?), immigrants are pretty much positively impacting on MN's communities.

HURRAH!

I am an immigrant too. I've not taken anyone's job, my employers have always love me, sadly I've never been housed, I pay taxes, never been on dole, and my DD is British (as am I now) and will go to the best school we can find for her.

OP: no, I dont have any personal negative experiences caused by immigrants in the Uk.
Have a few negative immigration experiences in germany...oops, Im the immigrant there!

School places in my area are massively oversubscribed and this is largely because of a unexpectedly huge influx of people to my local area in the last few years whose presence was not part of the long term planning of LEA when assessing future need of school places. This means my son may end up being bused across the city for primary school

Of course I should point out that these people are not foreign nationals but bloody incomers from London with huge buggies and chelsea tractors!

I've never had a negative experience directly because of immigration.

However like others on here I've had very positive experiences; excellent dental care, exposure to new foods, music, and experiences.

My family history includes German Jews, Chinese, and Austrialian immigrants and all of them made valuable contributions to the communities they found themselves in, immigration is an integral part of this country's history and we should view the cultural richness it has left us with positively, whilst acknowledging that there can be tensions which need to be addressed.

shall we invite lincstash and crystal-something on to this thread? ;-)

I once had my hair cut by a New Zealander who made me cry.
Bloody good haircut, though.

DH has a collegue from the Eastern block who cannot seem to practice modern medicine. He now has employment rights after the stooooooooooopid clinical director decided to keep him after his first year.

I would like to see all non-UK doctors have to pass MRCP and thus prove their competancy to work here - just like the USA and Canada.

BARKING AND DAGENHAM This area has seen a huge influx of immigration over the last ten years, just as other areas in and around Britain. 3 bed council houses are now sought by over 600 people. Of cours mass immigration is a problem it effects the lives of those in the lowest end of the economic scale How many MNs live on deprived council estates? It would be fun to find out!
immigration doesn't effect me too much, apart from the trains being overcrowded but then I do live in an area of Britain where the average house price is £500.000!(That's for the smallest house!) I tend to think that I won't see too many immigrants here! Immigration is a problem for many people in Britian today and that's why it's on the political agenda.

Immigration doesn't affect me much either but i have a bit of an issue with doctors who are rather difficult to understand.

My other issue is in our nearest town, Colchester. Gangs of young men grouping together and being threatening and generally vile to girls who are out in the evening. This causes friction with the "local lads" which as you can imagine leads to fights.

My village is reasonably untouched by immigration and ds' school is predominantly english/white.

Colchester has a long history of Chinese immigrants and they have had a very positive influence on the area. Yes we have some fantastic restaurants but more importantly the 6th forms at the Grammar schools have a very high percentage of Chinese kids. The more bright, hardworking people we have in the area the better.

"I would like to see all non-UK doctors have to pass MRCP and thus prove their competancy to work here - just like the USA and Canada."

Agree with Highlander on this.

Yes. I do.

My husband drives me bonkers.

he's an immigrant.

But seriously, no.

I work in a doctors surgery. Here, non-english speakers, of whom there are increasing numbers, are allocated a 'double time slot'. This is due to the language barrier and the need for translators (costing vast amounts of money as well as the extra time).

this has lessened the slots available for english speakers and has lead/leading to resentment in the community.

Of course, if you have money and private health care this is not an issue.

My daughter would not be here if it wasn't for a very nice immigrant called Vlad. We owe him so much.

So for me the only problem is I wonder why not all doctors can be as caring as he was

none here

my neighbours were polish, renting a house that had been left in a right state and they did loads of work on it to make it gorgeous. mind you they did like to play hard, but they also worked hard and were very friendly. we had a lot of polish people round here but they seemed to disappear apparently due to the economy...

my dentist is also an immigrant and she is fantastic - much better than any other I have had and my injections NEVER hurt!

we have several new zealanders and austrailians in work and I love them - not sure if it's a coincidence or where they come from but they are such lovely people.

tbh i'm not sure the "they're taking all our jobs" line is valid - there are loads of people around here who need to get off their backsides and work. no jobs? bollox our local paper is ALWAYS full of jobs and sometimes the same jobs appear for ages. so i'm all for GB's idea to offer them a job and stop their benefits if they don't take it!

i also think that yes the british have lost themselves and their values, but i don't think it's down to immigration - its down to the parents and the families they come from.

i went to school with some muslim kids and they were in all honesty the nicest kids that i came across in school plus they were so dedicated to doing well at whatever they were doing.

JMTPW, you made me spill me tea .

I have met a fair few maternity nurses who have had to deal with Somalian customs and habits which they found difficult.....why oh why isn't anyone helping these people integrate?

on integration, of course it's better if they do but at the same time if I decide to immigrate to another country, I don't expect that country to spend money to 'integrate' me. Not saying I'm against helping them but to what degree do we hold their hand. On another note my neighbour who is quite a traditional muslim (born here but origins from Pakistan) has had immigrants spit at her and tell her to go back to where she came from!! She's also had her headscarf pulled off in the street but from a local.

I think it's the job of the community leaders to assist people settle and not be offensive to the indigenous population, as well as just make their lives easier. When I visit China I am aware of cultural norms and I neither offend or am offended as I have a decent understanding.

I work as a m/w and while all the polish/eastern europeans I've met at work have been lovely our unit is very overstretched and at times has had to shut. We sometimes run out of actual rooms on the labour ward, at other times we are looking after more ladies in labour than is ideal. About 1 in 10 women giving birth are recent eastern european immigrants.

I'm sure you could argue its not their fault and that the government should be putting more money into services to cope with the extra demand. Problem is that they're not.

So yes I'm affected, it makes my working life more hectic and stressed.

Actually i do offend, as i am not a size '0' and that is an offence in China!

I'm married to a second generation immigrant. DH works for a London council arranging translations and interpreting - he has more work to do now, but I don't think that's a particular problem tbh.

I had to wait for ages (8 years) for our housing transfer, but I blame right-to-buy and lack of housing stock for that rather than immigrants and asylum seekers.

I've had more issues with mouthy British expats when visiting ILs in Cyprus than I've particularly seen here.

I was talking about this earlier with Mum after doing a survey on which party to vote for and working out within seconds which of the policies were the BNPs due to the bad mouthing of immigrants and denial of global warming!

I don't feel that I've lost out as such, though because I'm a seasonal worker really, it is difficult to get jobs as a couple when we're both British as these jobs are usually for people coming here travelling and whatnot.

I do get annoyed about immigrants coming and getting the housing and benefits, but then I get equally annoyed by British people going straight onto benefits too.

Far from "taking my jobs" immigration provides me with extra work.

About 150 years ago, my great grandfather was an immigrant from Eastern Europe too.