genuinegirly

Do you see immigration issues in Britain?
How do they compare to those in mainland Europe?
Will the recent influx into Britain change its place in the world economy?
How have you seen immigration change policy?
What political parties are favored by those who support immigration?
How does one gain British citizenship, anyway?

In Britain, Immigration is Political Landmine - NYTimes.com
I had no idea that there were waves of immigrants coming to Britain. With the expensive cost of living and seeming lack of jobs, it would be the last place I'd think to flee. I'm hoping that some of our British and European members will have some insight to throw our way.

__________________
"Sometimes I have to remember that things are brought to me for a reason, either for my own lessons or for the benefit of others." Cynthetiq

"violence is no more or less real than non-violence." roachboy

dlish

interesting topic.

its very pertinant to what's happening in britain right now. You'll also notice the same or similar trends in europe with nth africans after the colonisation of nth and west africa.

It's a problem to some extent with the lebanese population in Australia too. I'd love to write more right now, but i cant, so ill pen my thoughts when im back home

__________________
An injustice anywhere, is an injustice everywhere

I always sign my facebook comments with ()()===========(}. Does that make me gay?
- Filthy

WinchesterAA

Apparently one of your child prodigies doesn't really appreciate any of the primary political candidates...

(3 part series, this one is on the libdems which your article mentioned before conservative or labour)
YouTube - AdamzoneTopMarks's Channel

On immigration specifically, I live in Texas and I know all about it.

Before the illegal immigration thing became such a hit, there weren't nearly as many "GET SOME FREE MONEY NO MATTER WHO YOU ARE (WASPS need not apply)" programs as there are now.

Also, the majority of all manual labor jobs in this area employ illegal immigrants. Problems with this include - shitty work, redoing shitty work, the redo still being shitty(and now forgotten), no available labor jobs that don't require you to be able to communicate with an entirely spanish workforce, etc etc.


ALSO, crime has gone WAY up in the cities that have been especially friendly to illegal immigrants.
The problems have been exacerbated somewhat due to some "legal segregation" going on down here.

Or, in other words, let's make this city ULTRA SUPER cheap to live in, so that not only will the illegal immigrants from the South be here, but ALSO will a significant portion of the financially troubled black people from a few minutes North (because they want to move the hoodrats out of an otherwise decent area that is beginning to flourish.).

These two groups don't get along by default.

It works because - White people don't want to move to Pasadena because Pasadena is a hispanic city now. They don't want to live there no matter HOW MUCH Pasadena wants to PAY THEM to move in.

Black people, on the other hand, appreciate being given 8 grand + another 2 to 5 grand + another couple of hundred dollars + a tax break + etc etc etc when they move to a city, regardless of what city that might be.

Hispanic people being given consideration -- OF COURSE THEY WANT TO LIVE WITH EACHOTHER! It's just like back home, except now they have air-conditioners, and they can drink the water without going to the hospital. Shit, there's a hospital to go to! Quite a few, in fact.


How has immigration effected me? It made me a foreigner in the place I grew up. Very little reminds me of anything from when I was a kid.

Business is no longer honest.

Seaver

Funny how we both live in Texas and apparently are no where close to the same experience.

__________________
"Smite the rocks with the rod of knowledge, and fountains of unstinted wealth will gush forth." - Ashbel Smith as he laid the first cornerstone of the University of Texas

dippin

Please list all the programs that illegal aliens are eligible to receive.

Actually, please go ahead and list all the programs that do the things you've said in this post.

I see a lot of racial baiting going on, but I've yet to see anything you are talking about. And if this isn't just racial baiting, Im sure you'll be able to provide lots of actual programs that do these things.

WinchesterAA

Seaver - You're a few hours further North of Mexico than I am.

@Dippin - I don't know nothin' about what official programs are available to illegal immigrants.
I do know a group that forges official documents, though!

I also know that their children sure have an awful lot of help going to school.

So much help going to school, in fact, that it is almost impossible to fail.

Not to mention the lack of education coming out of Mexico and IN TO Houston schools is REQUIRING curriculum adjustments (and LOTS of translators! The teachers are still mostly English speakers.)

and I also do know that as soon as illegal Immigration Issues Round 2 began, so did the free munneh programs start to increase. Primarily these programs are designed to get anyone, regardless of the background, college educated. Only problem is you can't college educate someone who can't even spell college.

IE - Our administrators are still dumbin' it down in the spirit of Dubya the Bushman and his Majorities.

IE - College is the new middleschool!

So the next time you bang your frame on pavement when you're riding in the vehicle with someone, remind them that the slowly-roding roads develop fissures and craters from time to time, and that it is better because it helps with keeping water off of the road, and the revenue stream generated from all the tire replacements is beneficial to the undocumented mechanics, and as a consequence - EVERYONE ELSE!

You can feel proud as ever when you endeavor to consider the undocumented workers work; so clever.


For reference, I don't know any illegals that JUST_GOT_HERE.

I only know ones that have been here for more than 5 years or so.

What do you have to say to that one, Dippin?

Cimarron29414

Don't we already have a US immigration thread going? Isn't this one about Britain?

__________________
Gives a man a halo, does mead.

"Here lies The_Jazz: Killed by an ambitious, sparkly, pink butterfly."

dippin

The thing with public programs is that having something that really, really looks like a social security card is irrelevant because the public program actually has access to the social security data base to check if it is a real number, so forged documents or not, illegals still don't have access to these social programs. So again, unless you can back up all these claims with something concrete, I'll take that as race baiting again.

genuinegirly

---

-+-{Important TFP Staff Message}-+- This thread is about British Immigration. Please do not discuss American Immigration issues in this thread.

__________________
"Sometimes I have to remember that things are brought to me for a reason, either for my own lessons or for the benefit of others." Cynthetiq

"violence is no more or less real than non-violence." roachboy

Seaver

Actually, I spent half my time in Texas more than 3.5 hour drive south of Houston. There was 10 white kids in my entire school...

Back to Britain:

Europe as a whole has a very large problem with proper integration. As much beef is made about American racism, Europeans are as bad if not worse. France has entire quarters which police no longer even go to as a result of muslim riots, the last one which went on for a good 9 months straight. England has always been a bit more accommodating, especially as a result of their history of immigration from India, but in all countries across Europe there seems to be a growing xenophobia.

Some consider it a result of a poorly implemented switch from integration to multiculturalism, for which I think there's something to it. The big difference is that in multiculturalism the different "flavors" don't seem to mix, they instead segregate themselves. This creates an us/them association which then breeds problems because our brains are still hard wired to be tribal. Unless there is a cultural melt and mix, I see these problems as inevitable.

__________________
"Smite the rocks with the rod of knowledge, and fountains of unstinted wealth will gush forth." - Ashbel Smith as he laid the first cornerstone of the University of Texas

guy44

When I lived briefly in London, I was shocked at the state of xenophobia there. I was sort of deluded into thinking Europe was a liberal fantasyland, but the reality is that America is far, far better on immigration issues than Europe. The fact is, the US may have massive issues with race and immigration, and a terrible history of racism, slavery, and slaughter, but its also been forced to deal with this issue since before it was even founded. This gives us much more perspective than European countries, which are for the first time really experiencing a large amount of foreign immigration.

Also, the reality is that European countries tend to have deep-rooted identities that combine ethnicity, nationality, race, and religion into a potent mix. Just take the French (please! Ba-dum ding). The US has the advantage of at least theoretically being founded upon an ideal of all men being equal. As a nation of immigrants, the US couldn't be founded on the same mix of identity politics as modern European nations. Obviously, the US has pulled some heinous shit, but this ideal has served us well and enabled us to assimilate just about every newcomer with relative ease.

__________________
"You have reached Ritual Sacrifice. For goats press one, or say 'goats.'"

Charlatan

The new world (North and South America) were both founded by immigrants and as such, despite the issues that flare up now and again, have an innate sense of how to deal with waves of immigration.

The old world of Europe is not able to handle this as well. In fact there is a longer and more virulent history of state sponsored racism, despite strong liberal counter streams, in Europe than in North and South America. The right wing political regimes of the 30s did not rise in a vacuum and they did not disappear after WWII. These movements have grown in power as increasing numbers of immigrants have swelled the stagnating populations of many European nations (politicians know they need to immigrant populations to grow their economies as their indigenous population's birth rates continue to slide).

This kind of attitude is not just a product of Europe and its offspring nations. It can also be seen in Asia. There is a nasty xenophobic streak running through the heart of Japan and Korea. You can also see issues of immigrants and migrant workers combined with a declining indigenous birth rate in Singapore as well. It's one of the big topics in the news these days.

__________________
"My hands are on fire. Hands are on fire. Ain't got no more time for all you charlatans and liars."
- Old Man Luedecke

dippin

It's hard to say where xenophobia and racism is worse. It is especially so because context is so different: colonial and independence wars, larger populations, etc. all play a part on this. I.e., a Mexican crossing the border into what used to be Mexico probably won't have the same reaction as a Muslim Egyptian in London.

It is particularly hard to imagine American reaction if it adopted naturalization laws like that of England and the rest of Europe. For while public reaction might be one thing, official policy on immigration in Europe is radically simpler and easier than in the US.

People are likely well aware of European union citizenship and the fact that citizens of one nation enjoy full benefits in another. And that in a zone with almost as great economic disparity (for example, compare the US's 46000 gdp per capita to Mexico's 13000, and then Luxembourg's 78000 or Switzerland's 43000 to Latvia's 14000).

But beyond that, EU's laws are much more relaxed. First, most nations recognize those born in the colonies before decolonization as citizens. Second, legal residence (different from permanent residence) in most countries for 10 years or more automatically allows them to apply for citizenship. Finally, unlike in the US, there are a number of perks to immigrating to Europe NOT available to citizens (which was a way of encouraging immigration to offset the ridiculously low fertility rates). The Netherlands, for example, has the "30 percent rule," where foreigners in specialized professions only pay income taxes on 70% of their income.

Daniel_

I guess it's about time someone British posts here...

Do you see immigration issues in Britain?

There are some, but from my perspective (I live in the most crowded and therefore most expensive part of the UK) so we don't get huge communities of monoculture. There are places in the country where a single population of immigrants has established a ghetto (stereotypically it's "Indians in Bradford" for example) but this has ALWAYS been the case, and we've ALWAYS integrated in a few generations and moved on, stronger for it.

Put in a historical context, this nation is based on so many waves of immigration I can't count them - we've had Celts, Angles, Saxons, Romans, and Danes in the millennium up to the 10th century, Norman French in the 11th, Jews in the 12th, French, Dutch, Germans, Huguenots, Italians, Spanish, between the 13th and 17th, Africans and Caribbean in the 18th, Chinese and Indians in the 19th and Jews again in the 20th.

As the Empire gave way to the Commonwealth we had waves of Colonial repatriation and economic migrants - Indians escaping problems in Uganda, or Indians and Pakistanis escaping problems of Partition. We've had Nigerians escaping the Biafran war, Vietnamese, Lao and Cambodians escaping the USAF and ARVN, we've had Eastern Europeans escaping economic deprivation as the Soviet Union and it's block collapsed, we've had Yugoslavian escaping the civil wars there.

And every time, we've assimilated and moved on.

Compared to the US we're desirable because we treat sick people free too.

Great Britain has assimilated more cultures than the Borg!

How do they compare to those in mainland Europe?

As the 6th largest economy in the world (after USA, Japan, China, Germany and France), and the third most crowded (after Japan and Netherlands), and widely seen as politically more stable than almost anywhere else in the world, we are a desirable destination. Add to that the fact that we are home to the language that is most commonly spoken in most of the world as a first or second language, and the HUGE proportion of the world that has been taught for generations that England is the motherland and you find that many people come here.

With the Shengen agreement that grants free passage throughout the EU, anyone who can get through the porous borders of Eastern Europe and Southern Europe can get here very easily - America might seem better, but the Atlantic and Pacific make just arriving here simpler.

The remainder of the EU has less of an issue as they had smaller Empires and fewer countries speak their languages - France has a large north African immigrant population, and Germany has many Turkish migrants given the Hapsburg/Ottoman ties, but we have the whole world thanks to the Empire and Hollywood.

Will the recent influx into Britain change its place in the world economy?

Personally, I think that it helps us. Look at it demographically - we have an ageing population, but are making up the shortfall by importing young workers in the prime of their working lives, but many of them hope to take their money home and retire overseas before drawing a British pension. While they're here, they pay our UK taxes and support our schools, hospitals, infrastructure and pensions.

How have you seen immigration change policy?

It's interesting - the influx of young families at a time when our own birth rates were expected to drop have caused a re-focus on school building, maternity services and so on that were not originally expected.

As many immigrant populations are poor they can become an underclass, and there are issues relating to criminal activity increasing in areas with many migrants, but these tend to be transient - living through them is shitty, but when it's over, you tend to find that the migrant ghettos are more productive than the "native" population - what's very interesting is that there are people here now who call themselves "native" because they were born here and live here and they resent immigrants coming into their areas; but these people are themselves descended from immigrants who came here themselves only in the last 40 years.

Put simply, each wave of migration resents the next. Counting only from the 1950s, you have Caribbean followed by East Asians, followed by Eastern Europeans; each viewed the next with suspicion as not being here for the right reasons. I find this hilarious.

What political parties are favored by those who support immigration?

There is no major party that proposes open borders. The three main parties propose variants of the points based system that is already in place in Australia and Canada, but only the Liberal Democrats are doing anything NEW to my mind - they propose that a work permit restrict the parts of the country you can work in - the aim being to prevent ghettos forming, but not close the doors to skilled workers.

The electoral system we have makes it very hard for the Lib Dems to gain power, but with the polls as they are, they could well be the second party in a coalition by the end of the week after next, and this is an issue that could well be key in the horsetrading that goes on.

How does one gain British citizenship, anyway?

Work permit --> Permission to remain indefinitely --> application to become a citizen --> exam proving you speak english and know our culture --> citizenship

There are options to do this in a few years if you are already an EU citizen, or are married to a UK national.

There is a half-way house that we are unique in having too - if you were born in a former part of the Empire WHILE IT WAS STILL IN THE EMPIRE you can have a passport, but you are not a citizen - however if you satisfy this rule becoming a citizen is a little easier.

__________________

╔═════════════════════════════════════════╗
Overhead, the Albatross hangs motionless upon the air,
And deep beneath the rolling waves,
In labyrinths of Coral Caves,
The Echo of a distant time
Comes willowing across the sand;
And everthing is Green and Submarine
╚═════════════════════════════════════════╝