Illegal immigration in UK

[Scourge]

Hello,

I'm doing a talk for the school on the illegal immigration in UK.
I'm asking for help because a part of the talk is on the opinion of the British people.

What does British people think about the illegal immigration ? So if you are british please answer :

Is it beneficial for the UK ?
If yes, in what ways ?
If no, why ?

Do these immigrants steal jobs ?

Do they make increase the criminal rate ? Delinquency statistics ?

Do you think they are too numerous ?

What do you think government's policy towards illegal immigration should be ?

Thanks everyone.

[DeltaWhisky58]

Warning - highly controversial topic which could easily become a flame war. The first hint of flaming and I'll close it.

Scourge - I think there is plenty material available on the web for you to research this fully yourself.

[Fee Fi Fo Fum]

Illegal immigration is indeed a hot topic on this island, and something which is constantly in the media spotlight.

I'm personally against our current immigration policy and would like something in effect on par with the Canadians or the Aussies (Require a trade or other means to benefit to the state)

I think we're tired that illegals pass many country's before they arrive at our shores, and it makes you ask why? Better living? Better chance to sponge off the system? I'm not too sure.

Another point (And I'm talking personally from my neck of the woods) is that they seclude themselves from society and create areas unique and secluded from their host counterparts making hardly any effort to get involved in the community around them.

I could go on, but they are the points off the top of my head without going extreme...

[Hydro]

ILLEGAL immigration is not good for the UK.

I used to live near Dover, where just about ALL the illegal immigrants came in. Mainly Albanians and Kosovans, in the backs of lorries, clinging to the underneath of freight trains coming through the Channel Tunnel into Folkestone, one dude even climbed onto the front of a ferry and hung on tight for an hour while it crossed the channel. The first thing that would happen would be the asylum claim, when refused, they'd vanish. A lot of criminal gangs made their way over with these "asylum seekers". Of course there were genuine cases, but there were a hell of a lot of problems with the gangs that seemed to form around Dover town centre.

We had 56 Chinese die in the back of a container, opened up at Dover. There was a big Chinese problem, snakeheads smuggling them in to work for them, this was highlighted in the Morecambe Bay incident when several illegals were drowned winklepicking, working off their prices.


Illegals and jobs isn't much of a problem, as they're illegal, they can't get employed in mainstream jobs anyway. The legal immigration (mainly Poles and other Eastern Europeans) come here and they all seem to just get jobs and settle down. There's no real animosity about them "taking jobs" as they seem to fill the work gap left by chavs not working.

[Lazy Lob]

First of all the topic is “illegal immigration” then you ask if immigration is good for the UK.

Illegal immigration is not good.

Legal immigration is good but there are caveats. Migration to the UK has given us riches, ideas, institutions and much more that we would not have or taken much longer to develop.

But we are overcrowded and our old and decrepit institutions are creaking. Physically the South East has reached saturation point. Services are overstretched and money is not flowing in to cover the massive increase in population. Even though many of these new migrants (mainly Poles) have employment their British counterparts are being pushed out of certain jobs. These Brits do have entitlement to the dole and other services thus overloading them.

It is helping TB by keeping wages down and making certain industries much more competitive. This is keeping inflation down, but this is only temporary. I predict unemployment will skyrocket by the end of 2007.

Legal immigration has been a tool for TB and he’s made a real balls up by not thinking ahead.

Finally and probably the most important facet of the current legal immigration is cultural. Britain, as all other nations, has benefited from migrants and their culture. That is undeniable. But the rate of immigration is worrying. Society (as a whole) is in flux and is not being given time to adjust. The non stop stream of migrants, both legal and illegal is segregating Britain.

The reality is that we have an open border policy and the whole world knows about it. Romania and Bulgaria are just over one month away. My questions is: What happens when the money runs out?

[Scourge]

Firstly thanks for your answers which will be very useful.

I know it's controversial. I live in France and it's very very controversial currently :)

I have browsed the web but it's difficult to find opinions from "basic" UK citizens.
Of course, if you have links for recent newspapers articles or such it's greatly appreciated.
Other opinions are welcome also.

Moderator, if some ppl start flaming please lock the topic.

[Freedom06]

In Britain the public debate about immigration has become one of the most important issues for voters these days-partly because a lot of other issues are thrown in under the umbrella term 'immigration'-as others pointed out, sometimes the difference between legal and illegal immigration is missed, or asylum seekers are put in the same box.

On top of this you add the current fear and concerns about terrorism in the public mind (particularly islamic) into the mix-particularly our traditional links with Pakistan for example- and the inability of the Home Office to keep track of illegal immigrants and give figures when asked to.

Also there exists currently a 'british/english' identity crisis-what it means to be british and how to integrate immigrants so that they become 'british'. The goverment recently introduced so called 'citizenship ceremonies' similar to america to try to address this issue.

Thrown into the debate is the current crisis in cheap housing in this country-house prices are rocketing and the government has failed to build enough affordable housing. Then there is the question of the NHS (our national health service) and its need for foreign doctors/nurses as we do not have enough trained doctors here in britain to meet the demand-so the government has been actively recruiting people from overseas. Because our ecomomy is or was growing strongly there was also a need for new immigrants-but this particular demand is met now I think and we no longer need a new influx.

Then there is the fact that ordinary people here in the UK are increasingly of the view that our politicians are divorced from 'the real world' and that it is all very well for them and the 'upper middle class' to welcome 'multi-culturalism' as a good idea since they live in deepest Hampshire or where-ever-a million miles from the steets of Leicester/Birmingham/Bradford where there are large minority communities etc. Of course this argument when applied to politicians is unfair since many of them represent these kind of constitiuencies anyway.

So I think this topic is connected to many 'hot' issues of the day which need to be teased apart in order to have a constructive debate.

[BigBaribal]

A good site on the subject, with lots of factual datas:

http://www.migrationwatchuk.org/

[BigBaribal]

"....and the inability of the Home Office to keep track of illegal immigrants and give figures when asked to."

.... and this is not surprizing, when a country is managed this way, basically the madmen running the hospital:

"A leading member of an extremist Islamic group is working as a senior official at the Home Office, it has emerged.

Abid Javaid is a 'senior executive officer' in the IT department at the scandal-hit Immigration and Nationality Directorate which processes tens of thousands of asylum and visa applications every year.

But he is also an activist in the fundamentalist Islamic group Hizb-ut Tahrir which believes in a worldwide Islamic state under Shariah law."

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=416467&in_page_id=1770&in_page_id=1770&ct=5&expand=true#StartComments