Itâs ridiculously difficult for Americans (and fellow North Americans) to live and work in Britain. Itâs harming Britainâs economy, they know it is but because of the public horror over âmass migrationâ everyone has to suffer. I desperately want to live in the UK (and at this stage starting to wonder WHY) but simply canât.
And yet there is an industry built upon bringing in foreign teachers to keep the sometimes insane education system running. North American kids are taught by North American teachers (Iâm talking about where they call home now, not ethnicity or country of birth), but there is a number of British classrooms being taught by âforeignersâ like me. People who wanted to experience another place, and make some money while doing it. Trouble is, we come from very different cultures, with different rules of conduct, dress, an understandings about what are acceptable ways of talking to children. While I was teaching there I was practically shell-shocked when the Head came into my room and tore a strip off my class for being a little noisy while the inspectors were there. I was surrounded by people who honestly seemed to believe that state testing was the best type of assessment. I felt very much alone, and very much in some bizzaro universe where everything I believed to be right was stomped on. Basically what Iâm saying is Iâm glad I left.
The problem comes back to the general point, and that is that for any country migration is a choice. It can choose to accept migrants or not. [Asylum being a separate and minor issue]
So the question is then, which migrants should it accept? The answer is migrants that are beneficial to the country. Politicians however are in the market to deceive people. They claim that migrants make a contribution, but in that lies a lie. The real question is do those migrants make a bigger contribution than the cost of having them here. The answer when it comes to someone working in Starbucks is no.
Taking that Starbucks example. That employee looking at the wages is paying around 100 pounds a year in tax. That doesnât cover the 2,000 a year that their health cover costs. It doesnât cover any of the common goods. It doesnât cover the cost of those on welfare deciding not to get a job because they would be worse off. Itâs not paid by Starbucks in corporation tax, because they are paying very little. It doesnât cover the huge cost of driving up rents and house prices. It doesnât cover the pensions they are accruing. They arenât a net benefit to the UK.
There are people who are a net benefit. They pay more tax than the cost of having them here. By and large I would welcome them. However, if it means depriving a third world country of a doctor, and lumbering them with the cost of educating them, there is a moral issue.
Going forward, thereâs going to be other problems. Look at Detroit. Itâs up with creek because its been deprived of income because the productive have left, and its being running a Ponzi pension set up. Itâs borrowed and spent based on the advance tax receipts. Now they arenât there itâs toast. Mass migration from parts of the EU to the UK and Germany is going to do the same to those parts being depopulated. The moral issue again.
What the left need to worry about relates too to the claims that deportation of families is a human rights violation to remove people from schools and friends. That will just lead to a case where migration in is ruled illegal on the same grounds.
We Canucks used to get a free pass to work in the UK, simply because of membership in the Commonwealth. The rules have changed, so it isnât the case any more. If one your grandparent was born in the UK, and youâre a citizen of the Commonwealth, special rules apply.
If you can talk your employer into paying you more than ÂŁ153K/yr or so, you can get a visa; thereâs no quota/limit on those.
Man, theyâre just taking V for Vendetta as an instruction manual at this point.
Re: Detroit, it hasnât helped that its administrators have been looting it for basically my entire life.
because its so easy for UK or EU citizens to work in the US right???
Your attempt at marginalizing anyone with concerns over immigration are childish at best. The treatment of David MacIsaac seems quite ludicrous but building a whole argument around one cherry-picked case troubles me. You seem to hate the Daily Mail, which is commendable and yet you display the same name-calling and specious tactics that they themselves employ.
Many democratic countries have rather strict immigration policies compared to the UK, and not just those that have high population densities. There certainly are people with racist motives opposing immigration, and I have argued against them, but you cannot tar everyone with the same brush.
I have had the privilege of working with people from many countries and enjoy that kind of diversity. However, I also understand peopleâs concerns. When you look at how packed-in we are in the UK (we have one of the highest population densities in Europe), with houses springing up on every available scrap of land, I cannot blame people for wondering why we are allowing so many people into the country.
Many countries have quite a strict points system for entry, in many cases having a good degree is the only way in. You can argue that this is selfish of them, but itâs certainly not racist.
Whatâs missing from the BoingBoing story and the Observer / Guardian stories is exactly WHY the Home Office thinks their marriage is a sham. Without at least hearing their side of the story itâs hard for me (or anyone) to be objective about this case.
The Home Office quite likely has no view on whether or not their marriage is a sham. Itâs just that the politicians have set themselves a delusional and destructive immigration target (< 100,000 immigrants a year) and this target is impossible to meet because EU citizens cannot be excluded. Therefore every possible step is being taken to exclude non-EU people. If you read the linked article youâd see how ridiculous the rules are now and how they (deliberately) exclude legitimate loving marriages if the British citizen doesnât earn quite a large salary, students who would like to pay our universities money, and all sorts of skilled professionals.
Iâm not a bigot, but lets tackle this problem at its source. Lets impregnate the Daily Heil with a contact poison, one that is released by sweaty palms and accumulates in the targetâs system over several weeks.
Only if we start with covering the Daily Mail with LSD first.
While immigration is a matter reserved entirely to Westminster under the devolution settlement, Scotland is desperate for experienced headteachers to work in its remote and rural communities.
Absolutely no reason to suspect that sticking with England is the least fiscally and socially stable option when considering how to vote on Independence for Scotland.
I can understand the stance of the Home Office to get rid of immigrants from countries were violent or religious extremism is rampant. But his wife has cancer so there should be some form of clemency/exception âŚ
If itâs not racism, itâs the conjoined twin of it; you never see one without the other.
If you were to believe the Home Officeâs rhetoric, being foreign IS âviolent or religious extremismâ.
and, as it happens, violence and religious extremism are indeed rampant in the US:
http://adultthought.ucsd.edu/culture_war/the_american_taliban.html
Letâs all beware of these extremists and their Middle Eastern inspired values.
Thereâs a hell of a lot more to the disaster that was Labourâs open door immigration policy during their last tenure than you want to admit to. However, youâre still welcome to stay, work and contribute.
And likewise to those who do the same - however, if you want to talk about immigration policies, make sure you present the facts accurately, as there are millions who donât work and will never do so, unlike the family youâre using to support your clearly uninformed opinion.
Iâm guessing at some point youâll go back home or move on to another country which is as attractive as the UK to immigrants? Will that be once the UK is at saturation point and you decide âitâs not as good as it used to be?â
Thereâs functionally no such thing as a sham marriage. The only thing that makes a marriage valid, legally, is the paperwork.
I know a fair number of people who are entirely devoted to their spouses but who would totally fail what passes for a sham-marriage test. Fortunately, theyâre citizens, and thus donât have to worry about discriminatory laws designed to weed out foreigners.
You âunderstandâ that itâs preferable to deny entry to people leaving countries with a record of violence and religious extremism? That itâs preferable to deport them back to conditions you seem to admit are bad?
Also, as others have noted, among developed countries, America has some of the highest rates of both violence and religious extremismâŚSo do you think this man should be deported?
