illegal immagrants

[rugeleyboy]

i read on here a few weeks back ,someone said the uk needed illegal immagrants...

i ask this question on a learning curve and it is no way meant to be racist!!

so,without patronising or arguing please tell me why this is?

[vehelpfulguy]

I am not sure anyone says we need illegal IMMIGRANTS (although most of them could probably spell better than the people who already live here).

The reason some people say we need legal immigrants is as follows.

People in England are living longer, and those that are young are having less children (one or two children).

So we have a huge ageing population, with few young people coming through to work and hence support them.

Now if you bring in lots of young immigrants, one, they work, pay taxes (hopefully) and help to pay for the elderly, but also immigrants tend to have more children than the people already here so the age of the population gradually reduces.

That is the basic idea.

In my next update I will explain why it has gone wrong.

[vehelpfulguy]

Immigration has gone wrong for a number of reasons.

A few years ago we had strict border controls and could monitor and limit who came here (plus air travel was expensive which limited who could fly here)

Gradually we have softened our borders, partly because of the EU, also the channel tunnel, also cheap air travel.

This has meant it is a lot easier for people to travel to the UK and get in without being spotted or stopped.

We have also had a load of people arriving here saying they are asylum seekers who are patently lying, so that has meant more immigrants.

Once you start to have many immigrants here then criminals start to smuggle more of them in via lorries, boats or whatever.

Then the illegal immigrants can hide within their local ethnic communities, and after a while it is difficult to sort out the legal immigrants from the illegal immigrants and from the asylum seekers.

It becomes such a problem the government, police and home office give up.

Hence we have the problems we have now.

Of course, if immigrants have more children than the people already here, then the percentage of ethnic people in this country becomes a higher percentage year after year.

We already have cities like Leicester when the ethnic population is greater than the indiginous population.

Gradually the number of ethnic people grow and the "whites" diminsh so the whites become the smaller ethnic group.

My wife's mother lives in Sparkhill, Birmingham where it is almost 100% Asian.

If she goes to the council, the library or swiming pool and asks for some sort of benefit she is often told "that is for the ethnic minotities".

When she points out that SHE is an ethnic minority nobody seems to understand.

To be honest I despair of this country, and our political

[Toureman]

I cannot see any country needing ILLEGAL immigrants, LEGAL immigrants, yes.

[saintjohnny]

Western economies (including Britain's) do indeed "need" immigrants to do the jobs that the native population simply won't do. If you look particularly at the care industry, there are thousands of Filippinos and Africans working in nursing homes and hospitals. This is because the training they receive in their home countries is good, but because these countries are poor and unable to pay decent wages or offer good job prospects, they flock to the UK, where there is a severe shortage of carers and nurses for precisely the same reasons. the difference is, to a Fillipino or African worker, even the low wages and long, thankless hours in the UK are a massive improvement on what they can expect at home. The hotel and catering industry is the same, but tends to attract East Europeans; a waitress in London can earn probably 4 times more here than in Poland or the Czech Republic. Without these low paid "basic" workers, the economy, which is built from the ground upwards, would collapse in on itself, and then no-one would have a job. So yes, we "need" immigrants, but the reliance on them to do the jobs that British people turn their noses up at, is a dangerous thing.

[Oneeyedvic]

"If she goes to the council, the library or swiming pool and asks for some sort of benefit she is often told "that is for the ethnic minotities""

So what, in Birimingham books are only available to ethnic minorities? And no british person can swim in the pool? And what type of benefits?

Funnily enough, I can't go simming between certain hours as there is a disabled group who swim - how shocking!

They also closed the library at 6pm last night - disgusting - wasn't available to use the facilities.

And despite having worked since I left school, I can't claim any benefits (well I'm not elligible to)

Isn't it amazing how people will spin stories to suit their politics.

And from the last census - there are ls less than 8% non-white people in the uk - but of course there isno telling if they are British or not.

[JudgeJ]

This issue was aired extensively a week or so ago on AB and I made my views � that mass immigration was not only unnecessary but undesirable - known. Since then a couple of stories have emerged which might give weight to my argument.

Firstly, the �Slough� story was told. In this Berkshire town some 9,000 new NI numbers were issued in the last year. Only 150 of these were to �long-term local� people (I have used this term to avoid being branded a racist).

The government�s official statistics say that only 300 people from other lands settled in the area during that time, and this has meant that government funding for the area is based upon that lower number. This, in turn, had led to problems with school and healthcare provision.

There is a large Polish population in the town. Many of these are recent arrivals and many � even those academically well qualified - are complaining that they cannot find work. The local DWP office is currently struggling to make �Jobseekers� payments to claimants and has a huge backlog.

Secondly, a survey of 20 universities suggested that more than 80% of nurses qualifying this summer have yet to find a job, compared to 30% this time last year. The Department of Health said jobs do exist for newly qualified nurses but they needed to be flexible on location.

These two stories were not portrayed solely in the Daily Mail or any other journal traditionally noted for raising such issues sensationally. They have been substantially similarly reported across a broad spectrum of the media, including even the BBC � well known for its complete impartiality!

There is no reason to believe that what is happening in Slough or with the nursing posts are in any way untypical of what is happening elsewhere. How does this square with the need for mass immigration to maintain essential services?

[lightoftruth]

if you want more info on the ageing population thing try googleing or wiki'ing the "demographic transition model"

[jake-the-peg]

It was me and no we don't need illegal immigrants but we do need immigration.

We have a aging baby boom in the population and with reducing birth rates we'll rapidly get to the stage where the working population is not large enough to properly cope with the non-working population.

This means that you may not generate enough tax income to support public services and you won't have enough workers to fill vacancies.

I believe I said "If you think getting a plumber is hard now - wait 20 years!"

Obviously the more skilled the people we can take the better, but we can't always have rocket scientists so young bright people willing to train and work are good too.

The big row is about how much British culture changes to accomodate them and how much we'd expect them to take our values on board.

[sandbach99]

The skilled immigrants coming to this country are also needed at home, if we have a large number of nurses who cannot find jobs why should we be allowing more nurses to enter the country, I believe Africa is desperately short of nurses because so many have gone to work abroad.

For many years it has been almost imposible to get an apprenticeship in the building trades and there have been very few proper courses at the further education colleges

As a member of the baby boomers I have like most people of the generation paid large amounts of tax and national insurance, I mistakenly thought that this was going to pay for my old age pension, I didn't realize that I was going to have to rely on the next generation, I now wonder where my taxes went.

Anyone splitting household bills upto 15 ways can well afford to take the low paid jobs in hospitality etc, there is no way a single person or couple can afford to do these jobs, as the immigrants marry and want there own homes they won't be able to afford to do these jobs either.

[JudgeJ]

Exactly, sandbach99. Bringing people into this country will result in them suffering from the same problems as the people already here. There is no reason to believe they will fare any differently, and the increase to the population which their presence makes will only make matters worse.

Unless, of course, the country wants to transform itself into a society where most people (except the ruling elite, of course) live in overcrowded, squalid conditions, struggle to make ends meet, and experience shortages of most of the basics required to lead a reasonably comfortable life. Oh, but hang on � isn�t that what it�s like in the countries the newcomers are fleeing from?

[jake-the-peg]

I wonderred when the ruling elite were going to crop up!

In my team we have staff from the UK as well as India, Nepal, France and Brasil because it's just not possible to get enough good skilled people in highly technical areas. By stopping these people you'd hamstring British industry

Overcrowded Squalid conditions struggling to make ends meet!

I'll bet the Judge is having real problems struggling from one foreign holiday to another! Take one in India one year and buy yourself a sense of perspective

[jake-the-peg]

Oh and whilst we're on the subject we' hardly overcrowded !

Even Greater London has a population density of only 4,699/km� Paris is 24,672/km� Barcelona 15,764/km� Even the Hague is more packed 6,600/km�.

As a country as a whole we are the 33rd most densly populated.

If you must while about the state of things you should at least do your homework and argue from hard fact rather than personal experience

[JudgeJ]

The problem when assessing the population density of Greater London, jake, is that the Greater London Area (i.e. that under the auspices of the GLA) contains, in the outer boroughs, huge swathes of open land. Look, in particular, at the boroughs of Bromley, Havering, Croydon and Kingston to see what I mean. Bromley has 2,000 people per sq km, whilst Islington, Lambeth and Tower Hamlets have 6 or 7 times that density. The other cities you mention (particularly Paris) are far more compact and do not encompass such large, sparsely populated areas on their outskirts.

A similar feature is evident when looking at the country as a whole. The population density of the whole of Britain is quite light as you say. But few newcomers will want to settle in rural Wales, Cumbria or the highlands of Scotland. Predominantly they want to stay in London, the South East and other large conurbations. There are no plans to encourage them to do otherwise and it is in these areas where problems are already evident.

[JudgeJ]

BTW, I have travelled extensively in India (not just the tourist areas). I�ve also visited at least 10 African countries, worked in Nigeria for a few months and have also visited Chile, Peru Ecuador and Paraguay. Most of these trips were business, but some were during my �struggles� on holiday.

I can fully understand why people living in those countries should want to leave them. I cannot accept that we have to accommodate their wishes, and will not be hoodwinked into believing that their presence is necessary for us all to maintain an agreeable lifestyle here. Not whilst we have 1m unemployed, anyway.

If you think my description of the potential living conditions of some people here is exaggerated look at the Cowley Road area of Oxford, the Lozelles and Sparhill districts of Birmingham, not to mention some of the less salubrious part of inner London such as Tower Hamlets. I do try to argue from a factual point of view, jake (and try not to be too selective with my facts as you seem to enjoy) but inevitably my experiences will colour my argument too. I just think we�ll have to agree to differ on this one.

[Dizzieblonde]

A popular argument is that immigrants are needed to work, to pay taxes to fund the pension and up-keep of the aging British population, although the obvious fact that the migrants themselves will age too seems ignored. If some immigrants arrive and work here illegally, surely they will not be paying tax anyway?
Similarly, some suggest they are needed to perform the more menial, low-paid jobs which British-born people won't do, although I'm not sure there's any truth in this either. Some sectors - such as nursing - actively recruited migrants from other countries because so few people born here would do it, although that's backfired in recent times with not enough jobs for the British born and trained ones we have.