Illegal immigration - what to do?

POGS I live in your area too and I take your point about friends and family visiting and being amazed at the variety of cultures they think they can see. Those of different skin colours are easy to spot but what they tend to miss are the white immigrants who, unless you happen to hear them speaking in their own language, can easily be missed.

I have no problems with people from different races and cultures coming to the UK, and indeed the NHS, service industries and farming could not survive without them, but you are correct about the sheer numbers.

Then there problems of a large percentage of immigrants all settling into a particular area and creating monocultures which means they are not integrating into local communities.

Eloethan

Leicestershire/Warwickshire

I do have a good mix of friends from different cultures, backgrounds so I am speaking as I find in an honest fashion in my post I think you are referring to.

The problem arises when the discussion does not concentrate on the ''numbers' of immigrants and the problems that causes but is turned into a slanging match practically calling people racist/xenophobic without saying the words but the nobody is fooled.

I have a different take to you on rural areas. When I have relatives stay from Somerset Devon they are totally bemused when they go to Leicester/Coventry shopping .They don't worry about immigration as it doesn't affect their day to day lives but they find it amazing to see how the other half lives.

It is the case also that ethnic tensions are not necessarily as portrayed , white against black, christian against Muslim etc. etc. I would have thought you would be well aware of gang culture living in London. Even the likes of Jack Straw kept telling the truth about the tensions between the immigrants from various countries in his constituency, others too. I won't give details of which don't get on with which or I would open another can of worms. As a Londoner you must be aware of what I mean.

Now I am well aware that gangs have been going on for centuries in the UK but the reason I mention them is I get fed up with the continual need to sanitise the debate of immigration and being pushed into seeing immigration through rose tinted glasses that believes all is peace and love, we shall overcome rubbish.

I am greatful to be able to discuss so many issues with my friends . I find that our views are very similar when it comes to immigration numbers and I am heartened that our discussions are reasoned, not seen as xenophobic nor racially motivated but as I keep harking on about 'the numbers' and how impossible it is to maintain the running of the UK , for all it's citizens irrespective of colour or creed.

POGS I have no idea where you live but my experience appears to be different from yours. I think that most people who live in areas where there are lots of immigrants are not that bothered about it.

Having lived in rural locations, I have found that these tend to be the places where people who have had almost no experience of immigration work themselves up into a panic about it.

I live in east London which has a very diverse population. For the most part, people get along pretty well and are not fixated on people's ethnic origins.

Sorry,harrigran.
We once had a Muslim doctor staying in the guest house. He had changed jobs, so his wife was still at the house they shared with his mother and their son. He was looking for a house in York, and was explaining about the financial system. His mother was selling the house for the deposit, then their bank would buy the new house and he would pay them. They were not allowed to charge interest. It sounded a good system because you always knew what you were paying.

My grandson used to come to the guest house before breakfast, and this doctor would sit on the floor and play with his cars with him.

Before the guest house, I was a teacher, and taught migrants, and refugees at times. I also remember when I was a kid that my parents had a big house and there were always different nationalities staying with us; Nigerian, South African, Jamaican, Irish, Australian. When I was five, we had an English man with a German wife. This was less than ten years after the war. Very brave of my parents, I realised later.

It was not meant to be sarcastic, I have read all your posts on the subject and you do seem to be genuinely caring.

Open season on me, is it? Let's attack Durhamjen, that's always fun.

At least I care.

I do not think putting a smile after that comment makes it any the less sarcastic, harrigran.

I think you have missed your vocation durhamj, you are admirably suited to caring for migrants. You told us that you ran a B&B so you are probably better equipped than most

A coincidence, Jen? That two very welcoming countries have turned this way.
Here in Southend, we have always been a League of Nations and bumped along very happily like this for years.
Things have changed now, and that change is numbers. Plain and simple.

So, did that mother and five year old get brought back to Britain? Sounds like they did! That wouldn't happen everywhere!

That picture is deliberately emotive.

DJ I shall keep this brief as I have better things to do with my precious time

from the guardian so it must be right
The woman claims to have been in the UK illegally since 1991 and applied for asylum in 2010, stating that she feared destitution and discrimination as a single mother in Nigeria with no immediate family.

where is the father ? what has she been living on for the last 25 years?
that would not be the actual boy in question to protect his identity
we do not have all the facts which if they were complete there may well have been a miscarriage of justice

It's not to do with how migrants feel, but how we behave towards them.
Right wing policies and austerity are given as the reasons for the drop in position.
Of course, some people might think that is a good thing.
I do not.

Why is it up to us to try to integrate them? Shouldn't they make a bit of effort themselves?

Ah, that's why they are queuing up at Calais, they want to come because we are unfriendly.

The UK has dropped from 10th to 15th in a survey of how friendly we are to migrants, and how well we try to integrate them.

www.mipex.eu/uk-and-netherlands-become-less-migrant-friendly

www.politics.co.uk/comment-analysis/2015/07/01/comment-how-we-impoverish-children-in-the-name-of-a-tough-im

I feel quite ashamed that this is done in my name.

Yes excellent post.

Excellent post,POGS. I responded to an OP on here last year about how a certain race of people from a certain part of Eastern Europe were operating a certain practice in my town.
I was dully shouted down and got a slapped wrist from GN. I realised then that ( I think) most people on here have no idea what it's like.
Apologies for the repetition of 'certain' It is the only way I can put it without being flamed again.

A lot of people have no concept of the problem as they haven't a clue about the flow of immigration into this country. They don't see it, they don't live with it, they have not had their communities disrupted by it. They can talk about it though as if they do know what it's like , they do not.

If you don't live in an area of high immigration you have little to no idea of how or why some people say enough is enough.

I have friends of varying religions but they too are concerned about 'the numbers', this is not a white only issue or as some rudely call it 'Little Englanders'. That is the term used by the head in the sand brigade to try and shut down debate and constantly choose to insult other peoples views.

Last year another legal 318.000? entered the country and who knows how many illegally. The legal number of immigrants alone means it is equivalent to having to build the housing, schools, hospitals, doctors surgeries, the infrastructure to supply a town the size of Coventry every year. How on earth can that be sustainable, since the late 1990's this has been an ongoing problem and I believe it is not sustainable .

I understand the argument that the NHS relies on immigrant nurses and doctors, it does, unquestionably. The fact is however we know that we need more and more nursing staff and doctors due to the increase in footfall crossing the doors of our hospitals and doctors surgeries. How does adding more and more numbers to the population help the situation.

Perfectly loud and clear thank you , grannyonce
<Whispers especially , "loud">

absent -I wasn't suggesting African families who have been given asylum are illegal immigrants. We do have a growing population of African people who are here illegally though - I don't have figures but my work experience was that 5 of the 5 families I worked with a couple of years ago were from Africa and here under the radar. I entirely understand why they'd rather be here than in their country of origin. I'm in the confused corner about the OP, what to do about illegal immigrants. Given the conflict in Africa and the Middle East it's not a problem that will go away over night but it is a problem, no matter how much we wish it wasn't.

Iam64 Of course some African asylum seekers have sort refuge in Britain. Nevertheless, the majority of displaced people from African countries have gone to other African countries.

absent, the small former cotton town I live in, like other similar towns in this area has been designated an umbrella town for African asylum seekers. We have an increasing African population from Somalia, Sundan, Angola, Congo etc. They seem to be settling in well, children mixing well with the others at local schools. There aren't many jobs though….

Thanks, ethel.

durhamjen, my apologies, I wasn't thinking properly last night. I do know the difference between illegals and immigrants.
I do think that the rumours about sending the immigrants who work in the nhs, back to where they come from, is worrying. In my recent stay in hospital there were almost 50/50, british and foreign workers. The nhs would be in trouble if they all went back.

There are a lot of Somali/Sudanese immigrants in certain areas of the UK.

Just look at Leicester communities for a starter.