I have been an immigrant and I'm about to marry an immigrant, so I am unashamedly in favour of immigration. While the main parties keep trying to prove that they will be tougher on immigration than anyone else, I can tell you that being an immigrant is already more than tough enough, and instead of just looking at numbers and statistics, how about remembering that immigrants are people, with families and feelings.
I am one of the many millions of UK citizens that have taken advantage to the freedom of movement within the EU. One thing the 'immigration debate' often forgets is that it goes both ways. Imagine you or someone you're close to migrated and they faced the same over the top, hostile press and politics that have taken over the UK. Leaving behind family and friends, missing out major events, living without an established support network is hard enough as it is.
Current Visa rules destroy families for no good reason. Don't fall in love with a foreigner unless you want years of unfair bureaucracy. To bring your husband or wife to the country you have to earn above £18,600 a year. Even if your partner has a better paying job, they won't take that into account. This is supposedly the salary you need in order to support a dependent. Yet it is almost 50% more than someone working full time for minimum wage earns. Surely the minimum wage should provide enough to support a life?
As for 'they took our jobs!', bullshit. Speaking from experience I can tell you that elsewhere, as in the UK, low paid, zero hour, shitty jobs are overwhelmingly done by immigrants. The few natives who give it a go rarely last long. On the other end of the scale are highly qualified people, enriching their chosen destination with knowledge and skills that are needed.
They put pressure on the NHS? Very few people come here solely for treatment. The vast majority of 'health tourists' are actually people living, working and paying tax here. Now, thanks to the hysteria created by UKIP, migrants from outside the EEA will have to pay a 'health surcharge' on top of the stupidly high Visa fee. For non-students this is £200 a year, giving them access to the NHS. So when my soon to be wife applies for her next Visa, she'll have to pay an extra £500 to continue to use the NHS, even though in a year and a half she'll have paid more NI than I have in my entire life. Absolutely ridiculous. Not to mention the thousands of doctors and nurses that have migrated here who will now have to pay for the very service they provide!
Immigration drives wages down? No, greedy bastards drive wages down. Hundreds of firms are caught paying below the minimum wage each year. Why hundreds, year after year? Because the fines they receive are so pathetic that it's worth the risk. The government could raise the minimum wage to a living wage, but would rather just leave it up to the companies. Increasing the minimum wage to a living wage would greatly raise the quality of life of millions of people, reduce the benefits bill by billions (more working people currently receive benefits than ever before, because employers know that they can keep wages low and the government will top them up) and bring in more tax.
Housing shortage? The major causes are landlords building up huge portfolios, charging sky high rents, and buildings being allowed to be left abandoned for years. Limit rents, limit the number of properties than one landlord can own, take back abandoned buildings and redevelop them for social housing and the shortage would be a lot shorter.
Some would have you believe that everything from traffic jams to climate change is caused by immigrants, but it is uncaring governments, putting money before people and the environment that is the true danger to society.
Immigration brings new ideas, skills, thinking, food, art and love. This country has seen wave after wave of immigration throughout history, from the Vikings to the Romans, make it what it is today. We are mongrels. We should be proud of that.
Extra reading:
As migrants we leave home in search of a future, but we lose the past - Gary Younge
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/mar/24/migrants-leave-home-future-past-borders?CMP=share_btn_tw
Britain’s criminally stupid attitudes to race and immigration are beyond parody - Frankie Boyle
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/apr/20/britain-criminally-stupid-race-immigration?CMP=share_btn_tw
Minimum wage: 37 firms named for failing to pay rate
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-30822565
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