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• v3xro 1y ago
  > living at taxpayers' expense Presumably the form for applying for benefits has a reasonably high bar for identifying the fact that you are in fact legally present in the country? Or how else do you imagine people living at "taxpayer's expense"? Just begging on the streets?
  • gretch 1y ago
    If they have a medical incident and go to a hospital emergency room, are they treated?
    • kimixa 1y ago
      Yes, but generally a Medical Incident isn't really particularly desirable. You don't really get anything out of it other than "being healthy", which could be argued as being a right, and often a prerequisite for starting to contribute. Gatekeeping that just ensures they never will.
    • Muromec 1y ago
      That's the abuse of my tax money I can allow according to my beliefs, religious or otherwise.
    • throwaway150 1y ago
      Do you know how much money the immigrants pay as taxes, health surcharge and National Insurance contributions in exchange for the right to live and work in the UK? Don't forget that the taxes, health surcharge and NI contributions of the immigrations are literally funding the NHS! I think it is fair to expect the contributors to get treatment when they are contributing so much to it.
      • aucisson_masque 1y ago
        In my experience, immigrants have low paying jobs and regularly use cash to avoid paying taxes. Most have no sense whatsoever of cohesion with the country they live in and instead make groups of similar culture that don't really try to fit in.
        • throwaway150 1y ago
          All my immigrant friends are skilled workers who earn more than an average citizen, contribute more taxes and pay exorbitant fees for visa, health surcharge and NIC. I am sure there are immigrants in low paying jobs too. Perhaps we need to talk about different types of immigrants rather than clubbing them all into one "immigrant" category and reinforcing the same tired tropes about immigrants.
          • randerson 1y ago
            This thread is about illegal immigrants. If your friends paid for visas, that would imply they are in a different immigrant category than what we're discussing.
            • kimixa 1y ago
              Really "Illegal" immigrants are often a tiny fraction of a tiny fraction - pretty much a rounding error in budgets. But naturally blown up for Politics. It's not actually particularly nice to live illegally.
            • sfoley 1y ago
              No it isn't. This line of comments is explicitly in response to your claim: > Isn't a larger issue the number of immigrants who are NOT contributing to the economy, living at taxpayers' expense No one has yet mentioned illegal immigrants except you. In any case it doesn't matter, since GP was specifically replying to: > In my experience, immigrants have low paying jobs and regularly use cash to avoid paying taxes. Most have no sense whatsoever of cohesion with the country they live in and instead make groups of similar culture that don't really try to fit in. They were simply giving their own opposite experience on the subject of immigrant wages and taxation, which is equally as valid. If this thread was actually about illegal immigrants, both comments would be equally off topic. I find it interesting which one you decided to respond to.
  • tripplyons 1y ago
    The streets themselves are maintained at the expense of taxpayers, regardless of who is begging on them.
    • sterlind 1y ago
      consuming oxygen produced by great British trees, too! when will the freeloading stop?
• crimsoneer 1y ago
  Crime is literally at all time lows
  • logicchains 1y ago
    The number of rapes is at an all time high, increased more than fourfold in the last couple decades: https://www.statista.com/statistics/283100/recorded-rape-offences-in-england-and-wales/?srsltid=AfmBOooyjX9i9xW6d0__rIGEKpMHUS0PD8fUjNKgXxLBt0AxVOzAjDy7 https://www.statista.com/statistics/283100/recorded-rape-off...
    • paxys 1y ago
      Considering that up until a couple decades ago women would be ostracized from society for disclosing that they were raped, that isn't surprising.
      • boringg 1y ago
        Thats a bold statement - certainly possibly as a factor but to 4x it that seems unlikely. It sounds like you are callously dismissing valid concerns.
        • paxys 1y ago
          Why use absolute numbers rather than per capita? What is the link between rape and immigration?
          • tropdrop 1y ago
            Articles like this [1] (re: Rochdale gang) are contributing to the impression of a link in the UK. There's also the Rotherham child sexual exploitation scandal [2] which affected an estimated 1,400 girls specifically in Rotherham. Population of Rotherham is 265,800, for reference. In both these cases, girls were charged and the offenders are Pakistani. There is also a recent video of a girl wielding an ax and knife to protect her and her sister in Scotland [3]. She has been charged with brandishing weapons. Interestingly, the BBC has issued an article [4] claiming that it was a "Bulgarian couple" that the girls approached, and to not "spread misinformation." I am a researcher of Slavic languages, so I can tell you from watching the video in [3] that the accents featured in this video are not Bulgarian. I am not willing to stake a claim in what they actually are (someone else is welcome to comment). Actually, I'm quite alarmed that the BBC is claiming this, as I generally consider the BBC reputable. 1 – https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cdd2rld9mj2o https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cdd2rld9mj2o 2 – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotherham_child_sexual_exploitation_scandal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotherham_child_sexual_exploit... 3 – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OVfpSbLgiBc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OVfpSbLgiBc 4 – https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c3r40gylxpwo https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c3r40gylxpwo
• kypro 1y ago
  I assume you're not from the UK? If we wanted we could stop illegal immigration extremely fast – as you say we are an island so it's relatively easy to stop people arriving. We don't need drones. At the moment after the French have given life-jackets to the illegal migrants and their boats have set off into the British channel, the people smugglers will call the British coast guard and ask them to go pick up the migrants they're smuggling into the country. The UK coast guard then picks them up and escorts them safely to shore. From here the police will be waiting, not to arrest them, but to take them to their hotel and give them a hot meal. Shortly after this charities in the UK will give them phones (typically iPhones), clothes and bikes to get around. The government will also give them some spending money to spend in our towns and cities. We obviously don't have to do any of this and ID cards wouldn't stop any of this. We choose to do this and this is why they come. However between the various reports of migrant hotel stabbings, thefts, sexual assaults, and rapes of children, it's been discovered that some migrants have been working in the UK – primarily in the gig economy. All of the things I've said to this point are not deemed issues and the government has no intention in changing them, but the fact that a small percentage of the migrants coming here are working has caught the eye of our politicians who have stated very strongly that they would prefer the migrants coming here don't work. The digital ID cards will hypothetically help with this "problem" It's hard to explain to people outside the UK how strange this place is. Most countries want a controlled immigration system and treat border security as a national security priority, and when they do allow immigrants into the country they almost always want them to work and pay their own way. The UK basically does the inverse of this. The explanation varies between some combination of letting hundreds of thousands of Afghans into the country is the right thing to do, to it's the law so there's nothing we can do about it. Legal note: This is not an anti-migration post. I am pro-migration.
  • ForHackernews 1y ago
    The French have no incentive to do the British immigration authorities' job for them. In fact, Britain very recently loudly quit an multilateral alliance that involved — among other things – common migration policy. Why shouldn't France give life jackets and boats to people who want to leave France?
• hnlmorg 1y ago
  > Isn't a larger issue the number of immigrants who are NOT contributing to the economy, The bigger issue is people not contributing to the economy. Let’s not peg laziness as an immigration problem because British people are equally lazy. > The other complaint I often see is immigrants' failure to assimilate to British norms, language, and culture. If we forced people to conform to British norms then we wouldn’t enjoy the variety of takeaways that Brits have enjoyed for decades. Which is ironic because a kebab is now considered a British norm for post drinking meals. Plus it’s not as if British people are particularly good at integrating with other cultures. Most Brits can’t even speak a second language and don’t even attempt to learn the customs and language of any other countries they visit. > People who complain about these things seem to often run into the UK's limitations on freedom of speech. I think the opposite is the problem. People have been far too vocal about the mythical problems that immigrants bring and anyone who attempts to present actual facts gets shot down as “woke” or “leftard” etc. We need to stop blaming other people for our own problems.
  • shoobiedoo 1y ago
    Holy mother of [citation needed]. "Brits are just as lazy! Brits never conform when abroad! But it's YOU not showing facts!"
    • hnlmorg 1y ago
      Immigrants take on lower paid jobs that Brits never apply for. There’s been countless examples of this reported.
  • randerson 1y ago
    Major difference between visiting a place and emigrating there. How many cultures actually learn another language just to go on their annual vacation? You seem to be arguing simultaneously that the Brits are worse than average when it comes to adapting to local norms as tourists, while also suggesting that the people moving to Britain permanently shouldn't have to? There's nothing wrong with a culture adapting over time without losing their identity, like your example of Brits deciding to add the kebab. But a small country can't preserve their identity when they are overloaded by so many immigrants coming in at once who FORCE their ways on their new home. Think of it as Push vs Pull, there's a difference. Every country having a unique culture makes the world more interesting. Imagine how boring it would be if you saved up for a trip to Japan/Kenya/Chile/etc, only to find that almost everyone there was a white English-speaking American living the exact same lifestyle you have at home? Leftists would in that case be empathetic toward the remaining indigenous minority who feel their historic way of life was killed off against their will. Why should it be any different if you swap the country and nationalities in this example to what is happening in the UK? I am an immigrant myself, and a fairly liberal one at that. But I made the effort to come to my new home legally and assimilate to the best of my ability. I'm not sure why I should hold others to a lower standard.
• paxys 1y ago
  Inability to work is going to be a far bigger deterrance to illegal immigration than any kind of border control you can put up. Regardless of all the propaganda immigrants aren't coming into the country in droves to bum around, commit crimes and get free services from the government. They want to be able to work and live a normal life. If you deny them that, they will look elsewhere.
  • kypro 1y ago
    [flagged]
    • BriggyDwiggs42 1y ago
      Maybe your idea of afghani culture isn’t exactly representative. Also likely that the immigrants’ culture would differ from that of their native country.
      • kypro 1y ago
        The British government advises me against any travel to Afghanistan because Afghans might try to kill me. This is a country that fought a civil war in the pursuit of suppressing women's rights after all. > Also likely that the immigrants’ culture would differ from that of their native country. https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2016/jun/16/donald-trump/trump-mostly-correct-about-sharia-law-support-afgh/ https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2016/jun/16/donald-tru... I hope you're right and we're getting that 1% of moderate Afghans who just believe that homosexuality is wrong, not that it should be punishable by death. Could you do me a favour and ask yourself if you would take your wife and children on holiday to Afghanistan? Is the answer yes or no? If it's no, please explain why I should therefore be okay with my government allow undocumented Afghan men live in the hotel by my family? At a minimum should we not be vetting these people?
        • ForHackernews 1y ago
          Many of them are people who served alongside British forces, risking their lives to try and prevent the Taliban from turning Afghanistan back into a fundamentalist hellhole. They failed, the US failed, the UK failed, but I submit that most Afghan refugees have much more up-close-and-personal reasons to hate and fear Islamic fundamentalism than you do.
• parthdesai 1y ago
  > The other complaint I often see is immigrants' failure to assimilate to British norms, language, and culture. I do get your point, as an Indian who migrated to Canada, it’s one of my pet peeves where some of my relatives live in their enclave only, i.e. surround themselves with like minded Indians, but this is pretty ironic when it is coming from Brits.
• matthewmacleod 1y ago
  Isn't a larger issue the number of immigrants who are NOT contributing to the economy, living at taxpayers' expense, with many immigrants engaging in crime? No, this is not supported by any real evidence. They could create a polite British form of ICE I can think of few things the UK should do less than ape American attitudes to immigration currently.
• tim333 1y ago
  >The UK must surely have satellites or drones that can spot boats of migrants coming in via France You don't really need that - you can stand on the beach and watch. The issue is more with the laws - we have human rights laws where you can claim asylum and a very slow and expensive legal system where almost no one actually gets send back. What the government should do is change the laws to something that agrees more with common sense.