From Highly Skilled to Illegal Immigrants

A tripodal discourse by three friends- Chris, a Briton, Magun, a Nigerian and Harris, a Pole, while they commuted from Victoria Rail Station to Edmonton Green in London

Chris: Our government is careless by allowing too many people into the country, while many Britons are made unemployed. Have you seen the latest Office of National Statistics (ONS) figures showing that 6.5 million people born overseas were resident in the UK in the year to June 2008? This is, in fact, an increase of almost 300,000 on the year to June 2007.
Harris: But the percentage of non-UK nationals that is employed in the UK is 8% and this is lower than many of the countries people compare Britain with.
Chris: Why should the government provide over £1 million houses to immigrants at taxpayers’ expense?
Harris: Where were you in 2006 when immigration brought in an extra £12 billion to £18 billion in tax since 1998? East European workers were at the same time helping to reduce Britain’s trade deficit by an extra £1 billion every year.
Chris: Many of the record 400,000 graduates leaving university this summer will not find work in the recession. And between 10,000 and 18,000 highly-skilled migrants are expected to come to the UK this year to look for work without already securing employment. Magnum, what do you think?
Magun: Chris, for the umpteenth time, I’m Magun, not Magnum! Don’t you think it is wrong to link immigration to UK’s current financial crisis? Is that not playing on people’s fears? A recent study by the Institute for Public Policy actually showed that fewer migrants were arriving in the UK and more were leaving. More will leave because of the recession.
Harris: In the last decade for example, the level of emigration from the UK to Australia has more than doubled- 40,000 Britons moved to Australia in 2007, while 23,000 say that they will stay there permanently.
Chris: But why should non- EU economic migrants be allowed to come here to look for work? The number of non-UK born workers employed in Britain went up by 214,000 to 3.8 million last year, according to the ONS. Yet the number of UK-born workers fell by 278,000 to 25.6 million over the same period. Why should the Government, issue a record 150,000 work permits to non-EU citizens last year alone just as the ONS released the unemployment figures, which showed that number of people out of work had risen to 1.97 million? The figures showed that in the 12 months to fourth quarter of last year, employment of all workers in the UK, both UK and non-UK born fell by 59,000.
Magun: hasn’t the UK Border Agency further tightened the noose on all highly skilled professionals wishing to come to the country? I hear they must now hold a minimum of M.Sc and earn an annual salary equivalent of £20,000. In Nigeria, if you earn that kind of money and leave your job for here then you need to have your head examined! UK employers are now required to advertise positions at UK job centres and provide proof of inability to recruit workers from UK before considering recruiting foreign workers from outside the EU. How else do you want to be protected?
Chris: The contribution of immigrants to the UK economy is negligible though. Your economic benefit is only 4p a week for each person in Britain. Though you guys add to production, but you also add in virtually the same proportion to population. You are the beneficiaries at the end of the day; for example immigrants were able to send home about £10 million each day in 2007!
Magun: But we bring valuable skills and ideas with us and help pay for your public services and pensions, long after many migrants have returned home.
Chris: Why is it that in spite of the fact you guys are highly educated most are working in more low-skilled jobs? You are actually replacing low-skilled UK workers in certain jobs!
Harris: Phil Woolas, Immigration Minister, has said the UK wants to maintain the highest possible levels of British graduate employment by ensuring British jobs for British graduates!
Magun: And that is in spite of the Home Office’s estimation that HSMP visa holders outside the EU could boost the economy by up to £84 million in a year. They are allowed to stay initially for two years and after that, they and their families get booted out for failing to earn £35,000 in a recessed economy, which has seen unprecedented layoffs even of British professionals. Meanwhile these guys did sign documents pledging to make the UK their new home.
Harris: The government is not insensitive, I am sure it would factor the recession in when visa extension applications were made.
Magun: These guys are professionals who need time to integrate and show the stuff they are made of. They need not have stringent conditions imposed on them- look at Australia, Canada, New Zealand, etc. They do not take your life’s savings brought from your poor country only to kick you out after two years because you could not earn some digits! Stop attracting hard-working and honest professionals from their already disadvantaged countries only to pauperize and ‘remove’ them to their countries- they are worse off at the end of the day. The UK government should scrap the scheme to the Third World because it is further under-developing them if the government will not allow these guys to realise their dreams and return (if they wish) at a time they deem appropriate.
Chris: Did anyone force you guys to come? You cannot ask the Home Office to scrap anything- it is a free world! Go back to your country or move to Australia, etc.
Magun: Easier said than done, Chris!
Harris: Highly skilled migrants are not the source of terrorism and crime; they are not parasites on the British taxpayer. I sympathise with you, Magun.
Magun: why is the government happy to encourage unlimited immigration of unskilled and unemployable “assylum seekers?” why would it not deport illegal immigrants and why does it retain convicted criminals who should have been deported? Why does the Home Office target a group of revered taxpayers and their innocent children and responsible wives? What has happened to the suspected Filipino murderer found to be working in a care home here?
Harris: The Immigration intelligence report was produced more than two years ago but its findings have been ignored! An official actually said very few cases are acted on, while ministers continue to ignore them in the obscene interests of costs! These cases are not seen as a priority and most of them simply end up in the bottom of the pile!
Magun: 11,000 illegal immigrants were cleared to work as security guards but they wouldn’t approve an HSMP visa holder’s application simply because he mailed returned application back to P.O.Box of origin instead of another belonging to the same organisation; yet he sent an email the day after posting it to apologise for the inadvertent error.
Harris: It’s a ‘templated’ society; I therefore agree with you that recession does not exist in the Home Office’s template! Hello Chris, are you there?
Chris: I’m worried, guys. The gap between those of you coming to the UK and those leaving it will run more than 200,000 a year until 2012. About 70% of population growth over the next 25 years is expected to be due to migration. According to the ONS, population grew by nearly two million to 61 million people between 2001 and 2007, while it is expected to reach 77 million by 2051.
Harris: But compared with many western countries, long-term net migration flows into the UK are relatively small. Take for example, between 1971 and 2006 the UK population grew by 8.2%, while the US population grew by about 45% with international migration being the main driver.
Chris: According to Equifax more than a third of UK workers expect to earn less this year; 36% believe they will lose overtime or have their work hours reduced; 84% have yet to receive a pay rise and; one in four are concerned that their homes could be repossessed. How dare the Romanian (EU) former convict come over to the UK to rape a woman because he wanted to be sent to jail so he could learn English, be fed and educated!
Harris: I hope you are not starting an auction of anti-foreigner rhetoric. After all, there was a £220m EU-wide fiscal stimulus! That’s no licence to crime though.
Chris: We must put British people first or we all will risk fuelling racism.
Magun: Are you reminding us of the row over the recruitment of foreign workers at the Lindsey oil refinery?
Chris: Whatever! Canada is still looking to fill its 265,000 new immigration slots for 2009; New Zealand and Australia are looking for immigrants, etc. Why don’t you guys give these places a try? Anyway, Magnum, what does your name mean?
Magun: I will not tell you, but it’s akin to saying “from Highly Skilled to Illegal Immigrants- despite paying all taxes and not claiming benefits!”

Danesi lives in the UK