Are MigrationWatch just a bunch of dearly beloved loonatics ?

[skillipedia]

Few weeks ago i sent this email to MigrationWatch after the 1m for each illegal immigrant joke:

How on earth each regualrised illegal immigrant will cost tax payers' £1m. None of them will work for one day as you may assume! Allegations such this one proves that you are a bunch of thinkwankers not a thinktank. Only the Daily Mail and The Sun will relay your silly statistics

Today I received a reply

We think you have misunderstood our press release and research document. We do not support the regularisation of illegal immigrants. If the government were to regularise their stay in this country it would cost the taxpayer £1 million for each one allowed to stay. That is just the cost of the benefits they would be eligible to claim over the period of their life. They would also immediately be eligible for social housing, NHS treatment etc.

Yours sincerely
Judy Elsdon (Ms)
Honorary Secretary

What do you make of these nutters

[kawasaki1]

so their assumption is each single immigrant will claim all the benefits they possibly could for the duration of their whole life. Nice.

[meats]

Few weeks ago i sent this email to MigrationWatch after the 1m for each illegal immigrant joke:

How on earth each regualrised illegal immigrant will cost tax payers' £1m. None of them will work for one day as you may assume! Allegations such this one proves that you are a bunch of thinkwankers not a thinktank. Only the Daily Mail and The Sun will relay your silly statistics

Today I received a reply

We think you have misunderstood our press release and research document. We do not support the regularisation of illegal immigrants. If the government were to regularise their stay in this country it would cost the taxpayer £1 million for each one allowed to stay. That is just the cost of the benefits they would be eligible to claim over the period of their life. They would also immediately be eligible for social housing, NHS treatment etc.

Yours sincerely
Judy Elsdon (Ms)
Honorary Secretary

What do you make of these nutters

I fail to see how you think they are dearly beloved from their response?

[meats]

so their assumption is each single immigrant will claim all the benefits they possibly could for the duration of their whole life. Nice.

That's how they should work things out for the illegal immigrants in this country. The government severely underestimated the impact that opening the EU borders would have on this country, so it is always best to overestimate than underestimate.

From a personal point of view, unless one's life is underthreat, then i'd rather see my taxes spent on the removal of illegal immigrants instead of providing them with housing, food, benefits, nhs treatment etc which they would be entitled to once made legal.

[Sten]

I fail to see how you think they are dearly beloved from their response?

Frankly me too .. its probably the Ali G's way of using this word ...

[kawasaki1]

The government severely underestimated the impact that opening the EU borders would have on this country, so it is always best to overestimate than underestimate.

I would argue opening of the EU borders has created the exact impact it was designed to - migrate jobs to where they are needed quickly and easily. Those same people are now going back since the jobs here are drying up. However, absorbing temporary increases in migrant workers from the infrastructure perspective is something the UK has not dealt with properly. This does not make the idea of free labour movement wrong.

Quoting statistics such as £1m per illegal immigrant given amnesty is not overestimating, it is just wrong. The majority of those people would be able to have real jobs and therefore pay real taxes and contribute to the economy and society. Whether it is the right thing to do is a separate question.

[meats]

I would argue opening of the EU borders has created the exact impact it was designed to - migrate jobs to where they are needed quickly and easily. Those same people are now going back since the jobs here are drying up. However, absorbing temporary increases in migrant workers from the infrastructure perspective is something the UK has not dealt with properly. This does not make the idea of free labour movement wrong.

Yes and no. As i said the government underestimated the effect it would have. They estimated that there would be around 12,000 Eastern European migrants per annum. As we all know there were considerably more than that. Some of them are going back, the majority have not gone back. This is part of the reason for the BNP success as a lot of Brits are fed up with no border control within the EU, but the main parties ignore immigration because they don't want to be labelled as dearly beloved. That's another discussion mind. This is not helped by the fact that, according to EU laws, the first EU country that an immigrant arrives in has a duty to look after them. Yet somehow a hell of a lot end up in the UK? You only have to look at Calais and see how happy the French government are to pass them on to us to see what a resounding 'success' that EU policy has been.

Quoting statistics such as £1m per illegal immigrant given amnesty is not overestimating, it is just wrong. The majority of those people would be able to have real jobs and therefore pay real taxes and contribute to the economy and society. Whether it is the right thing to do is a separate question.

The majority might well do. However then it begs the question, 'why have you come here illegally in the first place'? Quite frankly i have very little time for people who have knowingly entered illegally and knowingly overstayed. That's my personal opinion.

Whether every illegal immigrant costs the taxpayer £1m, i do not know. However, i do not want to take the risk that it would. As i said i'd rather see my taxes spent on removing them instead of giving them legal status unless their life was threatened (which in most cases is not the case).

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstop ... nesty.html

[shokishoki]

I did not find the response dearly beloved. I follow comments made by MigrationWatch fairly regularly and they are actually quite straightforward about their policies. They mainly want illegal migrants encouraged to leave or removed, hefty fines for employers of illegal migrants, limits on legal migration and a break in the link between legal residency and naturalization. Of course if implemented their policies will mainly affect migrants from the developing world (both illegal and legal) and we do tend to be mostly non-caucasian which is why many people are rightly wary about their policies.

[ciaramc]

Yes and no. As i said the government underestimated the effect it would have. They estimated that there would be around 12,000 Eastern European migrants per annum. As we all know there were considerably more than that. Some of them are going back, the majority have not gone back. This is part of the reason for the BNP success as a lot of Brits are fed up with no border control within the EU, but the main parties ignore immigration because they don't want to be labelled as dearly beloved. That's another discussion mind. This is not helped by the fact that, according to EU laws, the first EU country that an immigrant arrives in has a duty to look after them. Yet somehow a hell of a lot end up in the UK? You only have to look at Calais and see how happy the French government are to pass them on to us to see what a resounding 'success' that EU policy has been.

It is not the first country an immigrant arrives in is the one to take them in....it is actually the first country they are stopped in. So if an Iraqi is not caught by an immigration control until the UK then it is up to the UK to sort out their request for aslyum!

I agree with some of your points....but I hate this Eastern European...they are not Eastern they are Europeans fullstop....just like they have the right to work in your country, you have a right to work in theirs!

The majority might well do. However then it begs the question, 'why have you come here illegally in the first place'? Quite frankly i have very little time for people who have knowingly entered illegally and knowingly overstayed. That's my personal opinion.

Okay so alot of people overstay visa...etc which ruin it for the other people to come here legally! But please why do they become illegal? Maybe because their country is war torn/dictattorship??? Maybe they come from places like Iraq, Afghanistan, Zimbabwe or Palestine? Do you really think they would ever be issued with visas? Some of them don't even own passports! I'm not saying illegal immigration is right....but in some cases they have no other choice!

Most of us have personal experiences of embassies etc....with the issuing of visas? If it is difficult for spouses and family members.... imagine what it is like for these poor people!

The only reason that blantantly dearly beloved parties like BNP won is because how the media protrays immigration.....giving us statistics like 1 million per illegal immigrat....when in reality the majority of these people want to work and pay taxes!!! Not live off the state?

Just my personal opinion......i have noticed how dearly beloved people have become over the past couple of years.....when most of us in our families have someone who has immigrated at on time or another!

[meats]

It is not the first country an immigrant arrives in is the one to take them in....it is actually the first country they are stopped in. So if an Iraqi is not caught by an immigration control until the UK then it is up to the UK to sort out their request for aslyum!

The French know perfectly well about all of the illegals in Calais trying to cross the Channel every night yet they do nothing/very little about it. Why should they stop them when they know that it will be our problem as soon as they get on board that lorry? As the French say 'it is now the British problem'.

Okay so alot of people overstay visa...etc which ruin it for the other people to come here legally! But please why do they become illegal? Maybe because their country is war torn/dictattorship??? Maybe they come from places like Iraq, Afghanistan, Zimbabwe or Palestine? Do you really think they would ever be issued with visas? Some of them don't even own passports! I'm not saying illegal immigration is right....but in some cases they have no other choice!

If their life is at threat then why risk going all the way to the UK and not the first safe country they arrive in? Palestine, go to Turkey or Egypt. Afghanistan, go to India. Zimbabwe South Africa, Iraq Iran. They're all safe countries and a lot easier to get to than the UK. There is no justification, with the possible exception of Zimbabwe as it's part of the Commonwealth, to go to the UK.

[ciaramc]

Really not going to get into the whole immigration argument with you as everybody has different opinions (if we all thought the same the world would be a very sad place). Besides we will never know what these people go through (don't get me wrong I know alot of them just come to see what they can get out of the system) but we just happened to be born with the right passports!!

[meats]

Really not going to get into the whole immigration argument with you as everybody has different opinions (if we all thought the same the world would be a very sad place). Besides we will never know what these people go through (don't get me wrong I know alot of them just come to see what they can get out of the system) but we just happened to be born with the right passports!!

I agree there's no real point in getting into this argument as it will be one that will go on and on and will, no doubt, eventually turn into a slanging match the longer it goes on and the more people join in.

[JAJ]

Probably best to close the thread.