Is immigration the problem?

Daniel Defoe was thinking about immigration in 1701. In his poem The True-Born Englishman he took issue with the idea that immigration was about ‘us’ and ‘them’ and concluded that the English were really a ‘mongrel half-bred race’. In the preface to the poem he said that the English “ought not to despise foreigners as such…since what they are to-day, we were yesterday, and to-morrow they will be like us.”

It’s a sentiment arguably absent from a new immigration bill that passed its second reading in the House of Commons. Three centuries after Defoe’s poem, the immigration minister Mark Harper hoped that the bill would ‘stop migrants using public services to which they are not entitled’ whilst reducing ‘the pull factors which encourage people to come to the UK’. The bill is the latest in a series of initiatives to reduce immigration, access to visas, and including proposals introduced to prevent you bringing your spouse to the UK unless you earn more than £18,600.

The new bill will require landlords and doctors to check the immigration status of their tenants and patients, and other measures will make it harder for illegal immigrants to obtain driving licenses and bank accounts. It will be more difficult to appeal immigration and asylum decisions and overseas students, who do not have indefinite leave to remain in the UK, will be required to make a ‘contribution’ to the NHS.

When you live in a society that targets communities and individuals as potential immigration offenders there is a danger that you start treating immigration itself as the problem.

Putting aside the question of whether this bill will prove effective, the problem with current rhetoric is that it can be difficult to work out when politicians are talking about illegal immigration or just immigration per se.

The immigration bill is part of a campaign including ‘Go Home or Face Arrest’ vans touring London boroughs and a UK Home Office twitter campaign detailing immigration enforcement raids (#immigrationoffenders). When you live in a society that targets communities and individuals as potential immigration offenders there is a danger that you start treating immigration itself as the problem. In the Daily Mail Mark Harper restated the determination of the government to attract the “best and brightest” to Britain but in the same breath lamented the “uncontrolled immigration [which] has put intolerable pressure on our country’s infrastructure: on schools, housing, and the NHS.”

Not only does the bill obscure the tangible benefits of immigration, it hardens a dichotomy of ‘us’ and ‘them’ that was outdated 300 years ago. An effective immigration policy requires a clear aim and coherent implementation, entirely absent from the current debate.

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Header Image Courtesy of: Flickr.com/ ukhomeoffice