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Food for thought on immigration

Immigration is not a problem. How we deal with it is. And I don’t mean to suggest that talking about immigration is simply racist. Some of it is xenophobic too. We hear about enforcement, border controls, increasing numbers, a small island, and responses such as Go Home vans or Don’t Come to Britain Campaigns.  These are, some would say, phantom problems that are being addressed in often very costly ways, and it is the migrants who have to bear the brunt of illiberal policies that pay the highest price.

Credible evidence about the impact of immigration, gathered by independent academics, media and advocates, tell a different story. In the last few years, as anti-immigration rhetoric has been on the increase, a number of immigration myths have been debunked: immigrants don’t steal housing, don’t steal jobs, don’t claim benefits, don’t hold back other children in schools, and don’t abuse the NHS as health tourists. Around half of foreign born citizens have become British nationals. And finally, we might be a small island, but we are not overcrowded.

https://discoversociety.org/2015/02/01/viewpoint-declaration-of-immigration-the-force-awakens/

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