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Unlimited Immigration - Why Not??
Gnobe
Posts: 462 Forum Member
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Does anyone here think immigration should be uncapped?? I mean why not??
It's clear to me that a large amount of British people support unrestricted immgration, and a definite majority support lots of immigration outright, the tory plans of capping appear unpopular with most British people it appears.
Why can't we just live and where we want in the world dammit? We're all from the same race after all?
Tear down the borders and let humanity live together.
It's clear to me that a large amount of British people support unrestricted immgration, and a definite majority support lots of immigration outright, the tory plans of capping appear unpopular with most British people it appears.
Why can't we just live and where we want in the world dammit? We're all from the same race after all?
Tear down the borders and let humanity live together.
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Comments
Idealistic pap.
:rolleyes:
What makes you think that to be the case? I don't know anyone who truly supports completely unrestricted immigration.
The UK is a small island with finite resources, it is simply not possible to allow everyone who may wish to live here to come and live here.
The NHS would collapse within a few years, for example.
Although, of course, when/if global warming really kicks in as predicted, we may actually have little choice.
A lot of it about perception and even if nobody was allowed to migrate into the UK from midnight tonight people would still believe that the majority of jobs in this country have been taken off British workers by immigrants.
Ah, so you allow just enough immigration to make the country worse than anywhere people may wish to emigrate from?
Sounds great.
+2
I think if you look closely enough you will find that that is actually not what I said.
Well, no, but that's the implication... unlimited/unrestricted immigration would mean that the country would reach a point where it was viewed as a place not worth emigrating to any longer.
Tht's actually what would happen in reality, although, of course, it would be halted before that eventuality.
As in, er, how it is now.
Indeed, that would be the only way it could ever work (not that it will ever happen).
It makes me laugh when people suggest this country is tough on immigration. Try and emigrate to the States, or even Australia, and you'll soon see how comparatively easy it is for people to emigrate here.
I'll be happy when you go back to primary school.:D
If that's the case, I'd seriously re-think your unlimited/unrestricted immigration idea!
If we're talking about a steady trickle in both directions then there's no problem. Unfortunately we're not. At present the UK is already straining to support its existing population. We have water supplies failing to keep pace in some areas, power supply with a forecast shortfall over the next decade, congested transport, overstretched NHS, etc. etc.
It doesn't matter who it is trying to get into the country (or even if the problem were a sudden spike in domestic births). The bottom line is that the UK is full. We have to impose restrictions to stem the flow.
So tell me, what percentage of the labour force are British, what percentage are EU immigrants and what percentage are non EU immigrants?
Let's just ban all international movement of people. Everyone should stay in the country they were born :cool:
Arguments for open borders
Advocates for open borders argue for open borders on grounds such as the following:
1. Preventing freedom of movement is a moral violation of human rights and discriminates on the basis of nationality. As all human beings are equal and such discrimination causes immense human suffering it is morally untenable.
2. Nation-states and closed borders are a relatively recent development in human history, and serve primarily to protect the interests of ruling elites.
3. In an era when capital can move freely across all borders, restricting the movement of labor is both unfair to workers and also an impediment to the most efficient possible operation of the market. In an ideal free market, both capital and labor are free to move anywhere.
4. Since human beings migrate regardless of border policies, closed borders and barriers simply force them to migrate under more difficult conditions, resulting in increased injuries and deaths during migration.
5. Increased mobility of people can reduce racism and ethnic tension and produce vibrant new forms of cultural hybridity.
6. Opening borders allows people to more easily move back and forth between their place of birth and new opportunities, which means people are no longer required to be separated for extremely long periods of time from their families and social networks.
7. Opening borders would eliminate the wasteful, extremely costly, and ultimately ineffective expense of policing borders.
Also advocates of open borders point out:
1. That open borders are logically unrelated to security and public safety. For example, how do open borders between EU countries or US states threaten security and public safety?
2. That immigration operates according to the laws of supply and demand of jobs, wages, and opportunity, and that human beings have always found ways to migrate to places with more jobs, higher wages, and opportunity, regardless of borders.
3. The idea of 'protecting domestic culture' is naive, since it assumes a (fictional) unitary domestic culture; essentialist, since it imagines culture as a fixed 'thing' rather than a living and always changing set of practices; and at worst, racist, since it fears racial, ethnic, and national 'others.'
American bioethicist Jacob M. Appel has argued that "treating human beings differently, simply because they were born on the opposite side of a national boundary," is inherently unethical. According to Appel, such "birthrights" are only defensible if they serve "useful and meaningful social purposes" (such as inheritance rights, which encourage mothers and fathers to work and save for their children), but the "birthright of nationality" does not do so.
It has been proposed that borders between the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) countries be opened.
http://www.opposingviews.com/i/the-ethical-case-for-an-open-immigration-policy
http://reason.com/archives/2006/04/16/open-the-borders
http://www.mrrena.com/misc/carens_borders.php
It's quite obvious that in the modern world we could never have free borders open to anyone. The only reason Europe has free borders with it's sister nations is because we're all, almost, on the same playing field anyway.
Benefits, of that's what you're suggesting, wouldn't be available to just anyone and I'd pretty much guarantee they'd be even more restricted if borders were opened fully.
The nations I'd think would suffer from immigration would be the USA, UK, France and Spain in the West, and then the more developed Eastern Nations such as Japan and South Korea.
You are assuming we would still have the same benefits system as well as unlimited immigration. Perhaps that would have to change as a result. Things are never static.