[Mongoose]

To use a similar example, look at what happened when the state of Alabama enacted incredibly harsh immigration laws.  Beyond the now-required enforcement creating a massive compound cluster****, the best part of it is that the state's copious migrant farm workers left the state en masse, leaving the agricultural industry with massive issues as it was unable to replace the lost labor.  Turns out native Alabamans weren't showing up in droves to perform hard manual labor for hours on-end.  Most of the laws' key provisions were either voluntarily overturned or brought down via legal challenges, and the whole experiment was widely considered to be a massive disaster.

What you seem to be willfully ignorant to acknowledge, maslo, is that the economies of many countries implicitly depend on widespread immigration (and yes that includes illegal immigration).  If you arbitrarily cut off that immigration, the effects on any number of domestic industries will be catastrophic.  That's not even touching on the fact that, without adequate numbers of immigrants, most first-world countries would experience burgeoning demographics crises (as already seen vividly in Japan), because their own citizens are quite frankly not popping out enough babies to meet population replacement rates.

[The E]

Oh hey, maslo, look: The UK is listening to you!

TL;DR: Any non-EU immigrant in the UK earning less than 35000 GBP will be denied settlement and deported.

Never mind that a good portion of the nursing staff in the UK falls under that category. Never mind that the median income in the UK is just 25k GBP. Never mind that most of the people affected by this rule aren't welfare tourists, but rather people who came to the UK with the explicit intent of working there. This will surely improve matters in the UK drastically.

Now this is an excellent idea indeed! However the limit is higher than I would like, any earnings higher than average income should be acceptable, IMHO. But other than that I think this will help UK to continue to reap economic benefits from skilled immigration while at the same time protect UK citizens against negative effects of unregulated immigration, one of which is importing poverty in mass numbers. Best of both worlds.

Something I forgot to mention: This rule isn't new. It was actually in effect for years, except the income threshold was set at a more reasonable 20800 GBP. This rule change very definitely only hits people who are already, by every criteria imaginable, productive workers.

[Col.Hornet]

Oh hey, maslo, look: The UK is listening to you!

TL;DR: Any non-EU immigrant in the UK earning less than 35000 GBP will be denied settlement and deported.

Never mind that a good portion of the nursing staff in the UK falls under that category. Never mind that the median income in the UK is just 25k GBP. Never mind that most of the people affected by this rule aren't welfare tourists, but rather people who came to the UK with the explicit intent of working there. This will surely improve matters in the UK drastically.

Now this is an excellent idea indeed! However the limit is higher than I would like, any earnings higher than average income should be acceptable, IMHO. But other than that I think this will help UK to continue to reap economic benefits from skilled immigration while at the same time protect UK citizens against negative effects of unregulated immigration, one of which is importing poverty in mass numbers. Best of both worlds.

Maslo, as I usually agree with you, this time I will admit that E and Karajorma are right. UK's <and other western European coutries) economies are  too much depend from cheap immigrant labour force to reverse it this way. Too late for this. In current situation such move would be.... reckless, to not use stronger words.


Better question would be what should we do too give a boost to our own economies without importing hundreds of thousands of people <and stop the escape of thousands of our own>. Ironically I may be forced to move somewhere else myself, as the salaries on geodesy market in Poland suck and the work market in hydrography <in which I specialize right now. Faaarrr better money then land surveys> is pretty small. Dream job... AUV (Autonomous Underwater Vehicle) operator. But that we shall see next year, when I graduate.

[Dragon]

Yeah, the increased earning limit is possibly the dumbest measure they could have enacted. It's as if they tailored it to hurt a rather productive chunk of foreign workers rather than those who are actually troublesome. I don't think that's going to end well.

What they should do is to rework the social benefit system to be less prone to exploits. At least in the UK, I believe that this would do enough to solve their problems. Simply make sure that if they don't work, their standard of living becomes unacceptable. A bit like it works in Poland, TBH, though in our case it's almost certainly accidental.

Look, the UK is a country that somehow allows housing developers to build houses on floodplains without anyone in the whole process questioning them. I don't think we can look to their government for standards of human decency, kindness, intelligence or common sense.  Removing the very people that social security relies upon to function lies within that.

Eh, houses on floodplains are nothing new. That mostly happens due to people thinking about money first and safety later. TBH, it's not even as idiotic as it sounds if you, for example, give your building garages on the first few floors (and let the tenants know what they're buying so they can get good car insurance). These things were done in Poland for years and the worst that happened was that a few cars and storage rooms got drenched. If you have a lot of floodplains this can make sense.

Now, the true idiocy is building things not designed for it on floodplains, like anything with just one floor or buildings that have sensitive equipment and living spaces near the ground. That's what they're currently doing in Poland. Right next to the aforementioned "flood-resistant", buildings, in fact... I don't know if UK is any smarter in that regard, but in either case, it seems like a more common problem than just in UK. But then, I think it's less about government and more about the corporations who design and build those.

[Phantom Hoover]

I mean the biggest factor is that flood plains are, uh, plains, so they're very convenient to build on.

[666maslo666]

And with that you've basically proven how clueless you actually are about immigration. This move would actually cripple the NHS almost immediately. Not to mention the absolute idiocy of losing almost every single nursing home worker (seriously, almost all of them are immigrants) in a country that already has a problem with an ageing population.

As I said, I do think the proposed limit is too high. Average wage (25000 GBP) would be more reasonable. That would not cripple the NHS at all. It is the idea behind the law that I find very good.

[The E]

Starting salary for an NHS nurse is around 21k GBP, rising to 28k GBP. The previous limit of 20800 GBP was pretty much exactly low enough for the NHS to work. This change is basically using anti-immigrant sentiment to further the Tories' agenda of crippling the NHS.

[666maslo666]

To use a similar example, look at what happened when the state of Alabama enacted incredibly harsh immigration laws.  Beyond the now-required enforcement creating a massive compound cluster****, the best part of it is that the state's copious migrant farm workers left the state en masse, leaving the agricultural industry with massive issues as it was unable to replace the lost labor.  Turns out native Alabamans weren't showing up in droves to perform hard manual labor for hours on-end.  Most of the laws' key provisions were either voluntarily overturned or brought down via legal challenges, and the whole experiment was widely considered to be a massive disaster.

That article you posted nicely illustrated my previous point. It is not the Alabama immigration law that failed. It is the enforcement of this law that has issues, and the reason why it has issues is because corrupt politicians were unwilling or too incompetent to enforce it properly.

As it turned out, the driver was an executive at Mercedes-Benz. The European car giant was one of several foreign auto companies in the state whose plants provide thousands of much-needed jobs. The incident was soon followed by another traffic arrest involving a Japanese Honda worker. Together, the auto blow-ups sparked an outcry from the business community, who feared companies would pull out of the state.

An important executive violates the law and the state is just supposed to ignore it? I dont think so. Any politician that capitulates to such pressure is a corrupt one in my book.

At courthouses, simple tasks like renewing one’s vehicle tags now required proof of legal status, which generated long lines for citizens and non-citizens alike. Utilities were unsure whether they needed to cut off service to residents who couldn’t prove citizenship.

Proof of legal status is simple and easy. How hard is it to show some kind of ID? Maybe the US should establish universal IDs like in mainland Europe, where you have to show such ID all the time, for almost all tasks, and yet it works great. Again, the problem is not with the law, the problem is with being too incompetent to enforce it, or worse, knowingly sabotaging it.

“People couldn’t get power or water, it was crazy,” Jeremy Love, an immigration attorney in Birmingham, recalled

Quite the opposite, getting water or power while being in the country illegaly is crazy.

While the restrictions eased over time, the initial passage of the law caused enough hardship to scar the immigrant community.

lol, the fact that there even is an illegal immigrant "community" shows how utterly weird US immigration policy is.

Almost all of those issues the article complains about could be solved by some kind of universal ID that covers immigration status. It is easy to do, we know that for a fact because it is done in mainland Europe, the only thing lacking is political will to do so.

the best part of it is that the state's copious migrant farm workers left the state en masse, leaving the agricultural industry with massive issues as it was unable to replace the lost labor.

Good. Any business that has to resort to hiring illegal aliens deserves to burn. Besides, you can have some cheap labor using legal guest workers. So I believe the reality was much different that those biased articles try to paint it. The labor exists, but hiring legal labor would cut into profits, which does not sit well with some powerful people..

  That's not even touching on the fact that, without adequate numbers of immigrants, most first-world countries would experience burgeoning demographics crises (as already seen vividly in Japan), because their own citizens are quite frankly not popping out enough babies to meet population replacement rates.

Demographic crisis is not such a big issue as long as GDP per capita remains high and you allow qualified immigrants to come. Id rather take my chances with demographic crisis than unregulated mass immigration. Both are a problem, but the second one is worse.

[666maslo666]

Starting salary for an NHS nurse is around 21k GBP, rising to 28k GBP. The previous limit of 20800 GBP was pretty much exactly low enough for the NHS to work. This change is basically using anti-immigrant sentiment to further the Tories' agenda of crippling the NHS.

Then maybe you should raise it a bit? I think a nurse deserves at least average wage. Also, the limit only applies after 5 years of being in the country. That is enough time for the wage to rise above starting wage.

[The E]

Maslo, correct me if I'm wrong, but your country isn't actually an immigration target, is it?

[666maslo666]

To use a similar example, look at what happened when the state of Alabama enacted incredibly harsh immigration laws. 

Just to return to this article, because it is so weird. First, MSNBC seems to be a leftist source with strong pro-immigrant agenda, so of course they are going to paint the Alabama policy as failure. The article is making a big deal out of the need to show immigration status during various common tasks. But these complaints are incomprehensible to me, because over here you have to show ID, which includes nationality and immigration status, for these tasks, and it works great. You have to show ID during every car stop by the police, you have to show ID during visits to banks or every government office, you have to show ID to get water, electricity or any other utility, you have to show ID during interaction with schools or colleges, during interaction with many private businesses, and so on. This is not a problem at all. So why the hell would someone complain about it in Alabama? Makes me wonder if there is an ulterior motive behind it..

also, lo @ "incredibly harsh" immigration laws that are not harsh at all..

[666maslo666]

Maslo, correct me if I'm wrong, but your country isn't actually an immigration target, is it?

No, we are a transit country.

[The E]

Maslo, correct me if I'm wrong, but your country isn't actually an immigration target, is it?

No, we are a transit country.

Figured as much.

To use a similar example, look at what happened when the state of Alabama enacted incredibly harsh immigration laws. 

Just to return to this article, because it is so weird. First, MSNBC seems to be a leftist source with strong pro-immigrant agenda, so of course they are going to paint the Alabama policy as failure. The article is making a big deal out of the need to show immigration status during various common tasks. But these complaints are incomprehensible to me, because over here you have to show ID, which includes nationality and immigration status, for these tasks, and it works great. You have to show ID during every car stop by the police, you have to show ID during visits to banks or every government office, you have to show ID to get water, electricity or any other utility, you have to show ID during interaction with schools or colleges, during interaction with many private businesses, and so on. This is not a problem at all. So why the hell would someone complain about it in Alabama? Makes me wonder if there is an ulterior motive behind it..

National IDs are generally seen as a thing only totalitarian regimes do. Rejection of proposals to introduce them crosses party lines, neither liberals nor conservatives want them.

[666maslo666]

National IDs are generally seen as a thing only totalitarian regimes do. Rejection of proposals to introduce them crosses party lines, neither liberals nor conservatives want them.

Yeah, and that is one important reason why illegal immigration is such a problem in the US. Not because it cannot be prevented, but because they do not want to solve it for various ideological reasons. Similar sentiment about national IDs does not exist in mainland Europe, and this makes immigration control much tighter.

This is also why I am watching German immigration drama with interest right now. Because it is hard to actually live long term as an illegal in Europe, contrary to the US. Soon Germany will have more than half a million illegal aliens inside the country, that is those whose asylum claims got rejected. And they will not be able to function in society without valid IDs. So what will Germany do? Enact mass deportations as the law (and common sense) says? Or compromise already pretty weak immigration policy to be even less strict (similar to the one in Alabama, for example) to let them stay and live in Germany somehow? We will see..

[Grizzly]

I mean the biggest factor is that flood plains are, uh, plains, so they're very convenient to build on.

And they're plains because they flood regurarely: Their purpose* is to store excess water in case of flooding, and the erosion and sedimentary processes that occur during those floods ensure that the area around a river is flattened. You can totally use a floodplain for development purposes as long as you also take this flooding into account by either building your house like Dragon described (Which was actually a building method used quite often in The Netherlands too, untill we reinforced our levies. However, the british developments in floodplains lately have done neither, which is weird.

* Yes I understand that purpose is the wrong word for describing naturally occuring phenonoma.

[est1895]

So is Germany going to build a wall with a Petrol Tax?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_nL_hWxOML0

[Dragon]

National IDs are generally seen as a thing only totalitarian regimes do. Rejection of proposals to introduce them crosses party lines, neither liberals nor conservatives want them.

Yeah, and that is one important reason why illegal immigration is such a problem in the US. Not because it cannot be prevented, but because they do not want to solve it for various ideological reasons. Similar sentiment about national IDs does not exist in mainland Europe, and this makes immigration control much tighter.

When taking about US politics one important thing must be realized: Americans are fundamentally different from us. Some things that are normal for them would be outrageous here, and vice versa. Thus, concerns about well being of "the immigrant community" are normal. Being an "illegal immigrant" isn't really anything bad, those people work there and are pretty much a regular category of people. Most of them could probably easily get citizenship (and quite a few of them eventually do). It only seems weird from this side of the ocean, so to speak. Likewise, people in the US consider stopping someone's car without a very good reason a fundamental violation of one's rights, while it's done on a regular basis all over Europe, with little opposition. And it's a good thing, too. If it wasn't for that, roads in countries like Poland would be so full of drunks and smugglers that nobody else would dare to use them.

Some things are simpler in Europe, some in the US (Russia has yet another, different way of thinking). Democratic governments operate under certain constraints of what is ideologically acceptable to the masses. Attempting to consider an otherwise valid solution that violates this constraints is all but impossible in a democratic system. The only system that can ignore those is an outright dictatorship (it wouldn't even go over too well for a monarchy that wants to have the people on their side). What they tried doing in Alabama was executed very badly, partially because measures needed for it to succeed were among those "impossible" things. It probably wouldn't have helped their economy anyway, but that's a bit beside the point.

[karajorma]

An important executive violates the law and the state is just supposed to ignore it? I dont think so. Any politician that capitulates to such pressure is a corrupt one in my book.

You're making a strawman argument because the point of that part of the article was not that powerful people should be above the law.

You obviously didn't read the article carefully because it's not the executive who violated the law. He was innocent, the problem was with the tag was on a rental car!. It's the responsibility of the car rental company to ensure that they correctly licence their vehicles. It's certainly not the responsibility of their customers to check that they have! The only crime that executive committed was to not have a driving licence on him (He did have an ID mind you!). Because of that he was arrested and detained until federal immigration authorities determined his fate. Do you honestly think that is a good idea?

The point of the article is that if you harass innocent people who are visiting your state then people are going to stop visiting your state. In this case the harassment occurred not to some unimportant illegal immigrant but to an executive who is responsible for the state having thousands of much needed jobs. Now I doubt that Mercedes-Benz were going to pull out of the state over the treatment of one executive but if they decide they should close one plant in America, it's not hard to imagine that the Alabama one is going to be the one that goes.

Your entire argument basically consists of massive amounts of "not thinking it through". That much was obvious in your simplistic arguments in favour of the latest idiocy from the Conservatives in the UK but it's even more obvious here. America makes a lot of money from tourism. Can you imagine how quickly that would dry up if every state had passed this law? Can't you see that the second we start hearing stories of tourists visiting the Statue of Liberty and then getting stopped and arrested for some minor infraction, no one would book their holiday in New York? People in general don't like to carry their ID with them at all times. On holiday where losing your passport can ruin the entire trip that is especially true. Even countries which have such a law on their books don't enforce it usually because it's such a pointless inconvenience for everyone concerned.

[666maslo666]

You're making a strawman argument because the point of that part of the article was not that powerful people should be above the law.

You obviously didn't read the article carefully because it's not the executive who violated the law. He was innocent, the problem was with the tag was on a rental car!. It's the responsibility of the car rental company to ensure that they correctly licence their vehicles. It's certainly not the responsibility of their customers to check that they have! The only crime that executive committed was to not have a driving licence on him (He did have an ID mind you!). Because of that he was arrested and detained until federal immigration authorities determined his fate. Do you honestly think that is a good idea?

Of course. It is an extremely good idea! You have a person that violated the law (no driving license while driving a car, thats more serious than just jaywalking) and so you must identify that person and also check their immigration status in the process. A totally legitimate reason to detain someone temporarily. Otherwise you would have anarchy.

As Dragon said, the mentality about immigration seems to be very different in the US than in Europe. That is the only way I can rationalize anyone having a problem with this process.

Your entire argument basically consists of massive amounts of "not thinking it through". That much was obvious in your simplistic arguments in favour of the latest idiocy from the Conservatives in the UK but it's even more obvious here. America makes a lot of money from tourism. Can you imagine how quickly that would dry up if every state had passed this law? Can't you see that the second we start hearing stories of tourists visiting the Statue of Liberty and then getting stopped and arrested for some minor infraction, no one would book their holiday in New York? People in general don't like to carry their ID with them at all times. On holiday where losing your passport can ruin the entire trip that is especially true. Even countries which have such a law on their books don't enforce it usually because it's such a pointless inconvenience for everyone concerned.

This is not true at all, and that is my main point. You are the one who isnt thinking things through. People in places where IDs are mandatory tend to carry national IDs almost all the time. The same with passports for tourists. It is not an inconvenience, it is like a credit card or driving license, you just put it in your wallet and there it sits. Police does check the ID during car stops or most other police interactions, too. Also, not having a driving license is not just a minor infraction, I would certainly expect to be temporarily detained for it, taken to a police station, especially if my identity or immigration status is unclear.

To sum up my point: checking ID and immigration status during those common situations we mentioned is easy and totally doable without violating any basic human rights.

A hundred countries in the world with mandatory national IDs routinely do exactly that.

If you dont want to have such system for ideological reasons (muh freedumbs!), fine.

But dont try to pretend that it somehow cannot be easily done, when most of the world can do it just fine. This whole moral panic about routine ID checks is most likely unique to common law based countries, or something. And the rest of the world knows that having your identity and immigration status routinely checked is not a big deal at all. Articles like that MSNBC opinion piece just make us cringe. OMG, I cannot drive without valid ID!? LOL  of course you cannot..

[karajorma]

Of course. It is an extremely good idea! You have a person that violated the law (no driving license while driving a car) and so you must identify that person and also check their immigration status in the process. A totally legitimate reason to detain someone. Otherwise you would have anarchy.

He had an ID card. You can ID him.

This is not true at all, and that is my main point. You are the one who isnt thinking things through. People in places where IDs are mandatory tend to carry national IDs almost all the time. The same with passports. It is not an inconvenience, it is like a credit card or driving license, you just put it in your wallet and there it sits.

I'm sorry but this is the point where I'm going to have to give up. If you are incapable of seeing why someone who is on holiday might not want to carry their passport around at all times and risk having it lost, stolen or damaged to the point where they have to go through the hassle of getting a new one before even being allowed to leave the country, then there is no point in even speaking to you.