Sir Mo Farah reveals he was trafficked into the UK using another child’s name | Hacker News Reader

Sir Mo Farah reveals he was trafficked into the UK using another child’s name

theguardian.com

220 pointsnigerian1981156 comments

Gosh this is such a heartbreaking and yet fascinating story. The BBC version is has more detail including some possible immigration jeopardy for Sir Mo due to getting citizenship under an assumed name:

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-62123886

In the documentary, barrister Alan Briddock tells Sir Mo his nationality was technically "obtained by fraud or misrepresentations".

Legally, the government can remove a person's British nationality if their citizenship was obtained through fraud.

However, Mr Briddock explains the risk of this in Sir Mo's case is low.

In a case like this there should not be any possible repercussions, Sir Mo is the victim here and the law should be solidly on his side and not have to rely on the kindness of some civil servant choosing not to remove his citizenship.

EDIT: The Home Office says "“No action whatsoever will be taken against Sir Mo and to suggest otherwise is wrong,” a spokesperson said."

> No action whatsoever will be taken against Sir Mo and to suggest otherwise is wrong,” a spokesperson said.

I agree the "he law should be solidly on his side and not have to rely on the kindness of some civil servant "

It is for Sir Mo Farah. Good on him, respect.

But for Ahmed the minimum wage worker, they would be in detention and booked on an aeroplane to Rwanda before you could say "class ridden hell hole".

Good on him. This is how all people should be treated. It is not true in England.

Not sure I understand the point you are making. That everyone should be able to cheat the immigration system?

I suspect the OP is saying that children trafficked into a country they subsequently grew up in should probably be treated as victims and dealt with compassionately, whether or not they're widely loved sports stars

I understand the intention but even then you are creating a loophole, i.e. you bring people under 18 illegally, they get the nationality through this loophole, then you need to grant visas to the parent who will care for them.

It's basically the story of the loophole of "don't put children in jail and don't separate them from their parents either" at the US border. All good intentions, the consequences of which is that the number of illegal migrants coming with children has blown up, with children being used as a get out of jail card to enter the country illegally.

I am all for making exceptions in case of exceptional contributions. But you can't create rules without looking at the consequences of the incentives you create.

They are refugees, not illegal immigrants at the US Border fleeing Latin American countries bulldozed by the CIA

When they cross the borders in Somalia they may be refugees. By the time they have crossed the borders, in and out, of 10 countries that are not at war, to land in the UK, they are economic migrants.

It’s such a bunk argument to suggest that because there are other countries physically inbeween the refugee’s homeland and Britain that they are economic migrants by the time they get here.

If they all settled at the point closest to their homeland that wasn’t “at war” I’m pretty sure there would soon be conflict there.

Britain is a rich, developed nation that is quite easily able to support our “fair share” of refugees along with the rest of Europe.

Being a refugee should not be (and isn't) a blank cheque to settle in whatever part of the world you want, financially supported by the locals regardless of whether they want you there or not. If it were that would be a perverse incentive to actually try and make your own country collapse, as it'd be easier to claim "refugee" status than fix domestic issues. This is doubly true given that some people are fanatical about the issue of fully open borders regardless of downsides, and will immediately expand the definition of "refugee" to incorporate anyone at all. The concept of a "climate refugee" is already being promoted, for example.

Combined with the argument you're making here it is just a cynical attempt to hijack people's good natured desire to help genuine war refugees, into jackhammering unlimited migration and open borders into society without consideration of any costs. This must not be allowed to happen as this kind of abuse will ultimately result in the collapse of support for any kind of refugee and asylum support.

It isn’t a blank cheque, because making it to safety in a preferred country is exceptionally difficult and expensive.

However, it is a blank cheque once you’ve surmounted those challenges and have arrived at the safe country you have chosen (and were able to reach), though most countries receiving such refugees are doing their best not to honour this obligation.

It’s worth noting that the UK tries hard to prevent refugees reaching our shores, but the vast majority that do, and apply for asylum, are granted it [1].

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/immigration-statist...

It's clearly not that difficult or expensive given the large numbers of people who manage to achieve it despite, theoretically, having no personal resources. If it were really exceptionally difficult then people wouldn't do it, as there's nothing wrong with the countries they crossed to get there.

I see a selection bias in your comments there. There may be numbers of people who manage to achieve it but you can't strictly say if it was difficult or not unless you compare the number of people who tried and failed. You can't say it was not expensive unless you can demonstrate that some significant proportion of those who made it did not spend much money doing so.

Being a refugee does not mean you have no resources. Would you flee your home country without taking your valuables? Would you have no friends or relatives to call upon to offer some monetary assistance, if it meant the difference between life and death?

Most have few resources. The ones with more resources have more options about where they flee to.

You're proving my point here. You seem to think being labelled a refugee is literally a blank cheque and the only limit on where they settle should be how far they can get with whatever funds they take with them. Remember also that there are organizations that will happily pay people money to let them relocate to more desirable locations.

I don't really have a dog in this fight one way or the other, but people like you need to realize this - that sort of attitude and activism will sooner or later mean the end of the asylum system for everyone. We are already seeing credible candidates for Prime Minister want to withdraw from the ECHR to make deportations for failed asylum possible (not even easy, just possible) and it's because the public has no patience for the endless flood of "refugees" who inexplicably find France unacceptable. Abuse of the system will lead to it being terminated, and that will be popular with voters.

On average the equivalent of 0.05% of the UK population claims asylum each year [1]. Last year about 0.07%. That doesn't sound like an endless flood to me. The world unfortunately does have a lot of refugees in it, but we do not experience the consequences of that here, much as we may act as though we do.

I don't personally have a strong belief that refugees should have a blank cheque to settle anywhere. It might be fairer to permit refugees to travel further, as it's unclear why neighbouring countries should shoulder the burden. However, the only point I was making is that my understanding is that today they _do_ have that right, which is why countries make it so hard to arrive.

[1] https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/immigration-statist...

There is no rule requiring refugees to claim in the first safe country in which they arrive

No they do not cease to be a refugee when crossing a border, or many. That is simply a dismissive and disingenuous talking point pushed by the outrage media.

They cease to be refugees when they have settled somewhere or voluntarily returned to their country of origin. See the 1951 UN Refugee Convention and the 1967 Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees.

The vast majority of illegal immigrants from Latin American countries don't meet the legal criteria to be considered refugees.

> All good intentions, the consequences of which is that the number of illegal migrants coming with children has blown up, with children being used as a get out of jail card to enter the country illegally.

And then ? What’s wrong with population growth ?

The problem is with the cheating, regardless of whether population growth itself can bring problems (which it obviously can, along with benefits).

> I understand the intention but even then you are creating a loophole, i.e. you bring people under 18 illegally, they get the nationality through this loophole, then you need to grant visas to the parent who will care for them.

Did anyone suggest that?

"Subsequently grew up in" implies to me that the evaluation is being made many years later, and at a point where they don't need their parents to care for them.

> It's basically the story of the loophole of "don't put children in jail and don't separate them from their parents either" at the US border. All good intentions, the consequences of which is that the number of illegal migrants coming with children has blown up, with children being used as a get out of jail card to enter the country illegally.

Do you have sources for this? I'm finding some very different stories in articles.

"creating a loophole" presupposes that we want to stop people as much as possible, from coming to our country.

I consider it an extraordinary privilege to have people wanting to flee here for safety and opportunity, and not just because they might turn out to be olympic athletes, but because they need us and we can help.

This is false equivalence, children being trafficked and forced into servitude is nothing like a family entering a country without the correct visas. There is no loophole here, the child was rescued by social services.

How does a child help you immigrate into the USA?

They will just deport the whole family.

I was curious so I googled (I'm a Brit and not up on the US)

It seems:

> Borderwide, about 15 percent of single adults and 65 percent of families are released into the U.S. rather than expelled, according to Customs and Border Protection data from April.

>Hastings said they are released not because of official Biden administration policy but because Mexican authorities refuse to take back more than a certain number each day. https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/immigration/under-biden-cro...

So I guess you cross illegally with a dingy or some such, hope to be in the 65% and then apply for asylum.

That if enforcing the rules against a popular sports star would be unduly harsh, so would enforcing them against anyone else.

One man's modus ponens is another man's modus tollens, but clearly something isn't right about how these laws are applied at the moment.

Mo Farah didn't cheat the system though. He was a victim of the trafficking and so the ops point is referring to not criminalizing the victim i think. Which makes sense. He didn't break the immigration law.

He is a direct beneficiary though. Whether that is relevant in immigration law, I don't know, but it certainly is in other areas of criminal law (e.g. receiving stolen property, soliciting murder etcetera).

> receiving stolen property

Being in possession of stolen property is not necessarily a crime. If you buy something on eBay that was stolen without your knowledge you're not going to get charged. You may have to return it and be out of pocket probably, but not crime.

As for soliciting murder that's a crime. There is an intent there.

> He is a direct beneficiary though.

What if instead of his lief today he was forced into the sex slave ? Would you still consider him a beneficiary ?

If we're looking for mens rea then the moment a child is over 10, if they don't confess to being an illegal immigrant then they know what they're doing.

As to your other question, they would be a victim as they are a slave. Return to their country of origin should still be favoured though (but not mandatory). If you were enslaved and sent to another country would you not wish to return? As such I'm not sure why that's relevant. Pointing out that something can become complex does not mean that the simpler cases we're actually discussing can't be solved.

> If you were enslaved and sent to another country would you not wish to return?

Are you forgetting that he has nothing to return to? Do you not understand what the term ‘war torn’ means? Hypothetically if someone were enslaved from a point, what are the chances it won’t happen again if they return to the same point? If they found safety net where they are currently why would they return to unsafe place?

> Do you not understand what the term ‘war torn’ means?

Do you know how to conduct yourself properly in discussion? I’ll thank you for trying harder to from now on.

It’s his homeland, regardless of whether it’s war-torn or not. If he has nothing there or not is irrelevant to whether he wishes to go back. Which he could, or he could apply to stay, through the proper channels, which he also could (you’ll note I left open such a possibility).

None of which absolves him or whomever it was that trafficked him of their actions.

> Hypothetically if someone were enslaved from a point, what are the chances it won’t happen again if they return to the same point?

Yes, what are the chances? Perhaps it would be good to hear something more concrete from you on what those chances are.

> If they found safety net where they are currently why would they return to unsafe place?

Because it's their home, and because hypothetically you haven't provided any reasoning as to why it would remain indefinitely dangerous, but I'm sure we can play this game of endlessly more unlikely and difficult situations so it will be interesting to hear the substance behind these hypotheticals.

So does intent - trying to prosecute someone for the indirect benefits they gained as a victim of crime is morally perverse.

Mens rea is the standard for something to be a crime, the assumption being that I cannot call it a crime without there being intent. Without intent it is not a crime.

Did he know that he was benefiting from using a false name? Was he of an age that the courts have deemed there to be a presumed ability to tell right from wrong? This test would be applied at every level of the justice system (at least every level above bare detection). It is a presumption of the system of criminal law in a common law jurisdiction, hence, it should be taken as said. Or I thought it would be.

The principle of charity is always a good place to start a discussion[1].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_charity

Of course I wish he never has any problems ... but on human rights and fairness grounds, not because he's a famous athlete. Others in similar situations might not be celebrities.

Setting aside that he's a celebrity and others aren't, the home office has said he's safe... today.

What of every subsequent government?

What happens if he becomes a loud, vocal critic of a current or future PM? If he wants to get into politics himself?

I don't want the word of a bureaucrat that today all is well. I want legal reforms so that Sir Mo and those in situations like his never have to worry. But that's far harder to achieve that empty platitudes.

Realistically, once he receives assurances from the Home Office that no action will be taken, that is the end of the matter, and it would be legally problematic for a subsequent government to reverse that.

As the world moves further towards authoritarianism, how secure do you think Sir Mo feels about that?

In his shoes, would you be brave enough to speak out politically against a government in power, given his situation?

You're both right. The Home Secretary's statement that no action will be taken can form the basis of a 'legitimate expectation' which is enforceable by judicial review if a future government changes its mind.

Would I risk that, given current government threats against both refugees and the continued availability of effective judicial review? I'm not sure. Probably not.

> In the documentary, Farah admits to being worried about his immigration status. However, the Home Office confirmed on Monday night that he would not face any repercussions. “No action whatsoever will be taken against Sir Mo and to suggest otherwise is wrong,” a spokesperson said.

Just imagine if it wasn't Sir Mohammed publicly admitting to using a fake Somali passport and assumed name to gain UK citizenship.

I have no doubt that this is a major reason why he’s speaking up now. There are very few Britons as well respected as he is and I can’t think of anyone better placed to speak for people who’s been through this, and to push back on the govt’s cruel and cynical approach to the problem of human trafficking.

Do you really think the authorities haven't known about this for some time?

No, but that's irrelevant to the point I'm making.

I have a suspicion that almost every immigrant to the west is close to a horrendous story like this one.

My family were immigrants to the west as well and also had a crossing-the-water story. Nothing happened, but friends had stories about falling into the water and having to swim. My oldest cousins still remember it.

I acquired a teenage sister after turning 20, suddenly. A friend of the family brought her as the child of a woman he'd married, and was now divorcing, forcing them to return home. Turns out, she was not the child of this woman. My parents had a couple of days to decide to keep her, as the guy had decided to leave for the old country to look for another wife.

This is not even the only terrible arrival in the West story in my own family, but I'll spare you the other one.

I suspect if you go eat at certain ethnic restaurants in the major UK cities, you will meet someone with at most 2nd hand knowledge of sitting in the back of a truck going under the channel.

When I investigated the immigration stories is friends, the most reasonable ones seem to be from parents or grandparents who came in the 60s or earlier. Sailors who happened to decide to stay in the West, that kind of thing. After that most of the stories are hairy. Escaping some regime, crossing water in a crappy boat, that type of thing. Not a whole lot of current dinghy-over-the-channel stories, but that mainly owes to my age.

If you're interested in this subject, I recommend reading the 2020 Trafficking in Persons Report: https://www.state.gov/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/2020-TIP-Re... (maybe not the entire thing, it's.... very big. but the first 20 pages or so are compelling) You can select a specific location here: https://www.state.gov/reports/2020-trafficking-in-persons-re...

Priti Patel is stamping a ticket to Rwanda as we speak.

Fortunately she believes she is popular and is busy prepping her bid for PM, at the moment.

She is popular. I had to switch radio channel yesterday when one of her supporters called in; Rwanda effectively locked in the "casual nazi" constituency for her, and that constituency is vast.

It's possible she won't find the 30 MPs she needs to get on the ballot, but if she manages to get on the shortlist, I'd bet good money she will win.

Well she's 100/1 on Betfair right now, so you can easily go get yourself some emotional insurance.

I detest how right you are.

She's not popular. She's consistently in the bottom positions in Tory member polls.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/jul/08/tory-member...

https://metro.co.uk/2022/07/12/poll-of-tory-party-members-re...

https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2022/0...

I clicked the link thinking it wouldn't be an enthralling story, but man, what an enthralling, difficult life that man had.

Illegal immigration into the UK from the third world is far greater now than it was in the era of Mo Farah's childhood. I have to wonder how the UK social construct can survive with the huge numbers of people entering given the lack of housing, water, food etc

https://youtu.be/PAeRejE467g

Most immigrants are economically very active since starting a new life from zero requires that.

Unless you can't physically fit people in the island, the solution would be to let the immigrants work legally. Number of houses are not fixed like the total number of bitcoins, people can build new ones.

Despite the political rhetoric and recent trends, immigration is a good thing and the problems it causes can be reduced when handled properly. That's why the government, despite being dominated by Brexiteers who won by preaching the horrors of immigrants and lack of border control, actually don't try stopping the immigrants.

Surely the topic is a good tool for populist politicians but once they got the results for their careers, they can't actually live with those fantasies because people will notice.

I know that this is not a popular opinion but that's that. UK had option to control the immigration when was in the EU and choose not to. Why do you think is that? Because people who work are a good thing.

Cheap labor that isn't allowed to vote. We see this all over Europe. I wonder what gives.

Isn't allowed by whom exactly? Simply allow immigrants to vote. Have no work permits, thus working as cheap labor? Give them permits.

It's appalling how people pretend that they don't have anything against immigrants but they are against illegal immigrants as if the paperwork for legal work is a natural phenomenon and they can't do anything about it.

Why even have permits then? Just get rid of the permit system altogether.

There are probably many million starving African desperate to work a job like trash-man or food packager. Competition for lower skilled jobs will become fierce, but I guess competition is a good thing.

I agree. Why would the government be the first step of HR? As if the companies can't choose the right employees for themselves and they need to go through the state bureaucracy so that they don't hire a lumberjack from Bangladesh as a JS developer in Bristol.

Yes, changing even the tiniest thing is basically destroying everything.

> Isn't allowed by whom exactly?

To be clear, as suggested by the rest of your comment, it is currently not allowed due to various political reasons. Nobody is arguing ideal situations, only reality.

> Simply allow immigrants to vote.

You've just given me a great business idea. Votes for hire. I bet I could charge a fortune, and I would only have to pass a small fraction of that on to the immigrants I employ.

Why is that different to money for votes?

Simple - money for votes requires registered voters. My scheme - erm, "business plan" - just needs unregistered immigrants! Way easier to enact, because they're undocumented to begin with!

It's not.

If you’re in the UK legally you can vote.

As someone who is legally in the UK (more than a year), this isn't true. It might apply to the citizens of some countries (like the EU).

Yep. Only British, EU, and Commonwealth citizens living legally in the UK can vote. Those of us from anywhere else in the world can't vote until we fully naturalize.

I agree that immigrants are a good thing. Especially illegal immigrants if they have no way to benefit from tax benefits but are forced to pay into it. It means they're basically forced to be a net benefit. The key is to make sure any benefits offered to immigrants are not a net drain on society. Usually this is the case, particularly if you just deny illegal immigrants any service while forcing them to pay taxes, but one has to be careful that systems aren't set up that allow exploitation of citizens.

That was well established that the immigrants are a net contributors(actually bigger contributors per capita in comparison to the locals) and actually a very small number of the immigrants take payments from the social security system.

It doesn't make any sense to go to another country and possibly spend a lot of money and risk your life and live on bare minimum. Very small number of people take that path.

In my country immigrants are high net contributors, but that is because they are illegal thus they get basically no benefits; or they are legal and thus they usually have a high bar (unless family sponsored) of being more educated or wealthy than our typical citizens.

> ut that is because they are illegal thus they get basically no benefits

Evidence?

You don't understand that if society provides you no benefits, and you pay into taxes from otherwise (sans the fact you're an illegal immigrant) legitimate labor, it's almost impossible to be a net drain?

I'm not arguing that these factors are large enough to change the answer, but other ways someone can be a net drain include

a) being criminals who inflict various kinds of harm on others

b) working in jobs that would otherwise be taken by existing locals, who are now displaced onto benefits

c) working in jobs that would otherwise not be able to find employees, thus asserting downward pressure on wages/conditions

d) using those benefits which are available, such as (in the US) public schools, emergency departments, and sometimes state-specific benefits

e) using resources from a finite pool such as e.g land in a farming county, houses in a city that refuses to allow further development

Most of these arguments can be found when people are objecting to legal immigration

I think you may be labouring under the burden of prejudice.

As we all are.

No, he's pretty much right. As an illegal immigrant, I still have to pay all kinds of taxes, but it's really hard and sometimes dangerous to access many of the public services those taxes provide. Public goods like roads, street lights, and the fact that armed robbers find it more convenient to leave me alive instead of dead, those I can benefit from. But I'm reluctant to report crimes to the police, I had a hell of a time getting a covid vaccination, and I'm not going to get any retirement money from the government when I'm too senile to work. At least I can still audit classes at the university.

I'm not much of an "agitator on one of the sides". I can't afford to be an agitator, I might get deported. I'm just telling you what my life is like.

What makes you think that if the immigrants were legal they would not work as hard and leech the social system unlike the natives?

I think the vast vast majority would continue to work hard. But leachers do exist, and given the opportunity, some will. The thing is the ones that are here illegally are already self selected as ones willing to work without social supports.

-----------

>Leechers exist among natives too. Any particular reason to believe that it’s worse with the immigrants?

No in fact I've stated the opposite. The incentive structure for immigrants self selects the illegal ones as ones willing to work without social support, because it isn't offered to them. The legal immigrants, unless sponsored by family/spouse, generally have high education or wealth requirements than our average populace thus they're less likely to use benefits.

In fact I think my country could look at the incentive structure that has made the illegal immigrant in my country so hard working, and think about how we can apply to making our own citizenry more independent and less dependent on public benefits.

Leechers exist among natives too. Any particular reason to believe that it’s worse with the immigrants?

https://www.ssb.no/en/arbeid-og-lonn/artikler-og-publikasjon...

Thanks, interesting link.

In attempt to tackle the economic crisis that the Turkey is in, last December the Turkish government introduced a banking instrument indexed to one of the USD/EUR/GBP currencies where you can put your Turkish lira and earn interest of up to %17 but if the Turkish lira loses more value than your currency of choice the government will match the difference. So at the best case you earn up to %17 interest and on worst case you don't lose in terms of foreign currency.

Anyway, they made it available to foreigners too in attempt to have the Turkish diaspora in Europe and UK bring their money to Turkey. Unfortunately it failed to fetch any significant demand and BBC Turkish made a small documentary with the Turks living in the UK and talked with them on why they did not took the opportunity.

The answers were actually shocking: Turks were working illegally so that they don't pay income tax and receive state benefits and as a result they couldn't put their money in the banking system because Turkey started sharing data with EU and UK. It turns out, there are many Turks who are officially unemployed but are actually working illegally and not paying taxes.

I don't deny the existence of leeches, I wish they were caught. EU made a significant progress with the Turkish cheaters and their money is no longer in heaven in Turkey.

I am an expat myself but shouldn't people already living there get to secure their life first? So if they think leechers exist within immigrants, they have a right to complain about it first

I don't think any country needs to give the right for anyone to come there if they want.

Illegal immigrants may well be hard working, which is admirable, but are they also educating themselves to be more productive (i.e. able to generate more wealth from the same number of hours worked?) If not, then they're not contributing towards growth in living standards/alleviation of poverty.

> I agree that immigrants are a good thing. Especially illegal immigrants if they have no way to benefit from tax benefits but are forced to pay into it

This is misstating the situation.

1. People working under the table don't pay taxes.

2. Those who do pay taxes are not earning that much as such not paying much tax

3. They do get benefits. For example CA gave illegal immigrants payments. https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/california-give-cash-pay...

Immigration is complex. Filled with bad faith and misleading arguments from many sides.

I know for instance Norway has suggested allowing illegal immigrants onward voyage to Svalbard where there are no public benefits but also no visa requirements to work, which allow them to technically stay in Norway and still have work authorization without becoming a public charge. I think this kind of clever problem solving is really the kind we need to overcome some of these challenges.

There are no public benefits in Svalbard because they send anyone who can't support themselves back to Norway. The economy is small and dominated by a few state-owned employers who own almost all the housing and rent it to their employees.

Sending illegal immigrants from Norway to Svalbard is not a practical suggestion.

Norway's own politicians and people were the ones suggesting it. Not being Norwegian myself I'm relying on those in Norway to suggest these ideas. Both the FrP and Green Party have come up with plans to make it practical.

> send anyone who can't support themselves back to Norway

I mean for illegal immigrants; if they can't support themselves they can be sent back to their own country. They have no right to stay in mainland Norway, so that won't be a problem.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/norwegian-po...

https://www.tnp.no/norway/panorama/4956-frp-politician-propo...

They don't pay income tax, sure, but it's pretty hard to avoid other taxes.

My comment wasn't 'anti immigrant', I was pondering how the vast numbers of people flooding into Europe and the UK (and the US as well) can be accommodated given the chronic shortages of everything and difficult economy.

The fallacy that all immigrants are hard working, clean living people slowly moving up the economic and societal ladder is popular with limo liberals who don't have to coexist and compete with the new arrivals, and worse deal with their sometimes illegal activities.

The internet has allowed enormous numbers of people in the third world toeducatethemselves on the advantages of being in europe/uk as this video illustrates. Who can blame them wanting to game the system...

https://youtu.be/LY_Yiu2U2Ts

> he fallacy that all immigrants are hard working, clean living people slowly moving up the economic and societal ladder is popular with

Have you any actual evidence?

My experience is the opposite, for poor immigrants. Rich ones, on the other hand....

My prejudice is showing, is yours?

I know right? Rich immigrants buy houses that they don’t even live in, disturb the local economy with their purchasing power but it’s the hard working ones who are a strain to the system.

Perhaps we share a prejudice?

I am really unsure what the data says. I hear claims, but always from agitators on one or other of the sides, and I do not trust them!

I’m a multiple times immigrant and I’m yet to see those lazy immigrants.

I’ve been illegal in Turkey and legal in UK and Germany as a EU citizen and worked as a waiter for months until get my first white collar job. No, I’m not speaking as a liberal who doesn’t have idea about the actual immigrants or the working class. I’ve been all of those.

Your haven't seen them because you've kept to places where they don't exist

Hospitality workers are usually sink or swim. You won't find many people but hard workers there (local or immigrants)

Now of course this ignores the ones that don't work and the cultural clashes that happen with lots of immigrants

Framing everything as "immigration good/bad" is of course the main issue, it's like saying you fix obesity with eating/not eating

#NoTrueExperienceWithImmigrants

At least you're honest with your comment.

I'm sorry, it was actually a complete lie. Aside from having significant experience with immigrants to my home country, I became one myself as an adult. Better luck with your next attempt to argue from lack of experience!

See, my exposure is not limited to hospitality because after work I didn’t go to my house in Chelsea. The first few weeks I went to my hostel in Isle of Dogs, Camden and Seven Sisters. Then I a went to my house share in Brixton, Peckham, Kilburn and Lewisham. I changed a lot of places because hostels have 1 week limit and renting is pain in the ars due to catch 22 on proof of address.

I met very large number of people from very different professions. Some unskilled, others blue collar and white collar. I’ve met legal and illegal people.

Where are all those lazy immigrants? Everyone was working.

I also don’t see any point of not working.

Also, the numbers suggest that the immigrants are indeed hard working and contributing more to the system than they take and their per person net contribution is higher that the natives.

What exactly makes you believe that the immigrants don’t work?

Good, that's a more colorful story

You can find the ones that don't work in the same places you find the locals that don't work (not saying it's the majority - and it might be even smaller than local unemployment). Or you can search for statistics around that area.

https://migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/resources/briefings/mi...

> estimated the net fiscal contribution of EEA migrants in the financial year (FY) 2016/17 at £4.7bn, compared to a net cost of £9bn for non-EEA migrants.

https://migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/resources/briefings/th...

non-EEA probably means illegal immigrants too. You can’t really contribute into the social security system when you are not allowed to work legally. That doesn’t mean that you don’t contribute to the society through your hard work.

I’ve met people with refugee status who did receive some benefits and worked hard illegally. I’m not going to count them as a cost, they were working in construction jobs, making honest living and not taking the benefits was not an option for them because they would have had to explain how do they sustain themselves. A Palestinian guy that I met who was in this situation is now doing real estate development, now legally since he eventually got a legal status. There are plenty like that.

Do you know how expensive UK is? You can’t have a life on benefits, unless you are rich you have to work.

It doesn’t make any sense to go to UK to spend your life in a room barely being able to buy food using the state benefits.

That last point is always been the way I've seen it - especially here in Australia, the idea that anyone would risk their lives and travel half way across the world in subhuman conditions just to be able to spend their life bumming off social security seems pretty laughable. Indeed they're exactly the sort of people I'd think we need more of in this country, yet neither side of politics is budging from this absurd (and probably illegal) position of not allowing anyone that arrives by boat an option to even apply for asylum on our shores.

Where did the word 'lazy' come from? Or the suggestion immigrants 'don't work'? My comment was about the scale of immigration into the EU/UK (particularly from sub Saharan Africa where Mo Farah/Hussein Abdi Kahin originated).

Ask any immigrant community whether southern Sweden, UK, US wherever about the criminal underworld and you will hear plenty of 'colourful' stories, not least immensely lucrative traffics and smuggling. A lot of hard working illegal immigrants are exploited by these unsavoury types.

Better link Europe’s most fortified border is in Africa

sub saharan illegal immigrants into europe https://youtu.be/LY_Yiu2U2Ts

Muhammad is most popular name in the UK for fifth year running, survey finds https://english.alaraby.co.uk/news/muhammad-most-popular-nam...

That is due to a lack of variance in names within a subpopulation.

Everyone and his cousin is called Mohammed, heck in certain areas even girls have it as a second name.

This is the entire UK population, not a 'sub population'...

His point is that a sub-population has a low name variance. Even if the sub-population is not very large, if the variance is much lower than the norm, it's going to show disproportionately in the top.

Considering the difficulties most of these people face to get to their target countries, it's not too far fetched to think most are indeed hard working and ambitious.

Wage dilution is an issue. It's the working and middle classes that are most harmed by immigration.

Those who are in the position to not have their wages threatened by mass immigration policies are free to reap the rewards of cheap labor, but for those who are in the position of being outcompeted by incoming labor, immigration is a drawback not an asset.

Naturally, policymakers are in the former category, and as such, happen to quite like mass immigration.

> It's the working and middle classes that are most harmed by immigration.

Didn't farmers complain that British (working class?)citizens[1] weren't up for picking fruits after East Europeans hit the Brexit? The same working & middle class rely on cheap fruits, so it's not a simple equation where fewer immigrants = better jobs.

1. https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-suffolk-61568286

I'm not sure how to respond without being glib, but there's more to life than fruit.

Safe working conditions are worth 5 pound strawberries.

Sure - there's more to life than fruit, massages, receiving trucked goods, and being attended to by health techs - but add it all up and you're missing quite a huge chunk of "life", IMO.

If a system depends on disposable workers to provide those things than it's not a system we should be supporting. We need to figure out how to provide a wage large enough to provide for everyone, not just the lucky few who have an army of slaves to meet their needs. Currently we don't and we are stealing the human capital of the second world to support our failing countries.

The strawman is now a strawarmy!

Why do you assume they're unsafe? That's not in the article. It appears you've created a strawman.

Or you could try to stop the race to the bottom and pay the working class more so they can afford strawberries that aren't picked by wage slaves.

There's a difference between a complaint and a reality. British working class citizens likely wouldn't wish to pick fruits, at the wages that British farmers wish to pay them.

Actually, that's sort of the point. British working class labour being undercut by foreign labour.

"Undercut"? You're getting there.

> Actually, that's sort of the point. British working class labour being undercut by foreign labour.

Sure, that may work in a purely hypothetical construct with rational economic agents, no second-order effects, farmers that are OK with going out of business, no political pandering, a the Conservative government that cares about labor (the class) and spherical cows.

Why are the anti-immigration politicians, now that they have "taken back control" - still keeping the immigration pipeline running? Just with fewer EU immigrants.

Blaming foreign laborers for systemic problems is a lazy cop-out: that is the bloc with the least say.

No, it's not, this is called the lump of labor fallacy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lump_of_labour_fallacy

Tragedy of the commons (or in this case mass immigration to the 'commons') https://online.hbs.edu/blog/post/tragedy-of-the-commons-impa... example 5

Wages do not work like groundwater. There is no fixed exogenous workload or pool of national income such that fewer people get bigger shares. This was cutting edge thinking at the time of the Industrial Revolution but it turned out to be totally wrong. Obviously, or standards of living in Western countries today would be much worse than in Malthusianism's heyday, given our now much higher populations.

Disagree. UK socialists last century when the country was still a manufacturing powerhouse were clear about the concept of a nation state with nationalized health, energy, travel etc, union membership and fair taxation for A FINITE NUMBER OF CITIZENS.

Fraternal relationships with similar nation states (all singing the nationale together) was arguably one of the reasons for the creation of the common market (which of course mushroomed over time into the huge undemocratic bureaucratic monster it now is).

Naturally those benefits (literally in some cases) were very attractive to people like Mo Farah's family from afar decades ago and the UK and Europe were empathetic to allowing some immigration.

The tragedy of the commons is epitomized by globalization, the vast offshore empire that now controls the planet. The globalists want compliant, overpopulated workforces with no negotiating skills in all countries and thus encouraging borderless society. The result is mediocre wages, large amounts of trafficking of in some cases literally slave labour and few opportunities for what used to be termed the working classes.

These are huge global problems that are currently spinning out of control due to the globalists also controlling the central banks which have enabled finacialization of everything and now ferocious inflation

Quoting from that article:

> However, skilled immigrating workers can bring capabilities that are not available in the native workforce, for example in academic research or information technology. Additionally, immigrating workforces also create new jobs by expanding demand, thus creating more jobs, either directly by setting up businesses (therefore requiring local services or workers), or indirectly by raising consumption. As an example, a greater population that eats more groceries will increase demand from shops, which will therefore require additional shop staff.

If that's the "fallacy" then it's not much of a rebuttal. The UK has an immigration system that allows in quite easily the kind of people who do academic research and information technology. How that has any relevance to low paid workers in far more precarious professions (or no profession at all) who have to compete with low skilled immigrants who are unlikely to know their rights, thus pressuring conditions downwards, who are likely to find the low pay better than they could get back home (or worse, taking lower pay out of necessity because of their illegal immigration status) which again, pressures downwards the pay levels, you'll have to explain.

One of my friends is from a Baltic state and wasn't claiming for money she should've been paid, which suited her employer just fine (this story[1] turned up a week after I learned about this, about her industry and mirrored her situation) - do you think there was a reason my friend said all her colleagues were foreigners? I'll give you the two best reasons I think for that:

a) The company wanted to hire foreigners because it would be easier to scam them out of money and rights

b) Locals would be less inclined to put up with that kind of nonsense

How is any of this helpful to a country, the locals, or the immigrants?

[1] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-37350750

Yes, the leverage employers can have over immigrants is a big problem. An illegal immigrant who goes to the authorities with a wage theft claim risks being arrested and deported herself. Even a highly educated tech worker at Facebook cannot switch to Google without jeopardizing his family's status in the United States.

The harsher the climate towards immigrants in laws and officialdom, the easier they are to exploit. The anti-immigration voters who demand this harshness are shooting themselves in the foot a bit, and should reconsider.

> The harsher the climate towards immigrants in laws and officialdom, the easier they are to exploit. The anti-immigration voters who demand this harshness are shooting themselves in the foot a bit, and should reconsider.

That ignores opportunity cost. There's a reason there are camps at Calais, and it's because those in the camps believe - rightly or wrongly - that they are better off applying for asylum in Britain than France.

It hasn't taken long for the policy to prove this true. From[1]:

> Numbers in this category have also grown significantly in recent months. Taoiseach Micheál Martin has said that the increase is in response to a new UK policy being introduced which threatens to deport new arrivals into the UK to Rwanda in central Africa.

[1] https://www.irishcentral.com/opinion/what-should-be-done-ire...

Real UK wages are stagnant because the UK has a desperately unproductive economy. Growth in disposable household income has lagged Europe massively for decades.

We also have the highest tax burden as a % of GDP in 70 years. House prices are the highest relative to income than they have ever been.

We're a country circling the drain.

Blaming immigration and the EU in political discourse just suits the political agenda of our clueless, ambivalent politicians who haven't got the vision or balls to radically change anything for the better. Instead they'll just pick over what benefits they will cut and what taxes they will cut/increase and run in circles.

Your comment makes me think of this essay by Branko Milanovic

Particularly this line: Xi sees the break-up of the Soviet Union and the end of the CPSU as the result of “ideological nihilism”: the ruling strata have ceased to believe in the advantages and the value of the system, but lacked any other ideological coordinates within which to situate their thinking.

https://braveneweurope.com/branko-milanovic-the-rule-of-nihi...

My personal term to describe the players in Britain's politics is functional incompetence. Which is while they are adept at gaining and holding on to office, they are hapless at performing the actual duties of those offices.

> functional incompetence

Yep, our ruling class is educated to be quick witted in abstract debates and that is the extent of their depth.

You know what else is bad for the wedges? Schools producing all those engineers undercutting the wedge growth of those already in the profession.

With that logic, education is the primary enemy of the middle class.

Seriously though, this demand to control the supply of labor is a strange one. Everybody is for meritocracy and free market until they are expected to perform. Working permits are like the taxi medallion system.

If someone who speaks native English, went to British schools, have a network in the country thanks to living there since ever cannot compete with someone from, say Romania, it's only fair for the immigrant to take the job.

How has Australian wages been harmed by considerably higher immigration?

> Unless you can't physically fit people in the island

They can’t physically fit, huge amounts of protected greenfield sites are being demolished by the government for cheap new build housing

> I have to wonder how the UK social construct can survive with the huge numbers of people entering

Wow like, are you concerned about Replacement maybe? Seems a little racist to me but I'm not that Great at european geopolitics I guess.

I suppose the folks at the UN must have been swept up by racist rhetoric when they started writing reports about Replacement Migration for Western countries.

If you’re legitimately worried about excessive immigration, you should be doing everything you can to fight climate change. Hundreds of millions of people could be displaced by environmental disasters like sea level rise, typhoon flooding, drought, and famine. If you don’t want a repeat of the emigration at the end of the Bronze Age, we need to do all we can to stop climate change.

It's because they see a better quality of life in western countries. Climate change has nothing to do with it.

This will be interesting here in Australia. We've had quite a lot of major flood events on the east coast in the past year. Thousands of people should move as it is predictable that it will happen again in the next 20 years.

So completely within our own country we will have climate change related movements of people.

We also have a lot of landspace for our population size and quite a few neighbouring pacific island nations that may need a place to go.

And to offset China's assertions in the Pacific, Australia is doing all it can right now to be seen as the "helpful neighbour"...

I expect to see more in this space over the next 40 years.

What UK social construct, exactly?

> Illegal immigration into the UK from the third world

Ironic, given the UK’s history of illegally colonising and creating a “third world” from their exploitation.

Really the third world is still basically defined in terms of your historical relationships to the US or the Soviet Union. Despite the end of that particular conflict the membership in various worlds hasn't much changed.

It’s all about a) the amount (enough to make up for the lower developed birthdate, and to keep inflation low, but not so much as to completely destabilize the quality of life of the native lower/middle class) b) composition (not all immigrants are created equal when it comes to net contribution (regardless of desire to work/contribute)(e.g. a someone older, with serious health conditions and lacking an a grade school education Vs say a college educated, young, and healthy.)

Refugees from the Ukrainian war can be used as a good case study to understand this. I live in Lithuania, which has taken over 50,000 people since the start of the war, which equates to around 2% of the total population. Most of the refugees are women and children, as the men usually stay to fight, so they are less productive in the labour market.

They are given a lot of benefits that regular working class do not have, which has led to the media and working class creating a lot of disdain towards Ukrainians. A friend told me that over the weekend he saw a worker in a supermarket start shouting at a Ukrainian woman who simply asked him where something is. It sounds exactly the same as the rheotric from rightwing media in the UK before Brexit, 'all these immigrants stealing our jobs'.

In the capital there is a shortage of housing, and the advertised rental prices have gone up 30-50% based on what they would have been asking for last year. This isn't just because of Ukraine though. Over the last decade a lot of people have relocated to larger cities, and I feel that a lot of this is life returning to normal post COVID (people want to live in the city centre again), as well as new construction projects being delayed (there are two large residential developments in my street that planned to complete early 2022, but still aren't anywhere near ready).

Prices for food have gone up, but I see this more as an effect of energy prices going up than because of refugees. I have not noticed any shortages of anything, outside of what products sanctions have stopped.

They don't.

There's a reason why right wing parties are popular for the working poor and why Brexit and anti-immigration in general is most popular in the most economically depressed areas.

Liberals aren't doing themselves any favors by sweeping thins like the Rotherham child rape gangs and Manchester Arena bombing under the rug because they happened to white trash.

Illegal immigration happens because of the billions of dollars of corruption that is done in those countries and then parked in UK banks and property markets. If the west would stop the illegal and corruption outflow of resources from poor countries the need for people to get out of these countries and immigrate to west would decrease dramatically automatically.

I've actually met him one day on the Nike campus. He's a tiny person and very friendly.

The White Stolen Generation have another angle of this story to tell. Australia essentially boosted its white population by kidnapping kids from low-income/poor/wrong-class families across the Empire and shipping them off to Australian families for adoption. Basically the same thing that was happening within Australia with the Stolen Generation (original land owners kids) was also being done at scale across the Commonwealth: human trafficking to increase the 'whiteness' of the population.

This is widely unacknowledged as a social ill in modern Australia, alas. But its still a source of immense pain and suffering for a lot of people - who had their kids ripped from them, and who had their families disappeared on the other end of a vague and distant memory of a boat ride that was supposed to be a fun summer break ..

A real tragedy that the British got away with their genocides.

I certainly hope the villain of this story suffers consequences greater than being contacted by BBC News.

This is a sensational story and I think it's going to be hard for this individual to keep their identity hidden, even though I take it Farah doesn't want to name them.

Law doesn’t apply to him?

I'm afraid it's worse. The law does apply, but what the law does is at the discretion of a civil servant handling the case. It isn't clear cut. As the result thousands of people who were living legally in the UK for decades found themselves facing possible deportations as they can't prove to the government that they have lived there for all those years.

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