Modern Immigration

I thought that I would talk about modern immigration because the question as come up in terms of people wanting to stay in the UK after they separate or retire. It is not as easy as one would think to stay behind in the UK especially as the immigration control becomes more stringent. In my case, I was able to stay because I am married to a British citizen so I was able to apply for a spouse visa. 

Those that want to come to England to work will struggle because UK/EU or settled people (those that have their Indefinite Leave to Remain) are to be chosen before anyone else. The only way that you can be chosen over them is if you are the person more qualified and they have to prove this in hiring you. 

This has then leads to the question, if it is so hard to be able to stay here then why are people for Eastern Europe and countries like India and Canada able to come and stay here. The European Union has enabled people to move countries and these people are free from immigration control. In fact, the United Kingdom is one of 6 countries in the EU which allows people to come to work as soon as the country as been accepted whereas places like Germany and France, they have to belong for a certain amount of years before they can work in that country.

People from Commonwealth countries enjoy different immigration control rules because they still belong to the Commonwealth. We gave up our right to that in the War of Independence (I have been asked before why we don't belong to the Commonwealth).

If you read my post about Americans here during World War 2, you will know that at the time only 7,000 black people lived here. This has hugely changed since then. That has a lot to do with the war and the shortage of labour to rebuild Britain. The British then setup immigration campaigns to attract workers from overseas to work in the 1950s. People were recruited from the West Indies to drive buses. Workers from India and Pakistan were recruited to work in the textile and engineering industries.  This recruitment lasted for 25 years and people from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh to England for work.

The immigration began to tail off in the late 1960s to the 1970s because of the tightening immigration laws. However, people from 'old' Commonwealth countries (Australia, New Zealand and Canada) were not subject to these controls.

There were a lot of refugees that were also accepted because of the people forced to leave Uganda who were of Indian origin in 1972. There were a lot of people from India that went to Africa to help to build the railroad. A colleague of mine is Kenyan but family comes from India who came to Britain when it became its own country and troubles arose for those that were not considered Kenyan (although he was born there).

People from the U.S., Australia, New Zealand and  South Africa were part of the largest immigration populations in the 1980s. Then when the Soviet Union fell in the early 1990s, many came to the U.K. for a better life.

The current immigration controls have been a result of the coalition government because they promised to lower the amount of immigrants in the U.K. but they cannot control the E.U. citizens because they are not subject to immigration control so the people that they can keep from entering the country is everyone else.  

All the Best!

American to Britain