I have worked in the visas and Immigration industry for nearly 20 years and in that time I keep seeing the same old stories.  About Immigrants conflicting with UK “Values”.  I have to say this is as British as talking about the weather and drinking tea.

Immigration History shows the debate has continued since the Middle Ages and no doubt less well documented prior to the invention of the printing press!

The long and the short of it is Immigration is as natural as the tides of the sea and with more people on earth the more people will move.   To add the invention of the jet engine and the Internet people are Global Citizens.  If there are still going to be any people who will be able to claim “My family has lived here for generations.” in another generation or two I will be very surprised.

The world is forever changing and we should celibrate the free movement of people.  The alternative of caging people into the area where they were born and restricting their freedom to move would be a real backward step. 

If a person does not like the place they are living the simple answer is they should emigrate.  Recently I see the newspapers full of stories about criminals who are drawn to new countries as Immigrants.  If this is truely the case a solution would be a quick criminal records check like they do in Australian Immigration it would solve this problem and allow for Immigrants to hold their heads up high.

I am sure if all the Immigrants in the world returned home the world would be a much worse place.  I am sure in another thousand years the debate will continue but the old fashioned idea of “this is our land” will be a dying concept as international mobility grows.