Six real life stories of migration

New EU migrants have not had a significant impact on the employment

prospects of British school-leavers, according to an official government
report by immigration experts. But according to poll by the Guardian and
ICM published in June, almost half of British voters believe that the impact
of immigration on employment underlies their sense of economic
insecurity. The latest NatCen British Social Attitudes survey also shows
that a quarter of British people said that they believed the main reason
immigrants came to the UK was to claim benefits.
Approximately 7.5 million people in the UK were born abroad, making up
13% of the overall population. We asked readers to tell us about their
experiences of immigration and many responded in detail. Here, readers from Romania to Canada - tell us why they came to the UK, about the
challenges of gaining legal status and which aspects of British society
make them want to stay or leave.

"I have had the most incredible journey of

escape"
Anonymous, 47, moved from Istanbul to Birmingham, via Paris.
As a 17 year old in Istanbul, my life was unbearably hard. I was brutally
seperated from my birth mother at the age of 13 by my dictatorial father
who went on to abuse me and my brother in every possible way. We were
regularly tortured by him and threatened with death. I have had the most
incredible journey of escape under this threat.
After an extremely risky process I managed to make my way to Paris. Aged
18, I was terrified. I could not speak French and had no experience of
travelling alone. I felt all alone. I spent two years at the Sorbonne, found a
good job and my own flat. During holidays in England I met the father of
my three children. It was a huge surprise when I found out I was pregnant
with my first child and I had no idea what to do. I decided to stay in
London. I wanted the baby to grow up with the father and his family as I
did not have a family myself. It feIt precious. I became very emotional and
did not want to hurt the father by taking the baby away.
We got married and went on to have three beautiful and amazing children.
They were born here and they are British. I have not put them on a Turkish
passport as I still have nightmares about my father finding me and my
children. I have been working and paying taxes for years and brought my
three children up as a single mother until my youngest child Hope got
killed by a 18 ton heavy goods vehicle on her way back from school.

I did not come here for money or benefits; safety and freedom were my
main concerns. I am forever grateful that I have had the opportunity to
become a free citizen who is entitled to a normal life. Bringing up our
children in a free country is priceless.

"The most difficult thing about Britain has

been the sexism"
Gillian, 35, moved from Quebec, Canada to Surrey
As a Canadian who is also black, I find myself in this funny area of the
immigration Venn diagram. No one complains about Canadians,
Americans, Australians or South Africans coming here and taking jobs. We
are taking a heck of a lot of them - we are being head hunted, recruited
and paid even more than you, but no one minds. Is it because we are
normally white? I have experienced more racism than I ever did in Canada.
People are always nice to me when they hear my accent. I can't help feel
that my Canadian upbringing is welcome but my brown skin is not. I have
been called a "paki" and had guys making monkey noises at me. But I
can't talk about these things with friends because they want to pretend
that Britain does not have a race problem. So I basically just stopped going
out.
The most difficult thing about living in Britain for me has been the sexism.
I was not used to sexual harassment in public places or sexual 'banter' as
some sort of acceptable norm, but there are topless women in
newspapers, lads mags, the pay gap, lack of promotion, discrimination
against pregnant women, as well as high levels of rape and sex assaults. I
feel very uncomfortable and unsafe and I am happy to be moving back to
Canada soon. Quite simply, I think British men just hate women.

"I don't have the right to choose who I love"

Charles Brophy, 23, living in Liverpool with his Malaysian partner
I met my girlfriend at university a few years ago. She is studying for the
Bar in the hope of a career as a barrister. I hope to study for a PhD and go
into a career in research or academia. We're both more than capable of
reaching our goals and if we were both British we could envisage a bright
future together. Sadly this isn't the case because while I'm a fully fledged
British citizen my girlfriend is Malaysian.

She paid an extortionate amount for a degree which she got very little
value from and is she has felt increasingly unwelcome, criminalised and
imposed upon by a dense and costly layer of bureaucracy. Yet this is
someone who has a better command of the language than most of those
who live here or run the country, a better knowledge of its history and law,
and much more to contribute than most.
In previous years as a couple there would have been lots of options open
to us. She could have applied for a post-study work visa or we could have
registered our relationship or even married to gain a spousal visa. This is a
cost and sacrifice we would make but we have been told that marriage
alone will not keep us both together in the UK - I must meet a 18,600
earnings threshold. The burden is on me alone, but I'm unemployed in a
difficult graduate job market and the funding for PhD study will never meet
the requirement.
My girlfriend's student visa runs out in August, to overstay will harm any
chances we have of legally living together in this country and would
possibly end with her confined in an immigration detention centre with all
of the threats that go with it. We are now in the amazing position in which
a foreign student can bring their family to live with them in the UK but
British students cannot be afforded the same right.
As a British citizen I don't have the right to choose who I love. Either I will
have to relocate to Malaysia, a country with significantly lower life
chances, giving up academic study and my life in the UK - or we can be
split up for potentially years as I attempt to find good work so that I can
fulfill arbitrary government targets.

"I am afraid for my safety in this country

because of my national origin"
Alexa123, moved from Romania to the UK
I am a Romanian with double citizenship. Romanians were given full rights
to work in the UK at the beginning of this year. I first came to this country
on a work permit in the late 90s. There has been a dramatic worsening of
public attitudes towards Romanians since then. I returned in 2007.
Since then a lettings agency asked me to provide a British guarantor, a
GP's secretary told me flatly "we do not take Romanian patients" and a
bank clerk said to me: "we don't accept Romanian customers".
I've paid tens of thousands of pounds in national insurance and never
taken a penny out in benefits - no housing benefits, no tax credits, no child
benefits - nothing at all. I have contributed to this society, which I have

begun to think of and love as if it were my own. I have British friends who
respect me for the person I am but for the first time I am afraid for my
safety in this country because of my national origin. While I agree that
immigration must be discussed in the open, the way Romanians are
presented to the public by officials and by the media - as benefit
scroungers who come here and create a housing crisis - only stirs up
hatred and xenophobia. It could hurt the UK's image as a tolerant society,
discourage foreign tourism and talent from choosing the UK. Britain and its
people have a lot to gain from its positive image in the world. It would be
such a shame to throw it away.

"The government can barely do more to

make the lives of legal migrants in Britain
more difficult"
Jonathan Abourbih, 35, moved from Ontario, Canada to Scotland
I moved to the UK in 2008 from Canada and learned that I couldn't plan
my life more than 30 days in advance, because a pen stroke by the Home
Secretary can send me home packing. I'm a software developer and was
attracted to the incredibly innovative UK technology sector. I discovered
the (now cancelled) tier one general visa scheme, which enticed young,
educated, highly-skilled migrants to this country with the promise of
unrestricted employment, and settlement after five years of highly-skilled
work.
There's barely more that the government can do to make the lives of legal
migrants in Britain more difficult. The government's "Hostile Environment
Working group" (now called the Inter-Ministerial Group on migrants' access
to benefits and public services) penned the 2014 Immigration Act, which
proposes charging migrants for the use of certain NHS services, despite us
paying the same tax as everyone else.
It will restrict our ability to house ourselves and our families - it's possible
landlords will just be able to refuse non-British tenants. The government
have made something as innocuous as a minor traffic offence into
automatic grounds for the refusal of further visas.
Despite all this, I wouldn't leave for the world. I love my adopted home; I
love my friends; I love my partner, whom I met here; I love the
multiculturalism, the landscape, and the British people. I want to believe
that the truth about public attitudes to immigration isn't what I see in the
press, but is rather reflected by my real interactions.

"I've stopped thinking of myself as an

immigrant"
Tom Burkard, 70, moved from Michigan in the USA to Norwich.
My first contact with the British empire was when our destroyer called at
Gibraltar on our way to join the US sixth fleet in 1967. A couple of scouse
squaddies introduced me to the glories of Watney's Red Barrel and helped
me evade the shore patrol. In 1971, just after decimal currency was
introduced, I came as a tourist on a boat from the Hook of Holland. I fell in
with two chaps returning home on leave. Our boat was late, and when we
got to Liverpool Street Station, I couldn't catch my connection to St Albans,
so one of the soldiers - a West Indian - invited me to his home in South
London. We were somewhat worse for wear when we showed up, but his
mother made up the couch (with starched sheets, no less!). This set the
tone for the hospitality that I encountered almost everywhere.
Sadly, things have got a lot worse in recent years. In the north of England,
Asians and English live parallel lives, with very little contact. The AngloAmerican response to 9/11 has a lot to answer for, but I think the real
culprit is the race relations industry, which would disappear altogether if
things had kept on like they were in Brum a generation ago. As for myself,
I've long since stopped thinking of myself as an immigrant.
On the whole, being a Yank is a positive advantage. Back in the 1970s,
there were still a lot of people who remembered when the Yanks were
"overpaid, oversexed and over here." Fortunately, my uncle taught me the
right riposte: Brits were "underpaid, undersexed and under Eisenhower."
Eventually I became British and now it's something I seldom think about.
Between 1973 and 1984 I lived in Birmingham and witnessed only one
racial incident and it was such a relief after all the racial paranoia in the
US.