Essay: UK Immigration Policy Reform Recommendations.

Imagine you are a policy advisor to your government .what are the three key recommendations that you would make for immigration and /or emigration policy reform in your country - and why? make sure to support your recommendations with discussion and analysis of relevant data and research 

Addressing Geographical Imbalances in Immigration

Immigration is a crucial policy for every country (Hollifield, Martin and Orrenius 2014). There are many implications that immigration policies have on the economy, the public services and on the different communities of a country. Immigrants have mainly brought various benefits to the culture and economy of a country (Griffith and Morris 2017). However, there are certain transformations that is required in the immigration policies to regain the lost trust in the government. Hence, as a policy advisor of the UK there are certain recommendations that are necessary for immigration policy reform of the country. This essay will discuss those recommendations and analyse the changes that needs to be made in the policies.

The first change that could be made is that the immigration policy of the country should address the geographical imbalances that are occurring in the economy (Coyle 2016). It is necessary to build a geographical flexibility in the system of immigration, so that the economic imbalance in the nations and regions in UK is resolved (Burrell 2016). This change can be brought about in two-ways, firstly by adopting a system of sub-state in which the control would remain with the central government but the immigration rules can vary across different nations and regions. Secondly, a devolved system could also be adopted which would ensure that new powers are given to the sub-states on how to build their own immigration rules (Walsh 2014). Under both these system, the power and responsibility of issuing the visas and non-labour migration would be with the central government (McCollum and Findlay 2015). However, new changes would be made in the work migration policies in different nations and regions of UK. Both the devolved system and the sub-state system can help in resolving the geographical imbalances in immigration (Avendaño 2014). According to the current system of immigration, the skilled immigrants mostly settles in London, as the skill levels and the salary structure is fixed and the wages are higher than any other region in UK. Other regions are unable to attract skilled immigrants because they lack the infrastructure to do so. A geographical change in the migration policy could help the other nations to get new powers and stabilize their economy by which they can attract more skilled immigrant workers (Chang 2016). There have been researches that specify that the share of immigrants is the largest in London (Sá 2015). This further emphasizes that London has the most number of skilled workers from overseas and other nations do lack in that sector. Hence, a change in the immigration policy change ensure that that all areas and nations in the UK receive an almost equal distribution of skilled immigrant workers. The changes in the system would also help the regions in getting more control over their own immigration policies. This can enable the local people to contribute more in the managing of migration. The costs and benefits of migration can become more practical in the long run. People applying for such sub-state visas would need employers of the region to sponsor them. If in any scenario, the immigrants change their employer, they would need to apply again for the visa to the Home Office. This would help in the prevention of overstaying of immigrants and also retain the appointment of illegal immigrants in UK (Aleksynska and Tritah 2013).  

Supporting Equality in the Nation

The second reform that could be made is that the immigration strategy should support equality in the nation. UK is deemed to be the most unequal nation in the whole Western Europe (Leddy-Owen 2016). The immigrants who are non-European face lots of economic instability and the European immigrants are underpaid and overqualified. The government should support the integration of immigrants in the labour market and address the inequality issue in the nation (Connolly, Lucio and Marino 2013). The transfer of the responsibility of the checking of the immigrants to the employer, the landlords and banks should also be followed by strict instructions that no immigrant is discriminated in any way (Meunier et al. 2013). Thus should be done because there are many media reports and other evidences which support the fact that many immigrants are being treated in a bad way and being bullied by employers, landlords and even in other areas (Bidisha 2013). British people are always preferred during any job application or while renting a house. They do not allow the people without British passports to apply for any kind of job or house application (Miranda and Zhu 2013). This becomes a problem for the non-European people as they are unable to get employed or even if they are employed they are not treated well or even harassed in the work place. This makes them deteriorate in terms of work and hence they get bullied more since they are it able to reach the standard of work in the company. Other cases have also been found where travel agencies deny the immigrants any booking for holidays or even cancels the online bookings of European citizens who reside in other countries. Landlords made different rules for the immigrants who showed interest in renting a house or denied them access altogether (Kulu et al. 2015). This discrimination is due to the non-acceptance of immigrants in UK by the local people. The population in UK are biased towards their own people and hence the practices of discrimination and even racism takes over in case of the immigrants. They resent the idea of immigration as they feel that immigrants are based in their country to take away everything good from the nation. Thus, thus sentiment that prevails among the people of the nation becomes a major threat for the immigrants (Morad and Haque). Therefore, it is necessary that strict policies are made to ensure that even though such sentiments cannot evaporate within a short time, however, the people would stop the discrimination because of the law that is applied (Lomer 2017). Without a change in the policy the discrimination will always prevail and immigrants will not be able to operate according to their full potential in the country and always feel threatened by the locals.

The third change that could occur in the immigration policy is that changes should be made in the UK immigration strategy to support the trade balance of the nation. Many researchers have found out that immigrants can help in increasing the service exports of the country by providing knowledge about the country-specific markets (Wadsworth et al. 2016). However, the current immigration policies are not well-equipped to meet the trade needs of the country (Ottaviano, Peri and Wright 2015). It is advisable to introduce or bring about a change in the new policy to form it in such a way that it contributes majorly to the boost of exports of the country. The policy can be made in coordination with the Department for International Trade and the Home Office to build a concrete and well-equipped policy (Bowen and Wu 2013). The policy should also hold certain policies that can attract international students into their country. Thus could be done if the nation can establish good work opportunities after the completion of studies and also introduce such subjects which can attract the international students (Chang and Kono 2014). The government should also concentrate on the different communities of immigrants that have established themselves in the country and make use of their country-specific knowledge to understand the trade routes of other countries and to spread their services in such routes (Dustmann and Frattini 2014). These people can help in the formation of business plans and expand the trades among different countries and trade centres. This would help in expanding the potential of export of the companies of UK without the traditional barriers of language and culture (Marino, Penninx and Roosblad 2015). Young people or international students can be hired during the course of their education into these companies to help with the exporting plan. This is also beneficial for the students as they have a source of income during their study years as well. The focus of this policy change would be to remove the obstacles that normally come with doing trade with other countries that is language and cultural barriers, and could also include certain projects like research of the market, analytics of social media, development of the brand and online marketing (Peters 2015). The change, once initiated, should be piloted with a selected group of students from selected universities and a minor number of local people, and depending on the success of the pilot, the whole policy can be sustained (Dhingra, Ottaviano and Sampson 2015). However, it is not necessary that the selected pilot group will only be comprised of students, but they can also include other individuals who possesses the appropriate skills and the potential to make this policy a success. Hence, it can be said that this policy change is necessary to develop the economy of the country. As the economy of the nation rises, so will the people of the nation be able to develop themselves.

Boosting the Trade Balance of the Nation

Hence, it can be concluded that proper policy reforms are needed to manage the immigration of UK for the success of the economy. The recommendation for changes given above could help the immigrants in establishing a comfortable and successful place in the nation and also help UK to develop and enhance the economic condition, also keeping in mind the comfort of its people.                        

References:

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