CRITICAL REVIEW

Eastern European Immigrants: A Critical Review

Eastern European Immigrants: A Critical Review

Introduction

The term migration refers to the forced or voluntary movement of people between one place and another. Immigration has a more limited meaning. It refers to an international movement of people that leads to the permanent settlement of migrants in the country of destination. While studies of migration have focused on particular periods of time and sending and receiving locales—such as the movement of some 30 million Europeans out of the continent between the mid-nineteenth century and World War I or the turn of the twenty-first century flows from the south of the world to the north—historians agree that human mobility has been the norm throughout world history (Drinkwater, et. al., 2003, pp. 8-13).

Discussion

The purpose of writing this paper is to critically analyze the situation of immigrants in United Kingdom from the Eastern Europe perspective. The author is of the idea that the UK government faced an enormous increase in the immigrants that came from the Eastern Europe, and the migrants still arriving in the UK. Therefore, the author tried to give the readers an idea regarding the impact of immigrants on the economy and other social effects.

Immigration: UK perspective

In the recent year, United Kingdom showed enough potential to attract the immigrants mainly from the Eastern European countries. Since 2000, an average of about one million legal immigrants and about 700,000 illegal immigrants has entered the United Kingdom each year. Thus, net immigration has been directly increasing the UK population by 1.4 million persons per year. Net immigration then has indirect, subsequent effects on population growth due to immigrant fertility.

Taken together, the direct and indirect impacts of immigration on the UK population are startling. The Census Bureau projects that the total UK population will grow to 439 million by 2050, an increase of 157 million, or 56%, since 2000. To put this in concrete terms, this is equivalent to adding the entire populations of Mexico and Canada population of the United Kingdom. According to Passel and Cohn (2008b), over four fifths of that growth will be due to immigrants and their descendents. Thus, immigration is dramatically increasing the number of people living in the United Kingdom (Committee on Economic Affairs, 2008, pp. 15-19).

Rapid population growth puts stress on society, on the environment, on the economy, on schools and neighbourhoods, and on government. More people mean more pollution, more crime, more crowding, and more need for government services. British take pride in their immigrant history, but they are also concerned about the impact of large-scale immigration, particularly when much of it seems to be illegal and uncontrollable. They are empathetic with immigrants, but they also are concerned about their own citizens and their own national identity. That conflict explains the intensity of the debate about UK immigration policy (GLA Economics & Greater London Authority, 2009, pp. 24-28). English people caught between competing ideals, and neither side of the debate is obviously right.

Immigrants from the Eastern Europe

UK facing an immense increase in the migrants from the Eastern Europe, and according to the study presented by the ONS examined that behind the enormous migration, the main factor was the recession that was faced by the A8 countries, and among ...