I recently received the following question from the contact form on my website. I’ve decided to answer it in public, because similar concerns are woven into the immigration narrative far beyond the UK.
“I work for a women’s refuge, recently a Turkish woman came to stay with us. Her attitude is that she is in the UK and therefore the government should look after her and her child. She wants her son to have an English education and therefore she’s owed that from the government because she has spent two years getting a visa into the country, she has only been in the country three months and has numerous appointments with our healthcare services which she will get for free. She has no ambition to work, no want to put into the system yet wants to be looked after. This kind of attitude infuriates me, as it isn’t an isolated incident. If you could offer me some advice or a different perspective on how to see this situation from a more inter-being or nicer perspective I’d really appreciate it.”