The migrant specter: scary or not?

Jade MacRury, a content writer and correspondent for the Immigration Advice Service, an immigration law firm based in the UK & Ireland that provides invaluable legal support to migrants, writes:

The idea that immigration is a burden on the public purse is often heard, but is it correct? The intersection of immigration and the economy is deeply complex. In an issue of such significance, it vital for truth to prevail.

But for this to happen, the issue must be looked at closely and objectively. Does immigration truly bring no benefits to the host country at all? Do overseas nationals do nothing but take from British public services without ever contributing a single penny? Do they really exacerbate a budget deficit that is already unsustainable? Or are we viewing a chicken-and-egg scenario? Instead of the government creating the hostile immigration policy in response to the “migrant threat,” is it possible that it actually fans the flames of untruths in order to support harsh immigration policies?

The only way to answer such questions is to examine the evidence, which paints a more complicated picture than the one-sided narrative that dominates vast swathes of political discourse. Different studies and researchers use different methods, as they should, in order that the flaws of one study can be addressed by another. However, there is one deterrent to figuring out the truth: the fact that researchers cannot seem to agree on a basic definition of the word “migrant.”

Is a migrant anyone foreign born? Yes, that’s the simplest answer, isn’t it? Someone is a migrant because they migrated from one country to another. But what of their children born in the UK? Are they migrants too? They would never have arrived here if their parents hadn’t migrated but they didn’t actually migrate because they were born here and knew no other home.

And which migrants are we talking about? Are we focusing on those coming from the EU/EEA, outside the EU/EEA area or perhaps both? Did we want to study migrants who are in the UK as students? Or those who came here to work jobs that the UK can’t fill, such as fruit pickers or NHS carers? Or perhaps we want to know what contributions, if any, asylum seekers and refugees make to the British economy? Or are we looking at all of them?

Are we studying just one fiscal year? The entire life cycle of a full generation of migrants – maybe even two generations (if we’re counting even UK-born children as part of the migrant category)? Are we using actual data or extrapolating from them and jumping into the realm of assumptions and educated guesswork?

Also, how are we calculating contributions and costs? Yes, we always include income tax, National Insurance and VAT on purchases within migrants’ fiscal contributions, but sometimes we also include shares of taxes paid by UK businesses. In the same way, fiscal costs always include public services such as NHS care and education, but then sometimes we include government spending on defense as well, which wouldn’t change even if immigration were to stop instantly.

Finally, are we looking at any results for migrants on their own and treating them as absolutes? Or are we examining their fiscal impact relative to the UK-born population? Or perhaps we’re comparing one segment of migrants against another, as we do when we look at studies that compare the contributions of EU/EEA migrants against non-EU/EEA migrants as well as those of students against refugees and asylum seekers?

Different starting points naturally produce different results. For example, a 2018 Oxford Economics study showed that, relative to the UK-born population, migrants from the European Economic Area (EEA) actually had a positive financial effect. During the 2016/2017 fiscal year, the UK born population generated a net fiscal cost of -£41.4 billion whereas the EEA migrants made a net fiscal contribution of £4.7 billion–a clear difference and a strong point in favor of migrants.

On the negative side of the spectrum, however, is a 2014 Migration Watch study which focused on the 2014/15 financial year. This study revealed that migrants actually cost the UK government rather than contribute to it. EEA migrants generated a loss of -£1.1 billion whilst non-EEA migrants generated a loss of -£15.6 billion. And the UK-born population? They didn’t include it in the study so no comparison could be made.

So, do migrants contribute to or cost the UK government? It’s hard to provide a single accurate answer but the truth is likely somewhere in the middle. And our response must reflect that reality. Any rhetoric that scapegoats migrants for all the ills Britain is going through must be tempered. We need none of Nigel Farage’s consistent demonizing of an entire group of people, none of the relentless xenophobia that was so closely tied to the Brexit vote. We need truth and objectivity to prevail.