The Myth of the Immigrant Benefit-Scrounger

The Sunday Express is at it again. It is outraged that Britain’s prisons contain some inmates who were not born in this country. Of course, everyone is hopping aboard the immigrant-bashing bandwagon these days. Immigration, it sometimes seems, is something to be feared, not valued. I understand the political calculation behind all this. The restrictionists have carried the day and there are few votes in seeming “soft” on immigration these days. Which is a shame. But there you have it.

Nevertheless, the immigration brouhaha increasingly bears more than a passing resemblance to a moral panic. As tends to be the case, such fears are not utterly groundless but they are hyped and exaggerated to a point at which they become irrational and, even, nonsensical. The great Foreigners Clogging Our Prisons, Stealing Our Jobs, Milking Our Benefits, Just Bloody Being Here is one such example.