Right-wing protesters are very keen to highlight that they are only against the unvetted illegal migrants who are only here to sponge off the state, rape our daughters and behead our sons. Fair enough, I suppose.
One issue is all the skilled migrants look at what is going on and may decide, feck this, I am out of here.
Take the case of Leilani Molina. After a night of hard work caring for people, she came home to find her car and house attacked. From the Irish News:
A young single mother and health worker was on a night shift at a local care facility when her Co Antrim home was attacked in the early hours of Wednesday.
Police are treating the attack on the home of Leilani Molina as a “racially motivated hate crime” after the front window was smashed and a brick thrown at a car parked outside, seriously damaging the windscreen.
Ms Molina, originally from the Philippines, shares the house in the Erskine Park area of Ballyclare with her eight-year-old daughter and another female occupant. She described being shocked and a little scared following the attack.
I don’t know what her plans are but you would not blame her for considering her future. There is a global shortage of healthcare workers; honestly, there seems to be a global shortage of [insert whatever sector you want].
On Reddit and other forums this week, there have been many comments from immigrants saying they no longer feel safe here and are considering moving. Many of these people are skilled workers who can walk into a job anywhere in the World.
In today’s Irish News, Pat Cullen comments that our Health Service would collapse without migrant workers.
Also, our own citizens are disgusted. Many people consider whether they want to live in a society like this. Do I want to bring up my children here? Many of our diaspora may have considered coming home and contributing their energy and skills to improving Northern Ireland. Now, they look at the news and conclude they are better off staying where they are.
The people who are attacking shops and people are the same people who will be complaining that they are waiting in A&E for 20 hours. The right are not big on irony.
Be careful what you wish for. If you chant migrants out, they might go, OK then, we are out of here.
I help to manage Slugger by taking care of the site as well as running our live events. My background is in business, marketing and IT. My politics tend towards middle-of-the-road pragmatism, I am not a member of any political party. Oddly for a member of the Slugger team, I am not that interested in daily politics, preferring to write about big ideas in society. When not stuck in front of a screen, I am a parkrun Run Director.
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