To What Extent is a British Immigration Policy a Product of a Hollowing Out the State - Essay Example

Britain has had to redefine itself as a nation-state and to create for the first time a national citizenship. The confused and bitter politics of immigration during the last quarter-century have been due to the absence of a strong identity as a nation-state and a well established national citizenship until 1981. Thus Britain lacked a criterion for deciding whom to admit to its territory. The government later drew distinctions in the immigration law between persons of Britain and its colonies; it the created a special second-class citizenship status, without the right of immigration for the residents of Hong Kong and others (Black and Kniveton 2008).

With the continued influx of persons, Britain had to change the immigration policies, aiming to integrate and assimilate those immigrants who had already settled and being closing its borders to any further immigration. The concerns of the British government were not only social, cultural and political, they were also economical in that unemployment and other risks had started to crop up (Ian and Spencer 2007). With reference to the discussion question given, this paper assess the hollowing out the state Rhode’s theory has an effect on the main British policies in the case of immigration.

The paper will also assess to what extent a British immigration policy a product of hollowing out the state. To the economy of Britain, immigration has become highly significant in that immigrants comprise more than 12% of the total workforce in Britain with the biggest portion of these immigrants being based in London. However, it was found that the argument that was being made by the British government that net immigration – immigration minus emigration – generates significant economic benefits for the existing British population had no backing evidence.

The GDP, which the government uses in making its argument, was found to be an irrelevant and misleading criterion for assessing the economic impacts of immigration of the British population. It was suggested that the focus of analysis should rather be based on the effects of immigration on income per head of the current population (Ian and Spencer, 2007). The economic impacts if immigration depends critically on the skills acquired by the immigrants. Immigrants with different qualifications and levels of education can have different impacts of the economy of a country.

It was found out that many business and public services at the present in Britain make use of the skills and hard work of the immigrants. Sind the implementation of successive immigration acts since 1962, Britain successfully managed to keep the net migration levels low heading into the 1980s. This was by accepting and overall number of migrants at a rate which was lower than the other European countries. In addition to that it allowed Britain to successfully control and channel migration which is the strength that the core executive enjoys within the immigration policy making process (England 2009).

In the 1970s for example, the British immigration office began allowing male immigrants to bring their wives and children into the country from other countries but discouraged women from bringing their husbands into the country from other countries. The 197 Immigration act was the only piece of legislation in Britain which gave the resettlement rights to the immediate family members of the immigrant residence. This