英国控制移民数量是否有负面影响?

当年推动英国脱欧的一个原因是公众希望借此限制移民数量，英国内政大臣普里蒂·帕特尔也希望通过提高准入门槛来减少移民。但这些移民从事的往往是基础而关键的工作——比如养老院护工，而疫情的爆发也让人们看到了这些移民的不可或缺性。

Labour market

How post-Brexit immigration rules will exclude key workers

May 16th 2020 

“CARE WORK isn’t just bum wiping,” insists Karolina Gerlich. In the 12 years since she swapped her native Poland for Britain, aged 18, she has learnt that it involves being a “PA, a nurse, a therapist, an occupational therapist, a dietician and a friend”. She now runs a charity supporting other carers, while working as one herself. Yet under post-Brexit immigration rules due to take effect in January, a similar applicant would be turned down for a visa, since the job is classed as low-skilled. “I feel disrespected, offended and like my contribution to the economy and to the country has not been recognised at all.”

卡罗琳娜坚称：“护理工作并不只是擦屁股”。她18岁那年从故乡波兰移民到英国，在此之后的12年里她了解到护理工作包括成为一名“私人助理、护士、治疗师、职业治疗师、营养师以及朋友”。她现在自己管理一家对其他护理人员提供支持的慈善机构，同时，她自己也是一名护理人员。然而，根据将于1月份生效的英国脱欧后移民规定，跟她类似的申请人将被拒绝签证，因为该工作被归类为低技能工作。“我感到自己不受尊重，被冒犯到，而且我觉得我对这个国家以及经济的贡献根本没有得到承认。”

The timing of the covid-19 pandemic puts Priti Patel, the hardline home secretary, in an awkward spot. Recognising that Britain’s vote to leave the EU in 2016 was in part down to a desire to curb immigration, she plans to end freedom of movement from the bloc and apply the same salary threshold (￡25,600, or $31,200, for most) and skills requirement to prospective migrants wherever they come from. Yet many of the incomers such a policy would rule out—including care-home workers—are those classified by the government as the pandemic’s “key workers”.

新冠病毒流行的时间让强硬派内政大臣普里蒂·帕特尔处于一个尴尬境地。她意识到英国2016年脱欧公投的一部分原因是希望减少移民，因此她计划终止欧盟国家人口自由迁徙到英国的权利，并对潜在移民采用相同的工资门槛和技能要求（不管这些移民来自哪里），大多数工作的工资门槛是25600英镑，或31200美元。然而，这项政策会把很多新移民排除在外，而这些被排除的移民中（包括养老院工作人员），很多被政府归类为疫情期间的“关键工人”。

A paper by researchers at Oxford University, in the Oxford Review of Economic Policy, published on May 14th, finds that nearly one in five of those working in essential care-related occupations are immigrants. In all, a little more than half of EU migrants now classed as key workers would not have qualified for a work visa under the new dispensation. Using a different definition of key worker (the category is blurry), the Institute for Public Policy Research, a think-tank, finds that 71% of such migrants would have been excluded.

牛津大学研究人员5月14日发表在《牛津经济政策评论》上的一篇论文指出，从事与护理相关的关键岗位中有近五分之一是移民。在这些移民里面，如果按照新的制度，那些现在被归类为关键工人的欧盟移民中会有略多于一半的人一开始就达不到申请工作签证的要求。智库“公共政策研究所”使用了不同标准来定义“关键工人”（“关键工人”的分类标准很模糊），它发现在新的标准下那些欧盟移民中有71%一开始就会被排除在外。

In one sense, the pandemic takes the pressure off. A deep recession should limit the need to import low-paid workers, since there will be a large pool of unemployed domestic labour. Yet farms are flying in workers from Romania, suggesting that Britons on their uppers might hesitate before taking back-breaking or low-paid jobs.

从某种意义上来说，疫情减轻了移民带来的压力。严重的经济衰退应该会降低引进低薪工人的需求，因为国内将会有大量的失业劳动力。然而，英国的农场正在用飞机将罗马尼亚的工人接过来，这说明手头拮据的英国人可能对从事繁重或低薪工作感到犹豫。

The political argument for a restrictive regime is weakening. Voters were warming to immigration even before they voted to leave the EU and thereby restrict it (see chart). The scandal in 2018 over the government’s shoddy treatment of the Windrush generation of Caribbean migrants illustrated that, if the public senses injustice, crackdowns can prove as politically perilous as liberal approaches. A survey in March by Ipsos MORI, a pollster, found that the overwhelming majority of voters want the number of migrants coming to Britain to work in care homes to stay the same or rise. Since the pandemic and its associated recession will significantly reduce overall immigration anyway, Ms Patel can afford to be a little more generous. 

关于实行严格移民制度的政治争论正在减弱。即使是在投票脱欧以限制移民之前，选民们对于移民的态度也已经逐渐变得缓和。政府在2018年对于加勒比海地区移民中的“疾风世代”进行了不公对待，该丑闻揭示了一个道理：如果民众觉察到了不公，那么对移民的镇压可能会像开明的移民政策一样在政治上颇具风险。民意调查机构益普索3月份进行的一项调查显示，绝大多数选民希望来英国养老院工作的移民人数保持不变或有所上升。既然疫情及其引发的经济衰退无论如何都会大大减少总体的移民数量，帕特尔女士在对待移民问题上可以做得更加大方一点。