Your say / immigration
‘The UK needs immigration to survive’
I came to the UK when I was 14, nervous but full of hope. I thought if I studied hard, kept my head down and contributed, I would be accepted.
Twelve years later, I’m a veterinary student at the University of Bristol, and I’ve learned that belonging here can feel conditional; that no matter how much you give, some people still see you as ‘other’.
During my first months in a private school, I was objectified, called names and treated as though I didn’t belong.
That experience never left me. It shaped how I see this country’s relationship with immigrants: the willingness to take our labour, our tuition fees, our taxes and then turn around and blame us for everything that’s wrong.
In lectures I learn how to keep animals alive. But outside the classroom I sometimes have to remind myself that my own story is worth defending.
When politicians talk about ‘migrant crises’ they’re talking about people like me.
I’ve paid more than £50,000 in tuition and living costs to be here, passed the Life in the UK test, paid for my British passport. And yet I still hear people say: “Go back to your own country.”
Once, someone actually shouted it at me on the street. I wanted to reply: I already did; the one where I study, pay rent, pay taxes and work every day to make it better.
What frustrates me most is watching the same government that relies on immigrants to keep the NHS and universities running pretend that we’re the problem.
Nearly half of new NHS doctors were trained abroad; thousands of nurses, carers and porters are foreign-born. Without them, hospitals would close.
And yet, when services fail, it’s the immigrants who get blamed instead of the leaders who underfunded those services in the first place.
Brexit only made it worse: cutting off the very workers Britain depends on, while politicians pretend it is “taking back control”. The truth is, the UK didn’t lose control because of immigrants; it lost it because it pushed them away.
Immigrants are easy targets because we stand out. We speak differently, eat differently, sometimes look different.
But difference isn’t danger. The real danger is how quickly fear replaces gratitude, and how that fear distracts people from asking harder questions about housing, about funding, about who really benefits when ordinary people fight among themselves.
When I hear “stop the boats” I don’t see invaders. I see men and women desperate to find safety and purpose, the way my parents once hoped I’d find both here.
Many of those people will go on to fill the same roles that keep this country alive: the doctors, carers and cleaners Britain quietly depends on.
I’m not asking for sympathy. I just want honesty.
Honesty that the UK needs immigration to survive. Honesty that belonging shouldn’t have a price tag or an accent test. And honesty that the anger directed at immigrants is really anger at a government that has failed to deliver the life people were promised.
I’m proud to be here. I’m proud of the work I do, of the care I’ll one day give to animals and their owners.
But I’m also tired of defending my right to exist in the place I now call home.
Because immigrants like me don’t break Britain. We keep it standing.
This is an opinion piece by Zara Simone, a veterinary student at the University of Bristol who grew up in Dubai
Main photo: Martin Booth
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