每日卫报社论:关注移民与新冠肺炎疫情

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The Guardian view on immigration and Covid-19: old myths are exposed

《卫报》关于移民与新冠肺炎疫情的观点：古旧谬见得以暴露

2020年4月29日

Covid-19 has accomplished in weeks something that UK governments spent a decade failing to do. It has drastically cut labour migration. Lockdown prevents the gathering of real-time data, but it is a reasonable assumption when international travel has stopped that net migration is currently happening at a rate well below 100,000 per year.

英国政府花了十年的时间没能做成的事，新冠肺炎疫情在几周内就做到了。它使劳务移民数量大幅减少。封城政策阻止了实时数据的收集，但在国际旅行停止的情况下，我们可以作出合理假设，年均净移民数量目前远低于10万人。

That was the target adopted by David Cameron in 2010 and pursued aggressively by Theresa May at the Home Office and in Downing Street. It was never met before being abandoned last year. What happens next is uncertain. This week would have seen the government’s post-Brexit immigration bill return to the Commons, but the timetable has been discarded, not least because parliament’s digital systems are not yet ready for remote voting.

这是大卫·卡梅伦（David Cameron）在2010年设定、特蕾莎·梅（Theresa May）担任内政大臣和首相时所力主推进的目标。但该目标在去年被废止前从未达成。接下来的发展态势还未可知。政府脱欧后的移民法案原本应在本周重新递交下议院审议，但这一安排已被取消，主要的原因是议会的数字系统尚未就远程投票做好准备。

There is no indication that ministers are reconsidering the new regime, which is based on a points system designed to select “skilled” workers over “unskilled” labour. The distinction is meant to favour what ministers call “the best and brightest” while deterring those whom decades of political rhetoric have cast as undesirable. The charges against that latter group are various: poaching jobs from British-born citizens, depressing wages, failing to observe cultural norms and generally upsetting people with conspicuous otherness.

目前，尚无迹象表明大臣们正对这一新制度重新考虑，该制度基于一套用来将“熟练”工人从“非熟练”工人中挑选出来的积分系统。这一区别意在偏护大臣们称之为“最优秀和最聪明”的人，并令在数十年来的政治论调中不受欢迎的那群人望而却步。对后者的控诉千奇百怪：挤占在英国出生的公民的工作机会，压低工资，不遵守英国的文化规范，还总是拿自己显眼的独特之处烦扰他人。

The vilification reached its apogee in the campaign to take Britain out of the EU. The promise to “take back control” of borders had strong emotional appeal, but was never rooted in the reality of modern Britain, where migrants of all skill levels and income brackets keep the economic and social wheels turning. That awkward fact was always bound to emerge over time, but it has been revealed abruptly by the pandemic.

此类诽谤在英国脱欧运动中达到了顶峰。“夺回国界控制权”的许诺具有强烈的情感号召力，但却从未植根于现代英国的实际情况，即拥有不同技能和收入的移民使英国经济与社会保持运转。这一令人尴尬的事实通常会随着时间推移而逐渐显现，但却由于此次疫情突然暴露出来了。

Farmers are already warning that fruit will rot in the fields without seasonal labour normally provided by EU citizens. Attempts to entice UK workers to fill the gap are failing. Immigrants have kept public transport running, delivered goods and, most poignantly, kept the NHS and social care services operational. They have put their lives at risk for a country that has been, at best, ambivalent about their entitlement to live here at all.

农民们已开始警告称，如果缺少了那些通常由欧盟公民担任的季节工，水果将会腐烂在田地里。政府采取的吸引英国工人来填补空缺岗位的举措都以失败告终。一直以来，移民们维持着公共交通的运作，递送货物，且最令人心酸的是，他们使国民医疗服务体系（NHS）及社会照管服务正常运转。他们将生命置之度外，就为了一个对他们的居留权——往好了说——竟然态度矛盾的国家。

There is no longer an explicit commitment to make Britain a “hostile environment” for immigrants, but the apparatus of automatic suspicion and bureaucratic bullying developed under that rubric has not gone away. An appeal court this week upheld the law obliging landlords to check the immigration status of tenants, despite an earlier finding by the high court that the rules led to discrimination on racial grounds. Many immigrant workers, already in precarious employment or on visas that prohibit access to benefits, will suffer disproportionately from the economic impact of the pandemic.

目前，政府官员已不再公开承诺要把英国打造成对移民者而言的“敌对环境”，但是奉行着这个口号、带有无意识的猜疑和官僚主义的欺凌的行政作风仍未消失。本周一家上诉法院支持了要求房东确认房客移民身份的法律，尽管此前高等法院认定上述规定导致基于种族理由的歧视。许多移民工人已处在不稳定的就业条件中，他们的签证类型使他们无法享受福利，这些人将会遭受疫情所导致的极大的经济冲击。

It would be shameful if the heroic contribution and sacrifices made by immigrants in these difficult times were met with callous ingratitude by the government. Fallacies and prejudices that have informed UK policy for a generation are being exposed by the current crisis. The debate has been oriented in entirely the wrong direction, with all the emphasis on a burden that should more rightly be understood as a blessing. It will not be easy to reverse that trend, but the opportunity is there if our politicians have the honesty and the courage to take it.

政府若用过河拆桥的态度回报移民们在这艰难时刻里所做的英勇奉献和牺牲，将为人所不齿。影响英国政策一代之久的众多谬误与偏见在眼下的危机中暴露出来。人们本应更多地将移民正确地视为利好，但却把所有的关注重点都放在了负担上，这使围绕移民问题的争论完全偏离到错误的方向。要扭转这一趋势并不容易，但是如果我们的政客们真诚并敢于直面的话，事情发展还是有转机的。

译者、统稿：凌槿、lavender、Jill、木易生香、敏秀

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