Quora Answer: Are Singaporeans Proud of Their Policies against Illegal Immigration?

The following is my answer to a Quora question: “Are Singaporeans proud of their policies against illegal immigration such, caning illegal immigrants, jail, and requiring landlords to check the immigration status of renters, after seeing the crisis playing out in the US?”

We have strict laws against illegal immigration for very good reasons.  It keeps the crime rate down, it addresses exploitation of immigrants, and it ensures we allow only the right demographic into a crowded city state with a delicate ethnic and religious mix.

Singapore is not the place for low skilled foreign workers in large numbers.  Our economy is not geared in that direction.  It is not the place for political refugees since we do not need that sort of foreign entanglement.  For example, after the fall of South Vietnam, we had an influx of Vietnamese refugees.  We kept them at a detention centre, and did what we could to facilitate their migration to Australia and elsewhere.  As for those who did not succeed to move on to other countries, we paid them to go back to Vietnam a decade later.

I approve of our policies.  I am not keen on opening the floodgates to refugees and cheap foreign labour without due consideration of our own people.