Clik here to view.
People like me would get turned away - I came to the UK to do a postgraduate course and stayed here to work
According to the latest figures, Britain has seen a rise in the net migration, driven by growth in those coming in from Poland and other eastern European countries, and a drop in the numbers leaving this country.
The solution would be an obvious (and popular) one for David Cameron, who pledged the Tories would get net migration down to below 100,000 by the next general election. The government has no powers to control EU migration and neither can it force people to leave.
Therefore it must introduce even tougher entry rules for the rest of the world. The result – as already predicted by the Institute of Public Policy Research – would be "even more drastic measures to try to meet [the Conservatives'] chosen target".
But who exactly is affected by these "drastic measures"? Me: a Tier 1 (General) visa holding "high-value migrant" (thank you, UK Border Agency).
I came to UK from India for a postgraduate degree in 2006 and stayed on to work. Between 2006 and 2009 I had to renew my visa three times (£500 to £800 each time), successfully defend my right to stay before an immigration judge, and pay more than £800 in visa costs for a daughter who was born here.
I have spent more time and energy filling in forms, photocopying documents and doing complicated earnings and savings calculations than I have for any examination in my life. I have also spent agonising nights and days worrying about whether I will meet the government's constantly-changing immigration rules (the categories I applied under have either been abolished or are in the process of being abolished) or even be able to afford to keep my wife and child with me.
All this while trying to do well in a journalism course I paid £11,000 for, and holding down a job through one of the worst economic crises.
I'd be the first to admit that no one is forcing me to stay. Each time I visit India I am reminded just how quickly things are changing there and often tempted by the opportunities offered to me.
But that is besides the point. Frankly, I find it quite hard to believe that today, when we constantly identify ourselves as global citizens, immigration rules judge me not by my skills and abilities but on whether I had a certain amount of money in my account every single day for three months. I am also constantly forced to ask myself whether all the hurdles placed in front of me are worth the trouble and efforts to jump over.
Which makes me wonder if Britain can really afford to turn away "high-value migrants" like me and close its doors to the rest of the world. If the opposition to the government's policy from businesses unable to bring in talent where needed, hospitals struggling to find specialists and universities missing out on lucrative international student fees is anything to go by, it cannot.
I only hope Cameron was listening carefully to Barack Obama during his speech in Westminster Hall this week. Obama not only waded into an explosive subject that most politicians would avoid at all costs during a key state visit, but actually highlighted its positive impact, referring to his climb from the grandson of a Kenyan who served as a cook in the British army "to stand before you as president of the United States".
Taking populist and short-term measures to tackle immigration might just deprive Britain of something significant like that.