What's your thoughts on asylum seekers?

@Turbottimes @poetryandwine its almost the same as saying you could seek asylum in the UK because you are an unmarried couple from UAE and face jail because you live together… it’s the law of the country, your life is not in danger you just are not following the laws

This

So being gay is a life choice? OK, says everything we need to know I think.

@poetryandwine
i do understand @Turbottimes as it’s to do with identifying people at higher risk as there is not enough resource to take in everybody unfortunately.

If I did not agree with the laws of my country and I made a life choice that goes against them, I would simply move to a country that does accept me for who I am without having to hide who I am. If the reason to seek asylum was that you life was in danger as you were identified as bisexual and you were going to be killed for it, and there is a clear threat to your life. I think and it’s just my opinion that is very different.

What if you're gay in Tunisia?

Someone in here said they would like to see how many asylum seekers other countries take. As they are obviously unable to use google, this page is extremely helpful

Latest Asylum Trends | European Union Agency for Asylum

A short time on google will also explain that the UK doesn't offer the "best benefits", and that it rarely why the UK is chosen as a destination (language or family already here are the most common reasons). Only 29% of those claiming asylum have come by boat, and the majority of those have come from Afghanistan - and I wonder why that is?

There are millions of people living in shitty countries who would be eligible to seek asylum here. Are we supposed to welcome them all to this small island?

I do actually have a problem with people from violent, misogynistic, homophobic countries coming here. As if they shed those attitudes the second they step foot on British soil!

I also take issue with how many asylum seekers seem to be from countries like Albania and Tunisia – which are safe, and are not at war. These people are economic migrants, not asylum seekers.

OP, this is Mumsnet, where most posters live in nice, middle-class areas and don't actually have to suffer from the problems of having asylum seekers placed near them (and their kids' schools). So what if poorer people, in areas that are already struggling, have to deal with it? That's the attitude.

That is demonstrably false.

The DM has been censured more than any other newspaper by the IPCO numerous times, removed from being an allowable source by Wikipedia, and literally supported the Nazis.

I have higher standards for my reading materials.

Practising gay sex in Iran is a capital crime.

Thus being a practising bisexual is an internationally recognised reason to seek asylum.

You are vigilant and knowledgeable, and won't be caught in misinformation and disinformation. As for to assume how much mind anybody has, it's not very nice, is it?! Op only asked a question, everybody's free to answer or not

The best way is to read credible sources from a wide political spectrum and delve deeper to primary sources when available.

For example, yesterday there was a thread citing a Telegraph article on an Opinium poll that purported to say that most Brits supported Trump’s policies. None of us who tried could find the source material on the pollster’s website, and when interrogated, there was a clear bias in the writing of the poll questions - all of which added up to it being a biased article.

But one source you should never trust because it is not credible in any way, is the Daily Mail.

It also had (maybe still does) of not allowing women to be photographed wearing trousers, which is insane.

I’m not sure you actually understand the term ‘objective’.

Then to mention some points posters have raised separate to that question but also on support asylum seekers receive Vs UK citizens.

It is essential to understand that the government’s obligations are set out in law for asylum seekers, under the treaties the UK has (thus far) willingly entered into (and is a founding member of) also this means that if the UK does not meet this minimum standard they can have a claim brought against them and could be forced to give a big payout for not meeting their obligations. If the UK doesn’t support its own citizens for example by not offering more disability support in schools there’s no international body that’s going to financially sanction the UK it’s just crap for the people living there.

Recently this happened in Greece - overall Greece is pretty appalling in hosting asylum seekers and refugees (I say as someone who worked in the system there and worked at the refugee camps) - they were not providing what they should for unaccompanied children, a legal organisation helped those unaccompanied children raise a claim at the international level, it was proven that Greece failed in its duties for minimum level of support and the Greek government had to pay out millions.

Thanks to the “non interference” principle most states abide by, if the UK is treating it’s own people a bit crap by not helping with housing, jobs etc - no one else is going to say anything as there is no international document the UK signed saying “we promise to make sure very UK citizen has a house” so there is no outside pressure to force them to act so governments obvs internally decide what they are ok with and what they want to “fix”

Not to make a moral judgement on if one is better than the other - but I know this isn’t really common knowledge so it might help some people understand why it seems that some people “get” stuff that others don’t.

"Maybe have a look at how it rates on here for journalistic credibility compared to the DM."

Lol! As if the "media bias fact checker" is objective!

Some people on mn don't like the Daily Mail because it sometimes says things they disagree with. Don't pay any attention- it's not any worse than any other news source and better than some

Maybe have a look at how it rates on here for journalistic credibility compared to the DM.

https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/the-guardian/

Not all people of any type are good or benevolent. That is true of asylum seekers same as anyone else. We should not shy away from protecting our children from harmful behaviour because we are scared to be called racist (eg like in the grooming gangs scandal). Protection of children should be our priority

No they aren’t, but neither are Brits.

I would suggest we start by insisting on British values, so racists wouldn’t be allowed citizenship. Ideally we could go further and kick out the indigenous racists, too.

My builders were Albanian and I’ve never seen such hard working and diligent craftsmen. They were polite, cleaned up every day, their work was beautiful and they gave me some cash at the end of the build ‘for the children’ which I believe is a custom / good luck thing.

My school friend’s aunt is an immigrant from a country much maligned on here who was made a dame for her services to this country.

Shit people come from everywhere - and plenty are born here.

But the same is true for wonderful people.

If you and OP are both in good faith wanting some solid answers to these questions I can definitely return after work and provide them :)

But very quickly as regards your Ukraine reference since it's very easily answerable it's a totally different scenario and as such a deeply unfair comparison to make in the way you have. The government opened a direct pathway for people seeking asylum from Ukraine to come here which simply does not exist for nationals of other countries. That's one reason for the significantly larger numbers of women and kids arriving by this route. There is no way for anybody else wanting to seek asylum to apply from outside of the UK to do so. There is also no way to legally enter the UK for the purpose of seeking asylum. However, the right to enter a country for the purposes of making an asylum claim is one that is in fact enshrined under human rights law.
I'm sure you see the conundrums revealing themselves here

They don't take any as I understand it. None of those countries are party to the convention

Where do you go for unbiased info? The Guardian?! 😂

@OneAmberFinch i don’t find them depressing, what I do find depressing is cheap and rubbish looking shop fronts. But that is something the local council should govern and have regulations to keep areas looking their very best. Not everyone can afford the same shop fixtures, but harsher regulations would make sure that these shop fronts don’t look like utter rubbish.

Where is that?

I'm not mad on the modern high street but I accept it is how it is. I would much rather have an old fashioned high street with bakers, butchers, green grocers, florists etc. However, because of modern life (everyone shops at supermarkets or online) this is what we're left with. We sometimes get lovely independent cafes opening and I'd love to see more of them. Unfortunately, many don't last long.
Our local mobile phone repair shops, Turkish barbers, vape shops are busy. When I take my son for a haircut at the Turkish barbers we have to wait in a queue for quite some time. I'm sure some of these places might have underhand dealings but I don't believe they all do. It seems another example of xenophobic assumptions that all these businesses run by immigrants are somehow criminal.

I really enjoy these discussions, so I work in humanitarian aid - spend my life sent to different war torn countries supporting programming for various well known and less well known orgs - also have advised on asylum processes on the common European Asylum framework (which the UK followed prior to 2022) was invited to give feedback on the new UK system and am familiar with the guidance given to case workers for the current UK system (also this is all available online on the gov website for people to read)

Firstly for the OPs question - well unfortunately all systems especially human systems are open to abuse as humans have the ability to abuse a system. That being said, of course there are risk mitigation measures - firstly I think it important to note, if we look holistically the number of claims proven to be false are low compared to claims accepted as true - depending on what type of publication we get our news from there are always going to be news outlets that want to highlight certain facts over others to suit their publication goal.

Secondly, some posters have mentioned about forging or destroying documentation - yes this is correct - there are different tools in the interviews staff can use to try to ascertain the correct location. For Middle East countries (as this is my background) spoken dialects are very specific to countries and even locations within that country, people will be “tested” via interviews by people fluent and native to those dialect areas, they’re asked to speak in a very detailed way about the locations they mention in their claim. For example, years ago two Iraqi sisters had destroyed docs and claimed to be Syrian from Damascus after arriving in the UK at the height of the Syrian civil war (as Syrians were given immediate status based on the factor of being Syrian but Iraqis needed to have their claim determined based on personal factors) the person who did their interview got a vibe, so brought in an someone (on the phone) who was originally from Damascus who eventually realised they were falsifying their story as they couldn’t explain exactly where a hotel is they said they worked at (as he was from Damascus and knew that hotel and the street it was on etc) - obvs this is very specific but just an example of how things can be investigated