Illegal immigration - thread no. 101

@EasternStandard No I would not support either Oz style treatment or opting out of treaties.

Indeed I challenge the rationale that such things would be necessary for safe routes to work.

This will only work if you opt out of international laws or use Aus style deterrence.

Would you be willing to do that?

@Icanttakethisanymore legal routes would have to be limited. In the other thread I suggested one criteria might be family connections. I add settled communities to that. They'd also need have refugee status before they set foot in the UK. All applicants would have to provided biometric data.

I'm thinking of this mainly in relation to those in France. It would have to involve agreements with France regarding those rejected and returns for those who still try by boat. I also note in this morning's news there's a prospect of failed Asylum seekers being set to one or another of the Balkan states.

I'm not saying it's bombproof; nothing is. Neither 'Stop the Boats' or Smash the Gangs' seem to progress beyond slogans.

It's time to be bold and try something else.

Whilst I agree with you to some extent, I’m never sure what the answer is for the people who are not admitted via legal routes? Would you admit anyone who applied or would you limit it? Surely in the absence of a total open door policy there will always be people who will want to enter illegally?

We can't solve the humanitarian crises in the whole world. We can't even solve our own. How do you propose we solve (and fund) sorting out the DRC for example, where a lot of immigration to this country comes from? "Boots on the ground"? And why should it be our responsibility? And our responsibility to be the country chosen by those immigrants to go to and be funded by?

@EasternStandard

i don’t have all the answers I’m afraid. That would be a complicated total to get to. And I think the EU also needs to do this too: But having safe and legal routes and the funding of refugee camps in the developing world would ultimately reduce the number making dangerous journeys. Europe just keeps increasing the deterrence and it has not worked.

Most asylum seekers are from a handful of countries as well. So solving those humanitarian crisis would make a massive difference.

Exactly. We can't afford benefits for the disabled who are actually from the UK and it's their own country. Or are we expected those people to up sticks and emigrate elsewhere to be funded in order to replace them with the world's diaspora? (Who will in their lifetimes end up costing the tax payer billions according to recent figures).

If there's only so much money to go around I'd like my taxes to go on our own UK needy please, not random people from the rest of the world.

How many would you bring over from the camps?

I don't think we have room unfortunately. We are soon at 70 million and are nearly bankrupt. Not good to encourage the world here.

Who are these labour gangmasters now? It sounds like a Russian Gulag set up.

The journey to Europe in general is extremely dangerous it involves walking long distances, crossing seas in unsafe boats, sleeping outside and dealing with people smugglers who often exploit or abuse them. So that’s why the arrivals on small boats to the UK end up being fitter young men, many teenagers too.

Most asylum seekers in the world are actually children and women. The vast majority are in camps in the developing world. It makes much more sense to develop more safe and legal routes from these camps so that more families can be resettled together. Deterrence won’t work, I think.

It may be my nasty cynical mind, but most of the people coming on small boats appear to be young, fit males. We do actually need more of them, but can we not indenture them to labour gangmasters and regulate that much smaller group to supply labourers for work that requires muscle and stamina? And make the gangmaster responsible for accommodation.

The seasonal agricultural workers scheme goes back a long time. Once they were Spanish or Italian, now they are East European, or from the 'stans. Happy for them to be paid decently for the work they do here, but not to have any right to live here without language skills or a long term work contract. And once that expires, go home, but there are always exceptions. Farming Today had an interview with a manager of a huge horticultural business (growing strawberries for supermarkets IIRC) who had arrived as a casual labourer and who was just so competent and hard working that he is now a partner in the business. It was a wonderful but exceptional success story.

It would indeed be naive. that’s why there is an assessment process before someone gets refugee status.

I don’t think there is evidence that the asylum system has suffered wide scale abuse by people coming on small boats: most are actually approved in the end. Something like 75% I think.

Some may be. However, it would be naïve to believe everyone who is called an asylum seeker after arriving via a small boat or other irregular route has a legitimate need for asylum. At one point, large numbers were coming from Albania!

Apart from overstayers, there are failed asylum seekers, who are not deemed to need refuge, living under the radar. The abuse of the asylum system has resulted in overwhelming numbers of cases, spiralling accommodation and other costs to the UK taxpayers, and a backlog which means some really vulnerable claimants are waiting far to long for their claim to be assessed.

Yes. It's a massive self perpetuating Ponzi scheme.

Are they unskilled? People getting visa’s I mean. The NHS would literally collapse without immigration. A third of nurses are migrants. There are estimates that nearly half a million care workers will be needed in the next 10 years.

I think the real reason that the government won’t tackle it is because it’s essential to keeping the country going.

People seem very confused at the difference between Asylum seekers (who are in the UK legally even if they arrive via an irregular route) illegal/undocumented migrants and the vast bulk of immigrants- people issued visas.

Most people coming on small boats are from Afghanistan and Iran. So no they can’t get visas. That would be the holy grail for them to get a visa. Going through the asylum process is a much more convoluted route. Have you an idea the dangerous journey that people undertake to come via irregular routes? And you think they would prefer to risk their lives and face an uncertain future rather than take a visa? Asylum seekers policies in the UK don’t differ so much from other EU countries.

I believe in a rules based system for immigration but there is no sense in dehumanising people who come on small boats. They are just people at the end of the day.

There are safe routes, we issue millions of visas. They'd just rather pay people traffickers to jump on a boat and get put up in a hotel with free meals and healthcare (at our expense) than apply for a visa.

We're that soft and generous that of course the smugglers will want to advertise that to potential 'customers'.

That would be an open invitation to come here. Is that really what our people want?

I’m not sure about this. Germany has ID cards and the same issues.

I understand why France might say that but it may not do much other than vast expense.

Get in to the queue for your own GP, love

Would presumably be the response

Guy’s and St Thomas’s Hospital, in south-east London, offers a dedicated “refugees and asylum seekers service” in Lambeth and Southwark. According to the trust’s website, those who can benefit from the service include undocumented migrants and asylum seekers who have been refused the right to live here.

What would happen if a non-migrant or asylum seeker turned up? Presumably they have an ask no questions rule.

Apologies..no idea why my posts keep getting posted twice.

The French are right. ID.cards are an answer. Sad as it's such a lovely thing that the UK is one of the few countries you don't need them but unfortunately politicians have ruined that by failing to sort out the numbers pouring in.