Asylum seekers to the UK sent to Rwanda

[Dodie66]

What do you think about the governments plan to send all asylum seekers that come to the UK to Rwanda to be processed. I think this is inhumane. A lot of them have come from places like Syria, Iran etc and travelled across the channel with all the associated risks only to be sent 6000 mile to be processed. What about the cost to do this? I think it’s a big mistake

It's a shame some can't go to the USA as there is a lot more room there

@Parker231

They travel through many safe countries before crossing the channel to come here though don't they and last time I checked France etc are safe countries.

The majority of the people crossing are men, imagine if the men in world war 1 & 2 decided to just flee to another country instead of fighting for their country.

We can't take in everyone because they want to live here, surely even you can agree that there has to be a limit.

There are men in Afghanistan who worked with the British and their lives are now in danger because of that. The British made such a mess of pulling out of the country that many of these people were left behind.
why shouldn’t they leave to save their lives?

Other countries do take huge numbers - Turkey and Germany as examples. You don’t have to apply to the first country you get to - many want to come to the U.K. as they have friends and family here and speak some English.

@MyWinterRose If there was nothing racist in your posts, why were they deleted? Maybe there’s some space for reflection there.

Genuinely not being rude, but it would help for you to be a little more informed of the terms you’re using and the arguments you’re having. You’re saying illegal immigration is bad (something we can all agree with) yet you’re blaming the spread of multiculturalism on illegal immigration when it’s actually largely based on legal migration (legal economic migrants included). Asylum seekers are a completely different category (also not illegal, but obviously a different category) so I’m confused why you’re bringing up other kinds of migration on this thread. It’s not a free for all/bash all foreigners thread.

As woodhill says, people coming to this country need to be able to pay their way. Immigrants are generally net contributors (they pay more on tax than they receive back from the system). The majority on non-EU immigrants have “no recourse to public funds” as a condition of their visa. That means they can’t receive benefits, can’t get a council house, can’t use the NHS for free, but still pay full taxes.

Our analysis thus suggests that – rather than being a drain on the UK’s fiscal system – immigrants arriving since the early 2000s have made a net contributions to its public finances, a reality that contrasts starkly with the view often maintained in public debate.

We also point out that recent immigrants, by sharing the cost public expenditures insensitive to population size (such as defence) which account for 16% of total public expenditure, reduced the financial burden of these fixed public obligations for natives by about £8.5bn over the period 2001-2011.

It wouldn’t let me format, but the last two paragraphs are from the article linked.

@Parker231 Really good point there about Afghan interpreters. They worked with the British army against the Taliban, so now the British army has left, and the Taliban are in power, those people’s lives are directly in danger. Yet some are either still stuck in Afghanistan as the British government aren’t helping, or having to risk the boat crossings. These are people who helped keep British soldiers safe, so yes, we have an obligation to keep them safe. Not only interpreters, but also Afgan people who worked for British charities, or organisations like British Council - both groups have been directly threatened by the Taliban because of their connections to the UK.

@MyWinterRoses Nobody is saying that there shouldn’t be a limit on immigration. Literally nobody. Not one person here or in government or in charities is asking for free, unlimited movement. Not a single one.

In fact many times I’ve posted that safe routes instead of boat crossings would allow a limit on immigration, or a reduction if the government preferred.

Every poster with an anti-immigration viewpoint ignores that every time and would rather call me a liberal lefty bleeding heart do gooder rather than read the words I’ve actually written. 😅

Coverage in the media is not always accurate as newspapers in particular will often choose to publish a poll that suits their narrative. Best to check the sources. There have been different polls done - some may show in favour but others like YouGov show the opposite so there is not a definitive public view on the policy at the moment.

@BewareTheLibrarians

Well as I said we can each have our opinion. The OP asked people's opinions and I gave mine just like many other members.

Maybe mentioning how cities have changed due to Immigration is a different topic but I say it because places are different now and not for the better, now I am not saying that because of peoples race, what I mean is it is very clear that integration has not been successful in all communities and I fully believe if we are going to have much more immigration it must be handled better by the government but also by the people who want to come here. Another poster also mentioned the problems with cities so it wasn't only myself.

As I also mentioned I do think legal immigration is a good thing for skilled people who can pay their way, I don't think it should be made easier for people who are unskilled and will rely on the taxpayer.

That's all I really have to say on this topic, as I said the OP asked for opinions and I gave mine, Whether people are left or right it doesn't matter I just think it's important to be able to share their opinion without others simply not agreeing and making it feel like an argument, which I certainly don't want.

I appreciate you sharing your opinion @MyWinterRoses and I can understand how people can have that opinion.

I would just ask you to consider how your posts would come across to someone who’s of Pakistani (as an example) heritage, lives in Birmingham or Rotherham and has a life pretty much exactly like yours. They’re worn out from juggling the school run and work, love to curl up in front of eastenders with a bar of chocolate, etc etc. Then they log on to read you saying that their presence in the UK, which they had no choice about as their parents/grandparents emigrated here is “ruining the country”. My kids are mixed race. Are they ruining the country? Am I?

@BewareTheLibrarians

As I said in my last post, race has nothing to do with it.
It is about how people integrate within the community and segregation doesn't help people from different cultures adapt to British values. Certain cities which I'm not apparently allowed to name appear to have these problems and it would be sad to see this happen in more areas that's what I mean by some areas are ruined.

@MyWinterRoses What do you mean by “ruined”? Sorry to be really dense, I’m just trying to understand your viewpoint. Even if I don’t agree with some of it, I don’t want to make assumptions about what you’re thinking, if that makes sense.

In places where most people now come from areas where women are second class citizens and homosexuality is illegal those can be values that where the new people are most of those in an area that there is a change that may (in the view of many British people of all colours) be for the worse.

Another issue we have locally is things like noise at night and litter and ways of driving and parking where most people are not from the UK. I am not saying there are no litter issues or double parked in the middle of the road in areas of the UK with people mostly from the UK but it is certaily a very big difference around here. Also some cultures are more given to bribes - the only people who have tried to bribe us locally are those from particular countries I won't name and never anyone who is from here - that of course is just anecdotal and may just be by chance.

The biggest issue for most people is we are very crowded and now have millions more people here than we had (most from legal not illegal immigration) and it is hard to find housing to rent or buy, some schools are quite full and NHS care is stretched to the limit. The problem is really that is it not one new foreign family in each village but suddenly people become a minority in their own land without choosing that. eg you might be a rare woman locally now because you show your legs so you become the other in your own country

Also with some illegal immigration a lot of it is young African men. When you get young men of any culture alone in groups without the checks and balances their wives and sisters and mothers put on them due to testosterone it is not always a good result. If it were families and only one per village or town that is then a much more easily thing. Eg we took 10,000 children in WII on kindertransport who went to families all over the UK whereas in 2022 we apparently have 1m illegal immigrants many of whom are adult men concentrated in certain areas - my bit of London eg has more "beds in sheds" than any other London borough.

I do appreciate people have very strong views on this topic on both sides and am glad we can all listen to each other.

@Xenia

Those are some of the problems I too think have changed areas for the worse.

It can be difficult to say without being called a racist these days but the fact is change has happened due to Immigration and people seem to forget that when you have so many people coming here from different countries who have different views/beliefs/culture to each other let alone British people it is going to cause a serious clash and sadly many people bring their conflicts with them which then affects us all.

It just scares me to think the way our country will be in 20 years time if drastic changes are not made now by government.

You’re ok with people coming to the U.K. from Ukraine but not somewhere like Syria, Iraq or Afghanistan ?

They travel through many safe countries before crossing the channel to come here though don't they and last time I checked France etc are safe countries.

And those countries are already taking far far more asylum seekers than we are, by any metric you want to use (raw numbers, numbers per head of population etc)

And let's imagine that the geography was different. If our country was the first safe country that these people reached, would you be happy for us to take them all in? Or would you be shouting for other countries to help and to take their share?

It's all fine and dandy when the geography (not to mention that handy stretch of water) works for you, but I'm pretty sure you'd feel differently if you were a resident national of one of those earlier countries that they reach @MyWinterRoses

Immigration levels back in the 60s and 70s were tolerable 'tolerable'

Housing and services, according to pretty much all the research done on this, are not significantly impacted by immigration.
the original inhabitants have had their areas changed beyond recognition and are well on course to become minorities or replaced completely. What do you mean 'replaced'? And what, really, is the issue with one group becoming a minority?

The political situation in donor countries such as Iran, Pakistan and Nigeria while not great, simply do not justify asylum claims.
Off the top of my head, and do correct me if I'm wrong, I'd say that you can be persecuted, criminalised and perhaps even sentenced to torture or death in some or any of these countries for things like a) being gay and b) 'political dissidence' (or what we in the UK are fortunate enough to be able to call freedom of expression). Oh, and in Nigeria, I believe, FGM is fairly common.
If you were faced with any of these issues would you not consider it justified for you to claim asylum?

@Parker231

I think the difference is the people coming from Ukraine are women and children as their men are staying Ukraine to fight. The people coming on boats etc are mainly all young men.

Why, precisely, is that a problem? Are young men never at risk/in need of asylum?

Again, the confusion between legal immigration and asylum seekers abounds!

To pick up on @Xenia ‘s points, I think we can all agree that no-one wants homophobia and misogyny - we have enough of a problem with that from white British people. Seeing women as second class citizens? I think the recent scandals with the Met Police, and the endemic violence against women and girls shows we don’t have much of a leg to stand on here. Not that an increase is OK - just pointing out it’s not just a problem that is limited to certain ethnic groups.

Homophobia, again, to think that white British people can’t be homophobic is… odd to say the least. This wasn’t that long ago, carried out by a white Neo Nazi :
Admiral Duncan pub bombing

It also misses that fact that some asylum seekers are escaping extreme homophobia. Not perpetrating it. It makes no sense to blame increased homophobia on people escaping regimes where they would be murdered for being gay.

Again, the idea that because “some” of a group are bad, then all must be the same and equally bad is bewilderingly ignorant.

The majority of areas that people are “complaining” about have come about through legal migration. I think an interesting question to ask would be - immigration is controlled. People need visas so you have an idea of numbers. The government therefore know how much the population is rising by, and should put the relevant amount of money into housing and infrastructure. But they don’t, do they? They let people struggle, then push the narrative that immigrants are to blame. Then the government is free to spend their money on corrupt schemes that benefit them and their mates, give £50 million to France to police their border, give £1.4 billion to Rwanda for a scheme that’s likely to fall apart but nothing for you. Oh, except NI hikes and ever rising cost of living. No wonder people are angry.

If housing was affordable and plentiful, doctors appointments were easier to come by and school places were guaranteed, if increasing numbers of children weren’t living in poverty due to austerity , there wouldn’t be this level of anger. So depending on which side you’re on, you could ask the following questions:

1. why doesn’t the government control immigration?

2. why doesn’t the government work for the people rather than lining their own pockets?

They don’t do either. That’s something to be angry about, whatever side of the divide you’re on.

Oops! £1.4 billion that could have helped the NHS or child poverty, instead spent on a scheme that will send less than 200 asylum seekers to Rwanda:

Fewer than 200 people who came to the UK without authorisation would have been sent to Rwanda last year, analysis of government figures has found.
The Refugee Council said 172 people could have been sent to the east African country had a deal been in place. It estimates that this year the number is not likely to be much higher.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/apr/25/refugee-data-analysis-casts-doubt-on-boris-johnsons-rwanda-claim?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

@DameHelena

It can be/become a problem when thousands of just men come here illegally each year from countries with very different views on women etc.

'illegally' is just a false/wrong term, as is explained quite clearly on this thread.
Do no men already in this country (or from countries that are not Nigeria, Iran or Pakistan) not also have 'different views on women'? ie are there no sexist/misogynistic/chauvinistic men here already or in countries like Ukraine?