It is not illegal to be an asylum seeker

[antelopevalley]

It is legal to cross the channel in a boat and claim asylum when you reach Britain. People who do this are not illegal, they are acting within the law.

More like what they haven't done.e.g. leadership and management.

Yep we seem to be inspired by Australia's immigration/ asylum policy! As someone who holds dual nationality ( British and Australian) this was an aspect of Australia I hated, but now it seems merely normal in this fucked in world of ours.

My understanding is asylum should be sort in the first safe country, ie France, therefore it is Frances problem and they should be stopping it. Once asylum has been granted they can then look to come to the uk through correct routes

and let’s be honest most are not asylum seekers but economic migrants

@Tinkerbyebye You are wrong. People can legally claim asylum in any country. People who are asylum seekers who come to Britain tend to have family here, It is hard to settle in a totally foreign country without at least some family who can help you.

Then your understanding is wrong. People can claim asylum in ANY safe country. First safe country relates to the Dublin Agreement which the UK chose to abandon.

I think that we do need to make it so it is illegal to enter the UK through these means (I had thought it was already) regardless of whether someone is seeking asylum or not. The reason I say this is we need to stop the gangs who are operating.

@twelly So we send people to prison who are seeking asylum?
It will do nothing about the gangs by the way. The government know the only way to stop that is to set up an alternative route for people to apply for asylum. France offered to help do that on their shoes and the UK government refused.

So if a neighbouring country is at war, butchering its citizens, you think it's ok to make it illegal for people fleeing their lives to climb over the fence to safety? Or do you think the UK should get to follow a different set of rules to everyone else?

We could stop the gangs immediately by allowing asylum seekers to cross safely on the ferry or Eurostar, or by opening up other safe routes. The government isn't interested in stopping the gangs, it wants to stop people seeking asylum in the UK full stop. The UK government is a disgrace.

Certain Tories already want to ignore the ECHR for asylum seekers so that they can be deported to Rwanda

So what are genuine asylum seekers supposed to do? Stay where they are and risk getting killed? If we had applied this logic to, for instance, the Ukrainian refugees, or Jewish refugees in the 30s and 40s, that is what would have happened to them.

Gangs could be stopped much more effectively and quickly by setting up a safe passage system combined with an efficient process for dealing with asylum claims. Gangs would be put out of business overnight if that happened.

And if we refuse asylum seekers at all, we will be ostracised further by other countries, and no one will ever work with the British military abroad again. Not sure they will after the debacle in Afghanistan. I certainly would not if I was a foreign resident.

Yes people of course should be able to flee a country where they are persecuted or there is war - but that France and Ireland our closest countries are not in that position. Crossing the channel is so dangerous and for that reason it should be made illegal and this crossing that way not allowed to settle here as that takes away the incentive to cross.

No, it isn't honest to say that most are economic migrants. 77% of asylum claims are allowed by us as genuine, and you can bet that the immigration authorities only makes that sort of finding if the evidence is very strong.

So they should be able to flee so long as they don't come to the UK?

The ‘illegal’ part refers to the offence of illegal entry. This is a criminal offence and it doesn’t matter if you’ve come to claim asylum or you’ve tucked yourself under a pile of coats in a car boot because you only noticed that day that your passport had expired. And it doesn’t matter whether Border Force meet you on the beach and you claim asylum there, or you disappear into the black economy and get encountered two years later. It’s still illegal. However, it is recognised that someone needing to seek asylum often doesn’t have an option but to enter a country illegally and so they are not prosecuted for doing so.

Absolutely bloody tragic what has happened today.

Crossing the channel isn't in the lest dangerous. Hundreds of people do it every day via ferry, ship and plane. What is obviously dangerous is getting into a small boat provided by a criminal gang, so what needs to change is, quite simply offering safe passage.

We already take less than our fair share of refugees, and we are a relatively rich country. Why should the existence of the Channel exempt us?

Seeing as the incentive to cross for most is family ties, how does making it illegal to cross take away that incentive? The young man who died while desperately trying to get help from the UK and France was trying to get to his sister in the UK. The woman and 3 children who died were tryng to get to her husband, their father.

Absolutely spot on.

Crossing the channel isn't in the lest dangerous. Hundreds of people do it every day via ferry, ship and plane.

Sorry, I meant to say "by train, ship and plane".

@Fladdermus
People flee to the nearest place of safety.

I believe we have a moral duty then to allow people to legally enter and process claims - but not from those who enter via the boats across the channel.

It is not illegal to enter by illegal means if the purpose of entry is to seek asylum. That is the law. The refugee convention to which the UK is a signatory makes that very clear.

The government closed all the safe routes

There is no obligation to claim refugee status in the nearest place of safety. If there was, countries near to places like Afghanistan and Ukraine would be overwhelmed and we,, one of the richest countries in the world, would be exempt. What is wrong with crossing the channel by boat? And what is wrong with making it safe for refugees to do so?

No they don't. They flee to where they feel safe. For some that is the nearest place. For others they will keep running to the furtherest place. Others go to where they have family or friends. Others will have the most tenous reasons but when your world has been blown apart and everything you knew is gone you cling to whatever shred of safety you can, even if it makes no sense to anyone else.

Exactly. There is no way you can stop someone trying to get to their spouse and reunite their family. It is almost primal to want to do that. I know if DH and our children were separated I would do what I had to to reunite us as a family.