Asylum seekers - are we going too far?

[RiceOnABike]

I will start by saying that I am very sympathetic to asylum seekers, and until now I've believed that we should do all we can to help them in their plight. However...

A small village in Northamptonshire (population 500) is soon to become home to 400 refugees who have arrived here by crossing the channel. This village seems to be very rural, about 8 miles away from the nearest town I think. Apparently there are no facilities there whatsoever apart from a small shop. The migrants will have access to the local GPs and NHS dentists, and we all know how much pressure they are under at the moment. But the straw that has broken the camel's back for me is where they will be staying. Yes, that is really it in the photos. How can we justify all this when the everyday Brit is struggling to heat their homes at the moment? And more worryingly, what sort of deterrent is it to others considering making that dangerous journey across the channel?

So am I being unreasonable, or are we now offering too much?

Access to GP and dentist?
Lucky them!!

I’m sure you’re capable of engaging a brain cell or two and using some logic.

Barriers to booking flights etc, plus as you’ve mentioned Albania a lot of the Albanian refugees/asylum seekers have been trafficked. I don’t think you get much choice in transport options when you’re trafficked.

They can't get on a plane without a visa.

If they get a visa with the intention of claiming asylum it's treated as dishonesty on the visa form.

Is the issue nit the crap and awful organisation of putting 400 people who are traumatised in a village with 500 people and no additional support??

Yes the situation isn’t logical.
The answer is government failure.
Or more likely the will to create unworkable situation so that people like you can then be convinced we shouldn’t accept asylum seekers. (Just they are doing now with the NHS. Make the system unworkable, blame someone else like nurses or GPS and then say the system needs to be fundamentally changed and do what you wanted in the first place - even though no one else did)

Just get real. The U.K. is welcoming very few asylum seekers vs other countries like france, Germany, Greece etc… we can accept the people who arrive here if we want to. And we can do it well.

Serco pay for refurbishment before and after. All bills during the use. Guaranteed. Their staff go in and manage.

Yep because when women try that trip they know they have a 90% chance of being raped several times during the journey.

So the men go first with the hope if women jining them later or having some money arriving their way to ease things up a bit p. Even though ofc it won’t ease oppression, killings etc….

I mean, would you chose to put yourself in that situation?

There’s a couple of reasons why you’re mostly seeing men and boys.

1. women and families are housed separately to single men. There have been cases of dad being put in a men’s hotel while mum and kids are sent to a different hotel.

2. the crossing by boat and the journey before even reaching Europe is incredibly dangerous for women and children, who face rape, abuse and trafficking on this route. This articles has more detail details on the risks. It’s not an easy read.
   amp.theguardian.com/world/2017/feb/28/refugee-women-and-children-beaten-raped-and-starved-in-libyan-hellholes

By refusing to set up safe routes, the UK govt is leaving women and children in danger, but this doesn’t seem to be a priority for them.

Asylum seekers are nothing more than political fodder. That's why they are inappropriately housed and applications are processed so inefficiently. The government truly has no interest in what is best for us or them.

There are no spare houses and no en masse accommodation. Hotels are the only option. Other than sending them back or to somewhere else e.g. Rwanda, there is no other option.
No one thinks this situation is ideal but the alternatives have been deemed unacceptable and so hotels it is.

Or they could process their claims promptly so there wasn't a 2 year backlog.

I drove past a hotel near me at 11:30 this morning. It’s a large, expensive place, with a beautiful restaurant and long gravel drive. Around a dozen young men were loitering at the entrance, and a small group were making their way towards nearby shops. All were migrants. It is well-known in the area that the hotel has been pretty much taken over by them. Three or four were African, and the rest seemed to be from the Middle East. Every single one was a young man. If they really are “fleeing war and persecution,” as we keep being told, where are the women and children and old people?

God knows how much it is costing the taxpayer to house them in this luxury hotel. I couldn’t afford to stay there, that’s for sure. Yet my taxes are keeping them in luxury. No wonder they were laughing! They’ve been there for weeks. My neighbour is a security guard (and is himself of Indian heritage btw). He told me there have been several shoplifting incidents involving these young men, and that female staff at the hotel have complained about their behaviour. Personally, I’m sick of it.

In a statement on his website, Mr Heaton-Harris said the hotel should not be used because of "the rural location, impact on medical services, the lack of transport links [and] lack of local facilities".

He’s right. It’s the same here, it’s not working for anyone least of all the hundreds of bored lonely often angry men.

That hotel (which the owners have been trying to sell without success) has 84 bedrooms. So if they are putting 400 asylum seekers in it (which doesn't seem entirely clear) they are packing them in four or five to a room.

So you're asking how we can justify the massive luxury of accommodating five people for several months in a room meant to fit two people for a few nights.

There are perfectly valid concerns about stress placed on local services in a rural area and the lack of practical support offered to the asylum seekers, but the "oh, the everyday Brit can only dream of the unbridled luxury of sharing one room with four strangers" stuff is pure dog-whistle stuff.

The government wants to turn people against asylum seekers. It wants media coverage to create the impression that we're taking in vast hordes of them and putting them up in luxurious hotel suites, when the fact is that we're taking less than our fair share and casting about for cheap places to put them.

There is also a lot like this in Worcestershire in what were good hotels. It's not good for communities and not good for racial tensions. It's understandable why people don't welcome with open arms. There is a lot of anger locally, try getting a GP appointment no you can't but the GPS are running clinics at these hotels which now have diphtheria outbreaks. There has to be a better way. It needs to be managed properly, safely and humanely.

Totally agree with all your points!

No you don't. Otherwise you wouldn't have posted 'are we going too far' with photos of a swanky hotel they've been put up in.

The Gov has utterly fucked up, it's not asylum seekers' faults.

But it's a hugely goady post - photos of a beautiful hotel and pool.

Do you really think after being empty for 3 year, it has those facilities?
With 84 bedrooms for 400 people, do you think they'll be in luxurious bedrooms rather than crammed together 4 or 5 to a room?
Do you think a hotel chef will be cooking their meals as opposed to the dirt cheap mass caterers?

The building may be handsome, but it was empty. We have no suitable asylum accomodation so the Home Office crams people wherever they can. It suits the anti-immigration, anti-refugee if some of those are gorgeous old buildings so they can elicit a knee jerk reaction like yours.

This is a problem created by the Home Office and useful to the right wing politicians and press.

"Look at how skint you are and how you've turned the heating off. Now look at those asylum seekers in a stately home for free. It's their fault, you're paying for that with your tax."

No, it's the government - especially the Home Office's - fault.

Yes because travel with kids is so easy in normal circumstances, im sure it's a doddle with human traffickers to help smuggle them across continents.
Honestly, I'm sick of this "why is it only men?" crap. Do you fancy sticking your nan under a lorry, then on a dingy in the ocean? How do you really think that would go?

@JoonT On another recent thread about asylum seekers you asked why it was all men and I took the time to write you a pretty detailed answer. Maybe you missed my answer?

Here’s the link I posted to you on the other thread, and on this thread too, just a few comments above your post, (where I also pointed out that men are often housed in different hotels to women and children)

amp.theguardian.com/world/2017/feb/28/refugee-women-and-children-beaten-raped-and-starved-in-libyan-hellholes

I live in a tiny village in N Yorks which was in the news recently when the Home Office tried to open an asylum camp for 1500 single young men in a similar rural village 10 miles from the nearest town. It made me really look into it and I came to the conclusion the Hone Office are appalling. I think they should aim to process peoples claims fairly and quickly and then those who are legitimate can work and become part of the system and those without a legitimate claim can be refused entry. I think average waiting time is 2 years during which people need housed, fed etc. No good for the country paying for it or institutionalising the asylum seekers so long.

Works perfectly for the government and their mates though! Stir up racial tensions and let the poor turn on each other, while awarding contracts to your mates and donors. It’s a win win for the tories

I agree. This is the fault of government. It is almost as though they are deliberately choosing I'll thought out schemes in order to get people blaming asylum seekers and saying there are too many of them!

Agree with @ManyNameChanges

Globally the U.K. take v few asylum seekers. Turkey and Pakistan take the vast majority.

Asylum seekers are kept in limbo for years unable to work when that’s what they want to do. Govt should process faster and give a legal route to claim asylum without having to arrive illegally.

We live extremely rurally, and they've recently converted one of our local hotels into a "migrant hub". The locals were on the whole, welcoming and positive, setting up local meets and groups ready for the asylum seekers to attend, so they could feel settled, and alot of local people offered up their services to help, and essentials, and food packages were put together for the newcomers from donations, and local businesses. And it really has backfired massively. The number of break ins and theft has sky rocketed. Small businesses are being badly affected, and some of the farms have had equipment stolen, and attempted to be sold on via Facebook, with the address of the said hotel given for pick up (not very clever)! One lady was at home, and went downstairs to find three men in her house going through her stuff, she challenged them, and they became quite aggressive. She wrote about the incident on our local Facebook page, saying she'd contacted the police, and the next day her car was set on fire. There's now a huge feeling of resentment and fear locally, and it's become a really out of control situation. I'm genuinely scared of what's going to happen next. My husband has started working from home again, just so the house isn't left empty during the daytime, as I have to go into work.

At the moment we have an open door policy. If you reach these shores we will take you in and place you throughout the country.
My question is, when are we full ?
There are 1.2 billion people in Africa for example ? Do we let them all in ? Obviously the answer is no.
So the question therefore is how many before we simply get overwhelmed.
1m ?
2m ?
10m ?
Does anybody anywhere have any sort of clue about what our plan is because this will become very serious very quickly.

Friend works in one of these hotels, Nice big posh one that was recently built. All the weddings booked there were cancelled and 200 men moved in. Friend is a head of a department in the hotel, and home office on site told her they were all Albanian men. She is Eastern European herself, she told HO stop telling lies, there is not one Albanian man in this hotel. All young 16-40 ish healthy looking men. Not a woman in sight at all and they are very intimidating to her staff when they try to do their work.
Nowhere to go nearby, small village, one post office/shop and a long walk along narrow single lane country roads to get anywhere.
If the HO is right there in the hotels, why can't they just get on with the processing of these immigrants and get them out of limbo.