Withdrawing the £36 a week from families with children, whose asylum applications have been rejected is a challenge to our humanity

[Figmentofmyimagination]

We should feel ashamed.

It's part of a Europe-wide agreement, croatia. For refugees travelling by land & sea, the first countries will necessarily be those closest to Africa. That's hardly fair on Greece, Italy, Turkey, France, Spain & Portugal. So we (theoretically) spread them out.

These people think they are going to get a house and a job and extremely generous benefits so no wonder they want to come here. Never mind we have an unemployment problem and chronic shortage of social housing. Because they will be at the top of the list. Even the French are saying it's Britain's own fault which it is for allowing this mad situation.

In France they're living in filthy squatter camps with no running water. Here in England they're taken BY TAXI to a hotel with three meals a day and £35 a week to spend. Which country would you choose?

At the risk of being accused of being flippant -

I went to look on Tripadvisor for some of the hotels listed - there are indeed some reviews that mention the presence of "migrants" or "asylum seekers" in some of the hotels - and some more cautious ones that refer to stuff like "groups of people playing cards in the corridors".

But then I got sidetracked (like I always do) into reading the rest of the reviews - and to (finally) get to my flippant point - no-one staying at these places (even the nominally 4 star ones) seems to be finding them decent at all - setting aside the other "Guests" so it hardly sounds like the migrants are living the life of Riley (although I accept they are getting housed and fed).

"Even the French are saying it's Britain's own fault which it is for allowing this mad situation."

The French are completely right. It is not realistic for all migrants to live in the first country they land in. However we need to have clearer and fairer rules. I feel that migrants should register as ayslum seekers in the first country they land, but then be allocated across the EU while their application is processed.

Migrants who break the law should be shown no mercy. There needs to be a deterant to those who intimidiate innocent lorry drivers. If the calais migrants knew that if they broke fences or attempted to break into lorries with crowbars they would be instantly sent home, they might think twice about their behaviour. The migrants have nothing to lose and everything to gain by terrorising lorry drivers.

• Ultimately, these people are human beings

Yes they are but so are the poor children already struggling in a stretched and under funded social care system in Kent. Are they human beings too? Do we have a responsibility to them?

I am struggling to understand when there is finite money in a pot, and people already here desperately need it - need our help, need things to be improved how suddenly they become not worth but peoples from other countries do?

But then again that's a very Labour way of doing things isn't it.

reallytired I also feel very sorry for the lorry drivers. I heard that they get fined £2000 if a migrant is found in their lorry, even if it is obvious that the migrant has broken into the lorry, destroyed cargo and the driver was unaware.

I think its time the whole of the EU addressed this problem rather than leaving it all up to France and Britain. Some EU countries are actively aiding these people to move on out of their countries and leaving it to us to sort out. We are all part of the same organisation so everyone should be helping to sort it out.

Bulgaria has built huge fence or something to stop illegals getting in.

Where are the majority of immigrants located? It's suggested that immigrants tend to move to places where they will be among people that they understand, even if they're not related. It has also been suggested that some towns on the coast have high concentrations of immigrants. It's known that without access to work and other resources (it's headline news today that failed ASs will also be evicted) lack of access to one tiny stipend, lack of housing and lack of hope, concentrated, potentially, in some towns or identifiable areas of bigger cities, will create an entirely foreseeable public disaster. Building a concentrated area of destitution is a very stupid public policy and cleaning it up will be far more costly, in terms of resettlement, containment, policing and healthcare than not forming it in the first place would have been.

This is a Tory policy to look hard on immigration. But, it's likely to backfire massively. Public disorder is not good policy.

It's suggested that immigrants tend to move to places where they will be among people that they understand, even if they're not related

yes, it's a recognized phenomena, that people will be more inclined to migrate to area's where there is an established diaspora.

The larger the diaspora the more it acts as a magnet for others from the same culture

And more problems and crime for UK.

*I only have a "right" to be here because I happened to be born to British parents. I could have been born anywhere in the world, I had no control over it. It's a random lottery of luck.

I hate the word "rights" used in this context*

You don't have to like it and yes, it is down to nothing but luck. I'm unlucky (in a financial sense) that I wasn't borne to a billionaire, but that's life.
Like it or not, they don't have any right to be here.
At all!

But, there is already an established, albeit slow, procedure for housing, in detention centres, and deporting failed ASs. Of course, David Davies and Tom Watson haven't done the government any favours by scuppering the scheme to speed up the deportation process. But, I guess that's what you get for having a high court. Regardless, though, putting failed AS families onto the street without 36 pounds a week, is the solution to what, exactly?

I feel very sorry for the people affected by this in Kent. Same with the residents of that Greek island a month or so ago. I think it's rather easy to be right-on about it all when you live miles away from any hotspots, as I do.

The EU needs to think of fairer solutions and the while thing needs to be handled far more efficiently.

Identifying regions that need migrant workers would be a start. The South East of England is currently shouldering more than its fair share. I'd be happy for more migrants to come to my neck of the woods (where factory workers, retail staff and labourers are needed) if it took the pressure off Kent and its neighbours.

Many EU countries are actively hostile to taking any immigrants at all.

Interesting.
The EU seems to me purely money driven and not about people or society at all. It seems to fall down on this side time and time again, as well as the money side.

I wouldn't blame the EU specifically. Look at the massacres of Rohyinga people in Burma, or expulsions of Haitians, some of whom have been there for generations, from Dominica. Inhuman treatment of immigrants, for political capital, is a global problem and always has been. The Bible is full of it. The problem isn't the EU. But, the EU isn't exactly helping, either.

It was reported recently that Liverpool also shoulders far more than its fair share of asylum seekers so the problem isn't confined to the SE or Kent. It seems there are certain cities /towns being expected to do more than their fair share.

I think we should take some asylum seekers, but we can't just accept an infinite number.

Schools, hospitals, housing, SS etc are overstretched at the moment, people said up thread that we don't need to be, but the facts are this govt has made huge cuts and will continue to. So at the moment we can't let everyone in who wishes to come.

Our infrastructure and services will collapse!

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-merseyside-31353963

If those figures are accurate we can't pretend that the SE is disproportionately affected.

Ah, sorry, superexcited I didn't know that about Liv.

But my point still stands - no region should have to accept more than its share, and regions with unfilled jobs should house more.

"But my point still stands - no region should have to accept more than its share, and regions with unfilled jobs should house more."

Where are there regions with unfilled jobs? If there are unfilled jobs in London then surely British people should have priority. Other countries look after their own. Why not the UK? Anyway these people claim to be ayslum seekers and not economic migrants so there is no reason to house them in the most expensive areas of the country. Housing migrants in the south east where the rents are extortionate and there is terrible pressure on school places and hospitals is daft. The North West has empty houses that are cheap to rent and spare school places.

Apologies if I'm repeating what has been said already upthread, but just to explain a few things about the asylum process.

The criteria for granting asylum is actually pretty strict - it isn't just that the country that the asylum seeker is from is horrid, or that it is in general a dangerous place to be (eg Libya, Sudan, Syria); the individual must have a well founded fear of persecution. That's a high bar to pass.

If the asylum claim is rejected, the government will consider whether there are other factors at play - eg whether there are compassionate reasons for granting some form of leave (usually called Discretionary Leave); whether it is almost impossible to return them (eg because there is no functioning government to liaise with); or whether they should be encouraged to leave the country. The majority of refused asylum claims fall into the latter category - so of course it makes sense not to fund individuals indefinitely with UK tax money when it has already been decided that they should not be in the UK

I'm still trying to work out how the government thinks that it can make capital out of putting thousands of destitute failed ASs family members onto the street. Clearly, critics, including high court judges, are going to tell them that the crisis is one of their own making. They're going to say, when you passed laws to evict them and took their meagre allowance away, what did you think was going to happen?

Unless, DC and his government believes that manufacturing a crisis, in and of itself, is political capital. If they do believe that, then we, the British public, are in trouble. Because the job of a government is to run a country, not to cause chaos in one.