To think an amnesty needs to be made asap for Grenfall residents

[brexitstolemyfuture]

Mayor Kahan supports this but government officials haven't granted it yet. Surely these people have been through enough without persecution for subletting or visa issues!

You can't set a precedent like that. Lots of people have house fires every year - what will you write off for them?

Do lots of people have house fires every year in which they are forced to watch and listen to their neighbours perish knowing there is nothing they can do to help?

Do lots of people have house fires every year in which half their family is wiped out?

Do lots of people have entirely preventable house fires every year that could see coming but no-one would listen to them?

What about the kind of fires where people take phone calls from their terrified family members who want to say goodbye because they know they are about to burn to death?

No?

Didn't think so.

Those of you who cannot see how truly exceptional this situation is, need to give your heads a shake.

They're not separate issues - this would be a pragmatic choice to enable the full facts to be known. The stakes are incredibly high for illegal immigrants in fear of being deported and it's important that they are able to tell the truth both in order to identify the dead and in order to find out the facts.

Of course this may create its own problems - being unable to prove who was or wasn't a resident and the very high stakes means that some chancers are almost inevitable.

I do forsee a pretty draconian clamp down on subletting.

Is this not different to your normal house fire?

If a house was to burn down, I don't think it would burn for two days where everything is incinerated, Common sense has to be applied here.

Yes I did hear correctly

Teresa May has just stated there will be no immigration checks on those left homeless

So all those saying there should not be an amnesty have less compassion than TM and the Tory govt. Gosh you must so proud

I think there should be an amnesty for the tenants, but that the "landlords" complicit in providing over-crowded, dangerous and illegal accommodation should be prosecuted and charged with being an accessory to manslaughter.

BrexitStole "Theresa May is showing far more empathy than most people on here !"

X posted with you're last post. Yes indeed.

TM is saying something slightly different, though, isn't she? She's not advocating an amnesty for those who either illegally subletted their flats, or were the tenants in those illegal sublets. I agree with what she is saying, btw, but it's not what SK is asking for.

"How would they identify a building that had been made into a death trap by council/government policy?"

What if they don't think about that? Just give it a go thinking it might just work? The law might just take pity on them if they escape a horrific fire? Desperate people do desperate things and even people with a brain don't always think rationally.

All those caught up in this event suffered massively. That some of them may have been living there illegally does not diminish that suffering. They all need and deserve help.

Gerda, that's for the near future. You are right it needs to be addressed. For the moment they need to do everything they can to identify everyone who was in there and give them the help they need.

I'm truly horrified by the lack of any sort of compassion shown by some here. You have no humanity. Where are your souls?

There already IS a precedent for amnesty being granted in exceptional circumstances, when there is a pragmatic reason to do so.

Andrew: I completely disagree with you that "the principle is the same".
Granting amnesty for breaking a tenancy agreement/immigration law in order to get to the truth of who/how many died in a huge, rare tragedy like this is completely different to granting amnesty for rape/armed robbery just for the hell of it.

God there are some cold hearted people on here, even the Prime Sinister has more empathy than some of you.

They are two separate issues! You should not sublet council propertiess it's not fair on everyone else who needs one.

I'm not sure about this. Surely illegal subletting can cause overcrowding which can make the possibility of accidents more likely?

If people don't come forward and say they were subletting there will be unknown numbers of people forever uncounted, the end of their lives never documented. That is horrendous.

I'm not convinced that everyone understands what an amnesty is or means in this situation.

One of my ex-colleagues said he was looking for a new place to rent in London. I asked him why he wanted to move because I knew he had a small garden he liked where he was living. He said that he was renting the council flat from an asylum seeking. I asked where the asylum seeker was living. He said that he had gone back to live in Iraq - the country he claimed asylum from. He was moving out because another council tenant, understandably annoyed, grassed him up.

The sub-letting of council properties is never discussed but it is rife.

There should be no amnesty. Tragic events have taken place, but if the illegal immigrants were not in this country in the first place, they would not have been affected by the tragedy. The sub-letters, where known, should be prosecuted.

An amnesty doesn't mean that subletting will become legal - just that those involved in this case won't be pursued, under the extreme circumstances.

Khan is spot on. Getting an accurate idea of who was in the building is far, far more important.

but if the illegal immigrants were not in this country in the first place, they would not have been affected by the tragedy

Oh my Christ. You are talking about piles of ashes and the odd hip bone. The need to get the facts and a dignified end for these individuals trumps everything.

Of course there should be an amnesty in this case. It's the right thing to do in this extreme situation, and the only way in a practical sense that they will ever come close to identifying everyone in there and knowing the true extent of it.

It can absolutely be separate from upholding the law in general, and there does need to be more action taken on subletting and overcrowding to make the system fairer for everyone.

Pea agreed. That has got to be one of the most cuntish things I have ever seen posted on MN.

The difficulty with an amnesty ( and I know as I used to work for immigration) is that every man and his dog with no status will come forward and claim to have been living there.

So it may not help with identifying people as there will be those who seek to take advantage of the amnesty. Otherwise yes it would be a good thing to give people reassurance to come forward.

I think yes

Those terrified of asking for help for missing family members or somewhere to stay just because they are illegal is no good

They need help. They may be illegal but they are still human and need to be treated as such

Amnesty is the only way

There is a bit of whataboutery on this thread.
To all those complaining about the "handwringing" over this tragedy, when countless other families suffer other tragedies, here are some charities that help those affected by road accidents, cancer, illness, house fires, etc:
www.brake.org.uk/schools-communities/road-crash-victims

www.cancerresearchuk.org/about-cancer/coping/practically/financial-support/grants/cancer-charities

www.firefighterscharity.org.uk/

www.bhf.org.uk/

Obviously this list is very far from exhaustive. Rather than feeling bitter and jealous about the sympathy expressed for the Grenfell victims, maybe you could promote these other causes?