To think that something has to be done about the immigration crisis?

[JudesBiggestFan]

But I don't know what? More than 900 people landed in Dover today, as I discovered when reading about the terrible petrol bomb attack on a detention centre. Detention centres overcrowded, more than 7 million pounds a day being spent on hotel rooms for illegal immigrants, horrendously slow processing of applications...people drowning in the channel and local people feeling angry and frustrated because of the strain on services. Not to mention the mental health toll on people living their lives in limbo! So what is the answer? Because I just don't know anymore but it feels like the system has completely broken down.

Asylum seekers aren't allowed to claim benefits here. If they succeed in getting refugee status, they are then entitled to benefits.

My refugee friend wasn't allowed to get benefits while they were on temporary leave to remain. They were allowed to work though, so that's what they did.

@UrricanesArdlyHeverAppen

And what about the migrants who enter, remain or leave illegally and did not claim asylum?

Not all immigrants are asylum seekers. You seem to have tunnel vision.

^Please note that entering, remaining or leaving the U.K. illegally are only 3 of a multitude of different ways to be/become an illegal immigrant. I listed those 3 as they are common examples, it’s not a definition.

@Discovereads Not offended at all. You aimed for brevity., as did I! Plus we’re arguing exactly the same point. 😉

If a person comes I to the country illegally they are an illegal immigrant. Most come from France, a safe country so may have reached France as an asylum seeker but asylum rules state you seek asylum in first safe country you reach. If they then come from France at this point they become economic migrants as they seek a better deal in UK than they can get in France. They get put in hotels, given meals, given mobile phones and SIM cards and even pocket money whilst our own homeless have to sleep on streets and beg for money for food. Care leavers get £61 UC that has to pay for food, utilities, SIM card and clothing. These are children from our own country who have no parents to help them out going without food whilst millions of tax payers money is spent on illegal immigrants most of whom are male economic migrants. This is where Richi should cut the budget. I would send them back to last safe country they passed through, like they do in Australia if I was in charge. Bottomless money pit. They should not get any benefits until they have paid into our system for 5 years. Why they hand out pocket money, phones and SIM cards they will continue to come.

At some point it will come to a head. And I take absolutely no delight in saying that.
What, like the petrol bombs ar Dover like tonight, you mean? 😥
People saying though that all this immigration, it'll come to a head - it can be awfully seen as victim blaming, "look at what you made us do" sympathising with what are essentially terrorists.
Not saying that's what you're doing but in general people are.
.It's all fucked up.

@caringcarer You didn’t bother to read the thread then as we’ve literally just been having this discussion. My god. And the France point has been covered at least 3 times now.

Thank you. I wasn’t intending to criticise you, I worded it poorly though as I really was trying to say it’s nigh impossible to list all the ways you can be or become an illegal immigrant. People who have never navigated the regulations and process have no idea of the labyrinth it is.

They get put in hotels, given meals, given mobile phones and SIM cards and even pocket money whilst our own homeless have to sleep on streets and beg for money for food
Have you got a source for that? Genuine question, would like to know
Or are you parroting the likes of the Daily Mail?

By the way those who argue there is no legal route to asylum in UK are wrong. I taught a student who came to UK legally from Syria. He came with his father. Then after about 10 months his Mother and sister came. No boats in channel needed. They flew into UK legally after applying in Syria.

I’m not wrong. I’m not dead wrong or even a little bit wrong. And the reason I know this, is not because I have a vague association with someone who migrated here, but because I do it for a sodding living and have done for many years. Entering the UK illegally is the only way you can become an illegal entrant.

You might like using the term ‘Illegal immigrant’ and you might think it means something. That doesn’t mean you have the faintest idea what you’re talking about. There are immigration laws. The Home Office has to abide by them because breaking one of these laws is something that does have real consequences. Which means that making up terminology because you think it ‘effects real lives’ is something that isn’t done.

And your snarky comment about asylum seekers just makes it very clear that you don’t really understand what you’re talking about.

@Discovereads No, I understand, I was being overly cautious/pedantic because some people really don’t understand the difference and might have read it as “illegal immigrants do exist so asylum seekers are illegal”. But that’s on them, not you, so I should have phrased my reply to you better.

@caringcarer
If a person comes I to the country illegally they are an illegal immigrant. Most come from France, a safe country so may have reached France as an asylum seeker but asylum rules state you seek asylum in first safe country you reach. If they then come from France at this point they become economic migrants

Not quite. If you enter the U.K. illegally, you may be an illegal immigrant. Asylum seekers are the exception to the law to enter the U.K. legally. It must be this way because you have to apply for asylum after arrival.

Asylum rules no longer state that you must seek asylum in the first safe country you reach. That was the Dublin Convention which was amended during the 2015 refugee crisis such that every asylum seeker has the right to apply for asylum in any country they choose. The EU has even set up a system where in the first EU country you arrive in you can apply for asylum in any EU country of your choice from that initial first safe country and be supported through the process.

Asylum seekers are never economic migrants.

www.rescue.org/uk/article/claiming-asylum-uk-facts

Is that route still available @caringcarer ? Or was it the 5 year programme that finished in 2020?

And you seem to have difficulty understanding. If someone entered the UK without claiming asylum, then they are either an overstayer (if they entered lawfully and overstayed their leave) or an illegal entrant (if they entered without leave).

And I do not have tunnel vision regarding anyone. My point was made in response to those posters who think that asylum seekers haven’t entered illegally.

@UrricanesArdlyHeverAppen This is a niche question, but is the terminology “irregular routes/means” instead of “illegal routes/means”, or is it all “illegal” now? This isn’t a gotcha at all, I’ve just seen both in various sources and always wonder which one to use and whether it depends on date/current legislation.

Yes, didn't something come into effect 2020, like Brexit.....

You do this for a living but unlike every immigrant and every immigration solicitor- you don’t think illegal immigrants exist. I’d like to believe you do this for a living and are simply some sort of activist trying to change language. I really would.

So heres a little quiz for you. Name me one way a legal immigrant can become an illegal immigrant by illegally leaving the U.K.? You’d probably use the term “illegal exitee”instead…instead of illegal immigrant…but I think my question is clear.

Show me you have a clue.

To the best of my knowledge, they’re used interchangeably depending on the circumstances. It has been a while since I’ve needed to use the exact legal wording, so I’m a little rusty!

Illegal immigrant is an umbrella term for all that & more.

It isn’t victim blaming and I’m not talking about violence towards immigrants. I’m talking about people with nothing, logistics.

Where does the government put these people once the hotels are full? Do they build more ‘barracks’? And when those are filled?

Surely other people can see that this is unsustainable and a sensible solution must be found…and not just passing the problem onto the average Brit i.e can you give an immigrant a room in your home?

@UrricanesArdlyHeverAppen
You might like using the term ‘Illegal immigrant’ and you might think it means something.. Like has nothing to do with whether a thing exists and has meaning or not.

Apparently Cambridge dictionary has quite a lot of examples of this nonexistent meaningless term being used, especially in Parliament per the Hansard archive.

dictionary.cambridge.org/example/english/illegal-immigrant

Examples of illegal immigrant

The civil penalties of £2,000 per illegal immigrant will concentrate their minds.
From the Hansard archive
If the employee is known to be an illegal immigrant, the employer has a duty not to employ him.
From the Hansard archive
One of the new obligations will be that they should not employ an illegal immigrant.
From the Hansard archive
Clause 8 will be in danger of having as little effect as the existing, long-standing but little used penalty for harbouring an illegal immigrant.
From the Hansard archive
Would not an illegal immigrant who had not been discovered for six months at that time have had a legal right to stay?
From the Hansard archive
At that point, it is likely that the authorities in that country will also refuse to accept the illegal immigrant.
From the Hansard archive
Can he confirm that under no circumstances should an illegal immigrant obtain legal aid which is funded by the taxpayer?
From the Hansard archive
But the straightforward illegal immigrant can be deported forthwith without any right of appeal.
From the Hansard archive
When people provide work illegally and under cover and take advantage of illegal immigrant workers, there have to be sanctions.
From Europarl Parallel Corpus - English
Other objectives are social policy, labour market policies, vocational training and treatment of illegal immigrant workers, as well as reconciliation, confidence-building measures and bicommunal projects.
From Europarl Parallel Corpus - English
Illegal immigrants should be deported, not regularised, for indeed, every regularised illegal immigrant attracts a multitude of new immigrants.
From Europarl Parallel Corpus - English
What about the illegal immigrant who comes in here undetected?
From the Hansard archive
It is highly injurious to the illegal immigrant himself, probably the victim of an agent, and still more injurious to members of his family.
From the Hansard archive
One can say that a man is an illegal immigrant or one can say he is a political refugee.
From the Hansard archive
I do not have the right to examine the possible pseudonyms under which he operates in case he is an illegal immigrant.
From the Hansard archive
A person can become an illegal immigrant having entered this country perfectly legally.
From the Hansard archive
An illegal immigrant has no right of appeal until after deportation.
From the Hansard archive
If an employer is found to have been giving work to an illegal immigrant, that seems to be an extraordinary estimate of the cost.
From the Hansard archive
It seems totally inappropriate to make it a criminal offence to take on an illegal immigrant.
From the Hansard archive
An illegal immigrant accepts the offer of a place to stay and work, and is then held there by the threat or fear of exposure.
From the Hansard archive
If you were an illegal immigrant without an identity card, you would presumably vaporise rather quickly rather than go to the nearest police station.
From the Hansard archive
They are held in what amounts to near slavery because they have no opportunity to leave their employer without being deported as an illegal immigrant.
From the Hansard archive
An official was quoted in a recent report as saying that the illegal immigrant population was a "knowledge black hole".
From the Hansard archive
On the other hand, when an illegal immigrant is detained at a frontier, or close to one, sending him back causes few psychological problems.
From Europarl Parallel Corpus - English
We must vet social security registers and have more checks on employers suspected of employing illegal immigrant labour.
From the Hansard archive
Would it not be clearer if we had the words,"if the appellant at the time in question was an illegal immigrant "?
From the Hansard archive
This business of meeting a chap in a pub, finding that he is an illegal immigrant and arresting him is unattractive.
From the Hansard archive
Clearly the illegal immigrant must believe that if he manages to enter the country then all is well.
From the Hansard archive
It was on the strength of their conclusions that the police arrested him as an illegal immigrant.
From the Hansard archive
In particular, it was suggested that a national insurance number would be adequate evidence that an employee was not an illegal immigrant.
From the Hansard archive
One may often have cases, one does have cases, particularly immigration cases, where an illegal immigrant has been arrested prior to deportation.
From the Hansard archive
It would have been difficult to prosecute when we had not yet created the offence of employing an illegal immigrant.
From the Hansard archive
Such documentation would be more than helpful if an illegal immigrant was trying to avoid the risk of deportation.
From the Hansard archive
They are: the regular drunks, the mentally disordered, the petty inadequate, the drug addict, the fine defaulter and the illegal immigrant.
From the Hansard archive
At present, any employer who knowingly employs an illegal immigrant may pay him low or no wages.
From the Hansard archive
Alternatively, the illegal immigrant will have left the house.
From the Hansard archive
No new distinction is being drawn between the illegal immigrant who came in by deception and the illegal immigrant who came in clandestinely.
From the Hansard archive
He was an illegal immigrant and was jailed for three and a half years.
From the Hansard archive
They are able to get away with it because there is almost a conspiracy between the overstayer or illegal immigrant and the employer.
From the Hansard archive
Where an illegal immigrant is able to show that his return would indeed lead to suffering on his part, he is not sent back.
From the Hansard archive
Illegal immigration also adds to the crime problem, because it leads to blackmail by those who know that a person is an illegal immigrant.
From the Hansard archive
An illegal immigrant may be examined by an immigration officer at any time within 28 days of his entry and may then be refused admission.
From the Hansard archive
It is the responsibility of employers to assure themselves that the potential employee is not an illegal immigrant.
From the Hansard archive
Would it not help to deal with the illegal immigrant problem?
From the Hansard archive
The proposals will have no effect on catching out illegal immigrant workers or their employers.
From the Hansard archive
If he is found to have an illegal immigrant in his lorry, he and his company will each be fined £2,000.
From the Hansard archive
She came here in 1971, she was regarded as an illegal immigrant and after a considerable period she was deported.
From the Hansard archive
He entered this country as an illegal immigrant.
From the Hansard archive
He should avoid carefully tarring the genuine asylum seeker with the same brush as the illegal immigrant.
From the Hansard archive
If the illegal immigrant is in the house and the authorities get him, surely in that way they have satisfied their legitimate purposes.
From the Hansard archive
I query whether an offence consisting of employing an illegal immigrant would be enforceable.
From the Hansard archive
I do not see the amendment as opening the floodgates, so that every illegal immigrant could present himself or herself at a benefit office.
From the Hansard archive
That person may then declare the immigrant to be an illegal immigrant and make a deportation order.
From the Hansard archive
The three cases to which she referred arose because an anonymous source told the police that a person living at a particular house was an illegal immigrant.
From the Hansard archive
If there is control of immigration, as there has to be, the illegal immigrant and the overstayer prejudice the chances of the people who have a legitimate right to enter.
From the Hansard archive
I have no details of the particular case, but the person removed from this country would have been the parent who, presumably, was an illegal immigrant.
From the Hansard archive
It is also a question of criminal proceedings, for example, in the case of an illegal immigrant charged with a criminal offence being brought before a court.
From Europarl Parallel Corpus - English
It is still not altogether clear whether the granting of an amnesty to an illegal immigrant provides that immigrant with the right to bring in his dependants.
From the Hansard archive
Because the limit of jurisdiction for a summary offence—which it was then made—is six months, seven months were allowed in which to take action against an illegal immigrant.
From the Hansard archive
The illegal immigrant, however, will just disappear.
From the Hansard archive
In fact, he was an illegal immigrant.
From the Hansard archive
Whether seen from this end or that—and some of us have seen it from both—the illegal immigrant is an unmitigated evil, not least to the community to which he belongs.
From the Hansard archive
If someone escorts an illegal immigrant and that illegal immigrant dies in the country to which he has been deported, what would be the position of the escort?
From the Hansard archive
Will he bear in mind the recent harbouring of an illegal immigrant by a clergyman and agree that any member of the clergy or bishop who emulates that.
From the Hansard archive
We call, moreover, for the legalisation of the situation of all so-called illegal immigrant workers, who are only illegal because the authorities refuse to grant them papers.
From Europarl Parallel Corpus - English
All the circumstances have been carefully reviewed, and any compassionate circumstances or representations made on behalf of an illegal immigrant have been fully taken into account.
From the Hansard archive
Is he saying that, no matter how long an illegal immigrant has lived in this country, he could be described as not an ordinary resident settled in this country?
From the Hansard archive
That is claims lodged after the applicant has been refused leave to enter and notified of his liability to deportation or his liability to removal as an illegal immigrant.
From the Hansard archive
It can deport and do other things, even if it means breaking up a family, if an illegal immigrant is found to be guilty of that offence.
From the Hansard archive
Then somebody says that under the immigration rules that person is now strictly an illegal immigrant because he came in as a visitor but is no longer a visitor.
From the Hansard archive
It has to be proved that the lodging-house keeper either had actual knowledge that the person was an illegal immigrant, or had reasonable grounds for believing it.
From the Hansard archive
Despite that, it is wrong to imagine that everybody who is refused leave to enter is a potential illegal immigrant and that therefore we should wash our hands of them.
From the Hansard archive
However, a recognition of costs and the competitive factors never justifies exploitation, and it certainly does not justify any illegal activity such as the exploitation of illegal immigrant workers.
From the Hansard archive
In short, overseas students in this country are being treated not as honoured guests but shabbily, as if every one of them was a potential illegal immigrant.
From the Hansard archive
Matters were made worse because many people confused not having the right to work with being an illegal immigrant.
From Wikipedia
Previously, police could not stop and check identification papers on a mere suspicion that someone might be an illegal immigrant.
From Wikipedia
However, when illegal immigrant workers earnings were taken out of the sample, the median wage rose to $9.00 an hour.
From Wikipedia
Nor will time spent as an illegal immigrant.
From Wikipedia
He says she was fighting with a handyman who was an illegal immigrant and gives them the information.
From Wikipedia
He remained an illegal immigrant until he reached the age of 11.
From Wikipedia
There are an estimated 60,750 illegal immigrant children of school age.
From Wikipedia
The remainder, or residual, represents an indirect estimate of the size of the illegal immigrant population.
From Wikipedia
However, her fiancee left her which made her an illegal immigrant due to her being on his visa.
From Wikipedia
However, this figure fails to include the out-patient costs associated with treating the illegal immigrant population in emergency rooms.
From Wikipedia
After the state conviction, federal charges of forced labor, document servitude and harboring an illegal immigrant were dropped.
From Wikipedia
A related way of becoming an illegal immigrant is through bureaucratic means.
From Wikipedia
The stork character is a metaphorical stand-in for the illegal immigrant, he added.
From Wikipedia
She is an illiterate, illegal immigrant with no family, friends nor means of escape.
From Wikipedia
When an illegal immigrant ship was spotted, it would be approached by warships, and would often maneuver violently to avoid being boarded.
From Wikipedia
About 49 illegal immigrant ships were captured and 66,000 people were detained.
From Wikipedia
Once an illegal immigrant is certified they must be taken into custody and face mandatory detention which will result in a criminal charge or release.
From Wikipedia
The matter exposed the practices of the barely underground economy of wealthy households and largely illegal immigrant suppliers.
From Wikipedia
The apartment is used as lodgings for illegal immigrant workers.
From Wikipedia
He is helped by a local restaurant owner and begins his life in the city as an illegal immigrant worker.
From Wikipedia

@UrricanesArdlyHeverAppen
Name me one way a legal immigrant can become an illegal immigrant by illegally leaving the U.K.?

No answer yet? I know and I’m only “vaguely associated with someone who migrated here” according to you. So you being a professional of many years experience in immigration matters should have at least one example by now…

Or benefit of the doubt, you’ve turned in for the night. Hoping I see a response in the morning then. Sleep well.

You do this for a living but unlike every immigrant and every immigration solicitor- you don’t think illegal immigrants exist. I’d like to believe you do this for a living and are simply some sort of activist trying to change language. I really would Jesus Christ. Let me explain this to you one more time. An immigration solicitor (And I do mean a solicitor, not just an immigration advisor) will understand exactly what I mean. They use the term ‘illegal immigrant’ because it has seeped into the public consciousness so deeply that people use it to refer to anyone who doesn’t have lawful leave. Do you expect someone whose first language is not English and who got off a small boat several months ago to have an in depth understanding of the differences between illegal entrants and overstayers? Of course not. You write like English is your first language and you’re clearly having trouble getting your head around the concept, so it’s much easier to refer to people as illegal immigrants, as a catch all for every category. I’m well aware that there are numbers of undocumented migrants in the UK who the Home Office is completely unaware of. Of course they exist. But they are not called illegal immigrants by anyone who knows what they are talking about.

So heres a little quiz for you. Name me one way a legal immigrant can become an illegal immigrant by illegally leaving the U.K.? You’d probably use the term “illegal exitee”instead…instead of illegal immigrant…but I think my question is clear I appreciate it’s nearly 2am, but your question is so far from being clear it’s ridiculous. You want me to tell you what we’d call someone with leave if they left the UK illegally? We wouldn’t call them anything because they wouldn’t be in the UK and as we don’t do routine exit checks, we wouldn’t know how they left unless they were stopped travelling on a false document. And why would someone with leave in the UK go to all the trouble and expense of using a false document?

Show me you have a clue I’m not sure I’ve got the energy it looks like it’s going to take.

@Helpmewithteen It does seem unsustainable but if I can offer another perspective before I fall asleep and drop my phone on my face :)

The number of asylum claims for the year ending June 2022 is 63,000. This isn’t too far away from the previous highest number, which was 60,000 in 2003. The country didn’t collapse then. There was nowhere near the level of panic and outrage that’s since been stoked.

However, importantly, the number of claims is out of step with the numbers of people in the asylum system which has increased exponentially under the last few years of Tory rule.

Asylum claims that should be completed in 16 weeks are now taking 18 months/2 years. That’s placing a huge and unsustainable strain on the hotels, hostels and detention centres housing asylum seekers. That isn’t due to just an increase in asylum claims, it’s due to inefficiency and lack of funding within the Home Office. There is of course a year on year cumulative effect, which pushes things to the point of being unsustainable. But the massive mismanagement of the asylum system is causing more problems now than just the numbers themselves.