Stopping the boats.

[Scenicgirl]

Honest question.
When Rishi Sunak announced the promise to tackle Channel migrant crossings as one of his five key pledges at the beginning of 2023, and subsequently failed and Keir Starmer appearing not to be concerned about the numbers arriving daily, when other EU countries have taken a much sterner stance sending a clear message, why can't we stop/pause the boats?

Bear in mind quite a few Tory ministers were surprised - and shocked - to discover that Britain is indeed an island.

Well, quite. So people saying that asylum seekers should stay in the first safe country they reach, are being really stupid. It means that they say the UK should never accept anybody.

I know.

I was taking the piss!

I agree.

Valid question. Typically it is harder for women and children to undertake the travel required to get into mainland Europe – it’s physically difficult and dangerous, if you have small children it’s next to impossible. Most of them will end up either in refugee camps, or in neighbouring countries for their own safety (I say this with some trepidation as neither of these options are ideal, but still better than a journey into Europe).

Usually men come because they are more likely to make the crossing. Once in their destination country, they can make an asylum application for their family. It can take years to reach a decision so often people do end up in a limbo of sorts.

I don’t agree that people in Calais are in “no immediate peril” but do understand why it might be difficult to understand how being there could be a preferred option than settling elsewhere.

Sorry. I missed the joke!

Do you understand that people coming illegally on boats is a completely different issue from legal economic migration?

We will always have a level of legal economic migration. Sometimes there are problems with the ways it's managed. Keir Starmer has actually been speaking about how we need to train our own young people better to reduce legal economic migration.

Asylum seekers are different - we have to allow them to claim asylum. They will get here (illegally) somehow. The limiting factor is the "push" of where they are coming from

Really?

I'd like to see documentation to back that up.

Nice soundbite though.

That’s interesting - which area is this?
My experience is very different. I am in charge of care arrangements for two family members in different parts of the country - the agencies I use are all desperate for care workers - so much so that for one relative I have to use two different agencies because neither of them can currently cover all the care required. One of my old school friends owns a care agency in another area, with the same issues. I’ve honestly never heard of carers not being able to work as many hours as they wish - I can think of two carers who left their agencies because they were constantly being asked to work more than they wanted!

I’d like to know where your area is - it could be really useful for my family, or my friend with her agency if it’s anywhere near them.

To be clear I don’t work in the processing of asylum applications or handle dispute cases for asylum seekers. The people that do are not compensated well and do the work because they want to help people – I don’t think it is at all fair to suggest anyone in the legal or immigration sector is happy to let people risk death making crossings so that they have a steady case load.

I would urge you to consider that boat crossings are a very small percentage of net migration, although I do understand that “thousands daily” is a scary sentence if you are already concerned about the numbers. Net migration was around 600k people last year, so if immigration as a whole is something that is of concern for you, it would be more effective to focus your efforts on family visas, student visas and skilled migration, as these groups represent about 80% of all migration.

How about people who come on spouse visas? Are there not restrictions anymore? When I brother wanted to get married to south American citizen he had to prove that he had enough money to support her without state help.

Even when their kids were born he was the one who claimed the child benefit for them

Taking that as an example how are the " asylum seekers" who are untrained and low paid once their claims approved going to earn enough t? o bring over family members

You can stop the boats as long as you don't want to people seeking asylum. There used to be close to zero boats. So it depends what you actually want.

Most people who want to stop the boats don't care about the boats and the people in them, they just want close to zero asylum seekers. So which is it?

You don’t need to phrase it as such with the words ‘scary number’, I’m not a child

I think you’ll find if it does get to thousands politicians will be up against it from many more people.

And no I am absolutely fine with separating visas and trafficking. A country should determine a good rate for the former to their benefit and I’d like to see the latter gone.

We shall start - and end - with

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/nov/08/dominic-raab-dover-calais-brexit-uk-france

I don’t actually think stopping boats means stopping humanitarian placements, we have the Ukraine scheme after all

You can do it in other ways but you still have to face up to how to stop trafficking and current laws make that difficult

I mean Dominic Raab is not a genius when it comes to trade agreements, but there's nothing there to suggest he is ignorant of the UK's island status.

People on benefits are sanctioned and have their benefits removed if they don't take up available jobs but you can't actually physically force them to do certain jobs. You wouldn't want someone to be a care worker under duress as this could be dangerous for the people they are looking after.

It’s not safe for women to travel here alone because of the male traffickers and possible sexual violence they may face on the journey, Surrounded by the very men on the boats.

So the men must come first to make it safe for them to come.

You want them to try and survive on bread only? That would be taking us back to how people were treated in the Middle Ages. They would obviously turn to crime to feed themselves.

I didn’t say it to belittle you and I’m sorry it came across that way – I do think those numbers are thrown around to scare people and create a narrative of fear towards asylum seekers. Fortunately we are very, very far away from those kinds of numbers.

I do think it’s important to make a distinction as to whether it is the boat crossings that are an issue, or asylum seekers. We can actually stop boat crossings if we are prepared to offer alternative pathways to asylum. Enforcing punishments or penalties for people who try to make the crossing will not be effective – these individuals are prepared to put their life on the line and that is already not enough to deter them.

We cannot stop people wanting to claim asylum unless we resolve the conflicts that displaced those people (which realistically will not happen). Claiming asylum is not illegal, and making it illegal is a serious human rights violation.

It's good to see someone in favour of allowing asylum seekers to work. They can hardly contribute if they aren't allowed to work, can they?

This is a very important distinction. Thanks for calling it out

We certainly do need to do something about people overstaying. The whole immigration system is shocking frankly.

True.

It's very bad works to compell someone to do a job.

I'm very libertarian, we should all do exactly as we please. I'm not MAGA, I am small government, light touch though.

But I'm also of the opinion that if you are unfortunate enough to live in a shit state, you stay and try and make it better.

You don't send your boys elsewhere. Who the fuck are you helping if you do that?

Yes I am more than happy to separate types of immigration, visas have not been an issue for me although last couple of years might be a bit high

A country can use visas to their benefit and it can work well

I don’t think the system we have is sustainable or even good for asylum. If we are to take 60k per year, or whatever the electorate settles on as acceptable, there are better ways to do it.

Thank you for clarifying.

Climate pressure is a terrible problem and a reason to migrate, but not to seek asylum.

If you are someone who believes that economic migrants are being granted asylum, please note that I’ve been waiting 6 pages now - that’s about 150 posts - for someone with this belief to find a reputable source for it. I excluded only the tabloid press. No replies so far.