to be annoyed at so much racism re “the boat people”

[NavyOrca]

A large hotel local-ish to us (around 10 miles away) is currently closed for bookings as it is being occupied by just under 400 asylum seekers.

Recently, in our village and a couple of neighbouring ones, there has been a spate of parcels being stolen from doorsteps. I’m sure you can all work out who has taken the blame for this….! Even though one of the perpetrators is known to be a local lad, born and bred in our village, some people are still blaming others..

The comments on Facebook community groups are disgusting.

Since when has it been acceptable to so readily stick the blame upon those literally fleeing their countries?

I honestly feel that as a human race, we are devolving.

"No doubt they’d have objected to the kindertransport too 😢"

Can you not understand the difference that people might feel in those different circumstances?

The Kindertransport involved children (the hint is in the name).

Also, if you think about Ukrainian refugees. There have been 250,000 Ukrainian refugees come to this country. But these are overwhelmingly women and children - the men have (generally speaking) stayed behind to fight for their country.

The figures for Ukrainian refugees are 52% women, 29% children, 19% men.

The adults are of all ages and, indeed, 7% of the adults are over the age of 65.

This is very different indeed to figures from other countries.

Yes, it would be lovely to be in such a privileged position to put this down to good old fashioned racism.

We have no more room. Our services are stretched to breaking point. We cannot sustain this.

My family were immigrants from the commonwealth and arrived with documents. We have two hotels with asylum seekers about 20 mins from my house. There have been women and underage girls harassed and fights. I’m getting quite peeved with people commenting that don’t live with it.

I know someone directly affected by an incident.

She was round yesterday, sat at my table not a racist bone in her body but she is right there are major differences between immigrants.

The problem is too many bleeding heart white people feel guilty because of colonialism, they need to stop it quite frankly before they destroy their own country.

They are either economic migrants so have no automatic right to be here or they are fleeing war and if they are traumatised well you know how trauma can play out. Not everyone who experiences trauma sits and cries for some it plays out in violence.

Well said.

OP’s post references ‘the boat people’. In 2023 30,000 crossed the channel illegally.

If you are talking about immigration, the numbers will include students, workers and other people coming in on visas. 500,000 of those 1.2 million left. Every country is going to have migrants. Plenty of Brits live abroad. Blame the shortage of housing and services on years of austerity by the Tory government.

@Allthegoodnamesarechosen if it’s true there are just more boys surviving you need to ask why? That’s the main issue isn’t it women treated like dirt.

If they are refugees then where are the women and children?

You can’t say that a country is so bad that you need to flee but not so bad to leave women and children behind.

My own family were refugees. When they fled their country no one was left behind.

This.

A lot of people seem to bring in immigrants into virtually any conversation about virtually any problem. In fact they usually call them "illegal immigrants".

I don't think you understand what racism means OP.

You're referring to asylum seekers as 'scrotes'?

Gross.

Here's a question for everyone, if they have come via boats and spent £5k + for the journey and risked life.

Why didn't they just spend £45 on an easy jet flight, land in the UK and claim asylum?

You know why.. because if they did the flight their criminal records and background checks would be done at the airports and we'd send them back.

So I don't believe it's 100% racist slurs that are the issue I think it's fear, we are being basically dumped with illegal foreign criminals in our local area, so of course if criminal activity increases the blame will be on those people.

At the cost of 5.5 million a day . The only blame is to be put at the feet of Governments past and present for this .

8 million.

Might have been more accurate to talk about 'xenophobia', though racism and Islamophobia is undoubtedly part of the gross bundle of nastiness targeted at asylum seekers online.

Stuff like this is what makes me glad I live in London. I have two migrant hostels within walking distance of my home - one and actual hostel, and the other one a hotel hosting migrant families. There's almost none of this shit on our busy community facebook groups, because Londoners have grown up with diversity and we're not fearful of migrants.

But the Ukrainian refugees are overwhelmingly women and children. That is a very different situation to what we are talking about here.

"You know why.. because if they did the flight their criminal records and background checks would be done at the airports and we'd send them back."

Lol - you don't have a clue. How do you think staff at airports do 'background checks' and 'criminal record checks' with people fleeing the Taliban in Afghanistan?

Powerful and thought provoking.

Out of curiosity, which country are you referring to OP?

To be fair they don't come illegally because they necessarily have criminal records but it is because they wouldn't be eligible for a visa. This may be due to a criminal record but more likely just because they don't have skills for a work visa or family that can sponsor them, etc.

There should be a fair agreement with the EU to take a fair proportion of genuine asylum seekers. This would be miles better than accepting people making illegal crossings from France, even if it means more refugees coming here than at present.

Yes, not speaking the local language so we'll or not knowing anybody is difficult. But these are not the problems the asylum system is set up to solve. They pale into insignificance next to the problems of living in a war zone or being persecuted by the state. People can learn to speak a language; they can be helped to make friends. France is actually quite a nice place to live, which is why so many asylum seekers stay there.

People on small boats exhibit a tendency toward criminality and irresponsible behaviours and are disproportionately likely to be younger males. Many of them will have had their asylum claims rejected elsewhere, suggesting they are not genuine. Allowing these sorts of people to make up a significant proportion of refugees is not good for society and discriminates against others (women, children, the elderly) who might benefit more from being in the UK but are unable to make the trip.

It's dehumanising. I saw an article in the Daily Heil where there were pictures of brown skinned men talking and apparently that was a huge problem. The right wing are stirring this up and responsible for the racism.

My community facebook is mortifying. Anything and everything now, ranging from dog's dirt on the pavement to loose wires in an electric box "must be the illegals". This of course means anyone who is not white, and dontcha know they are getting £500 a week and driving brand new sports cars whilst our own are eating from the foodbank! The frothing that goes on makes me ashamed. There's a group that protests outside one of the hotels weekly to "save our women/children". I'm not exactly sure from what, as there have been no reported issues, but they are brown and from 'another culture' so of course they must all be rapists coming here with the intention of committing sex crimes.
I really had to laugh at one poster who claimed that the brown rough sleepers get handed out brand new sleeping bags/tents and 'our own' get ripped second hand ones.

And don't know if it's been mentioned, but they often group categories together in accommodation, eg single men together in one hotel, women and children in another.

Daily heil ..I like that.
I noticed they reigned the BNP style rhetoric in after what happened in the summer.
I'm also sure that's where the £8 million a day came from and I wonder who got those juicy contracts to house asylum seekers.

Why didn't they just spend £45 on an easy jet flight, land in the UK and claim asylum?

Erm, let’s see… a) EasyJet don’t do a flight from Kabul.

b) You can’t just get on a plane and travel to any country you want. Try rocking up at the airport and getting a flight to New York without a visa and see how far you get. A non-EU resident cannot get into the UK without a visa. They can’t just get to Italy and jump on a plane. It’s laughable to suggest they can. The ONLY route available to them is to be smuggled in.

Until the government provides asylum-processing centres in mainland Europe, they’ll be forced to come on small boats. There’s no point getting up in arms about them entering ‘illegally’ when there is literally no route for them to enter legally. And don’t forget that by international law we are bound to take asylum seekers. And we take a lot less than most other countries.

Well said . Some are genuine refugees and we should welcome them . I went to school with kids whose parents were kicked out of Uganda by Idi Amin who took everything they had worked for , also
Vietnamese boat people. I don't believe that most of the asylum seekers are genuine refugees. They are economic migrants. We have no idea who they really are or where they are from . This is a disaster from a security point of view . Do I harbour ill will towards the boat immigrants? No . I blame our Governments past and present for allowing this mess to happen .