What's your thoughts on asylum seekers?

[Lynds778]

I'm all for offering asylum to those genuinely in need but I've seen a lot of negative media recently around 'fake' asylum seekers; people pretending to be from war-torn countries etc to gain entry to the country. Also videos of men giving advice for future asylum seekers on where to say you're from so that you can get in.

Also seen a lot of uproar from local communities about asylum seekers behaving anti-socially, most recently hanging around outside a primary school in Deanshanger and it's got me worried.
I'm also wondering why the large majority of asylum seekers are men and there are less women and children?

So, what's your opinion?

Also, this isn't a racist post. I would have the exact same concerns if these were white asylum seekers from Germany for example. The worry is the system is being abused by some and that we are a bit too lax when it comes to documentation and monitoring of asylum seekers.

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14058597/Fake-asylum-seekers-conning-way-Britain-telling-Home-Office-war-torn-Eritrea-bragging-thousands-followers-TikTok.html

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14185169/amp/Four-asylum-seekers-costing-taxpayer-estimated-160-000-year-living-575-000-luxury-home-accused-faking-Afghan-nationalities-UK.html

Is there a point at which it is reasonable to expect people to stay home and work on sorting out their own country instead of running away to Europe?
Or is it too difficult.

Thankfully MNHQ disagree.

I am glad some of the rampant bigotry is being deleted.

Lol

So are you saying that if, for example, you were a homosexual man from Afghanistan that you should just sit down with the Taliban and talk it through? 😂

I suppose morally some would argue yes, you can see from some comments on the threads that there are people who feel strongly that men “should” stay in a location to fight and or see through whatever is causing the immediate and long term risk.

From a legal basis that’s were the “well founded fear of persecution” element comes in - a user a few pages back gave a scenario about being Gay and being in a country that was homophobic (but not with a well founded fear of persecution) and that they shouldn’t quality as an asylum seeker, which is accurate they probably wouldn’t.

So I guess someone could argue the space to stay is before something gets to a “well founded fear of persecution” stage - but then that in itself is going to be a different threshold for everyone - so it’s an interesting debate!

@Anonym00se I did not give any examples.
You decided to cite an extreme and I suggest a very rare example of a migrant. I question how helpful that is.

Well I’d suggest that if it was genuinely easy for someone to stay in their own country and sort their societal problems out themselves, they would never have been granted asylum in the first place.

I mean, we live in a democracy, and we can’t sort our own problems here. What influence do you honestly believe an individual would have in an autocratic regime where their lives are at risk?

@Anonym00se In WW2 there were many resistance organisations that fought against the Nazis that occupied their countries. They fought and some died. I don't see much sign of fighting. Except perhaps in Iran, some very brave women there.

So the Jewish people who came to the UK to flee the Nazis should have stayed in Germany and fought back?

It will get harder, and some politicians are already responding. Hence the recent swings in many western countries

It does feel a bit head in the sand

It's so easy for people to say that others should fight against their awful regimes and risk a probable death. We live in such luxury. I believe that most of the people who post these things wouldn't have a clue how to stage an uprising and fight against an army. They would just want to raise their families in peace and safety. Don't we all?

Exactly. Most people in occupied France didn't join the resistance, for example. They just kept their heads down and tried to survive a terrible period as best they could. Like most of us would.

You may be right.

But do you think it morally acceptable to discriminate against someone purely because of where they were born? - Is there really any difference between that and discrimination based on skin-colour, or religious belief etc? If there is a relevant moral difference I (naively) fail to see it.

@yetagai I think we need borders to stop general chaos and break down

People probably need to feel they're working to a degree too, which is the debatable part atm and part of the changes we're seeing in many places

"But do you think it morally acceptable to discriminate against someone purely because of where they were born? - Is there really any difference between that and discrimination based on skin-colour, or religious belief etc? If there is a relevant moral difference I (naively) fail to see it."

The difference (in theory at least) is that if we want to live in a certain way as citizens of the uk we can choose how to live. We have certain rights and corresponding obligations. Eg we choose to pay a certain amount of taxes and have certain social protections among other things. We also have common cultural norms that are enforced as laws (eg that it is not acceptable to force 9 year olds to marry) which are not followed in other countries.

If anyone at all can live here with no difference in treatment it can erode social protections and cultural values as well as trust within society. Eg people from other countries don't pay into the system - if they can take out with no limit the system will collapse.

Tbf the Jews were a minority in WW2 when they were being persecuted. They didn't have much of an option of fighting back (although many did eg Warsaw Ghetto uprising).

Many of the groups claiming asylum now are not minorities. My concern is that our asylum system works best when it is for small groups of persecuted people. Yet many people claiming asylum are from countries which are essentially failed states. A great proportion of the world would be eligible to claim asylum- but practically we cannot support them even if it was the best solution to the problems of many nations.

Ultimately the solution for many people's problems has to be to make their homelands better. That said it's understandable on a personal level why they would rather leave

Perfectly said @user243245346 , I'm in full agreement.

Afghanistan was decimated by the US and UK, then occupied for 20 years. When they pulled out they negotiated with the Taliban releasing 5,000 prisoners.

The Taliban quickly took control and now people are fleeing Afghanistan. The Taliban took all the weaponry left by the States and rule with an iron fist.

What exactly do you expect unarmed civilians to do against the Taliban? They can't even form political parties or demonstrate.

Ukrainians until a year ago could come legally through a visa scheme and around 218,000 of them did, so those are not part of the asylum figures. Since then only a very small number have come and claimed asylum. So that is even more than the numbers we are talking about on boats in the time period. But people coming on boats IS significant, or around 29% of the total seeking asylum. The rest seem to come on tourist visas or slip in undetected and then apply later.

What exactly do you expect the UK to do when entire states fail? Take everybody in?

There is an unspecified amount of civil rights activists in prison in China. Some for as little as writing poems about the Tiananmen Square massacre.

One man Chen Guangcheng perhaps one of the leading critics of the government. He's completely blind and a lawyer who has fought for people's land rights and against the one child policy. He was imprisoned in china, then he escaped and has been able to claim asylum in the US. You'd have him chucked back to china then ? "To Fight"

That's just one country. There are so many people in so many countries who are in prison for their civil rights activities. Including in Russia where even calling the war in Ukraine an invasion is illegal.

You might want to report posts you disagree with frantically checking " MNHQ" to see if they have been deleted ( how sad btw), but the wider population is sick of people like you rattling on about " daily fails" and " bigots". It's why parties like reform are surging not posts you desperately want deleted that many agree with calling out fighting age men being prioritised over native women and children living here. An echo chamber of you crying about racists , bigots etc won't change people's views and them laughing at you as you describe the Guardian as " too centrist" for your liking

If the UK hadn't invaded perhaps they wouldn't be fleeing.

I didn't suggest the UK take in the whole of Afghanistan. I was explaining to you that the simplistic notion of staying to fight the Taliban with their bare hands or try to make the country better, isn't possible.

Every country on Earth has invaded another country at some point - now what Einstein ?

@OneAmberFinch

Why do you think Afghanistan is a failed state? A failed state is where the government is no longer in control. The Taliban are very much in control.

The UK takes less than 1% of global refugees and has one of the lowest acceptance rates in the world. So nobody is asking the UK to take "everyone "

I'm not sure what you're trying to say. I say, that we invaded a country and now those people are coming here as asylum seekers.

You call me a scientist say that countries invade countries. Back to the point in hand, asylum seekers are the consequence of war.