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

I would personally accidentally admit a few bad eggs and help those who really need it, than side eye an entire group of vulnerable people.

Any system for any people anywhere is open to abuse by the unscrupulous. This does not mean the majority involved are not completely genuine.
See also british people abusing tax, courts and law etc, etc.
As regards the Daily Mail, I agree it is a hugely biased paper looking to push a right wing agenda but to be fair all the newspapers are like this nowadays.
I used to think The Guardian was more honest but under the present regime it is just a left wing degree holding equivalent.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/01/24/asylum-seekers-loitering-northamptonshire-school-police/

https://www.nationalworld.com/news/uk/deanshanger-primary-school-concerns-raised-after-asylum-seekers-seen-loitering-police-say-no-offence-committed-4960152

"Sgt Clarke confirmed that officers had visited the hotel where the asylum seekers are staying and found no evidence of criminal activity or safeguarding risks. She added: “We are well linked in with the hotel and can deliver some work there around appropriate behaviours and different cultural expectations.”

Deanshanger Primary School informed parents in a letter last month about reports of men loitering near the premises. The school stated it was “taking this matter seriously” and advised parents to remain vigilant. As a precaution, children are being kept away from the back of the school field, which is separated from the hotel by a large field."

The problem in this country is that 'refugees' are conflated with 'illegal migrants.' When the Daily Mail rants on about people taking advantage of us, they rarely mention Indian nationals, for example (our biggest legal migrant group for work and study, according to ONS).

The UK is one of the few countries in Europe not to use ID cards, and this makes it easier for the black economy to flourish, which is where a lot of people go. If we are serious about cracking down on illegal migration and people trafficking, we need to:
a) Set up a processing centre at Calais. Stop the sea deaths
b) Give border control more resources. It's not fair to ask people to put their life on hold for years while their claim is processed
c) Introduce ID cards.

This all takes money and time, which is why it gets ignored.

Most refugees stay local, which makes sense as the language and climate will be similar, it's safer, and there is less travelling involved. If England were torn apart in a civil war, I would more likely flee to Wales or Ireland than to Eastern Europe. Turkey and Iran host massive amounts of refugees from Syria and Afghanistan for that reason.

The vast majority are assessed and deemed to be genuine (I think around 80%). I really do believe most of the rhetoric around them is xenophobic and racist. We live fairly close to a hotel housing them, and there's never any trouble.
Our cleaner at work is an asylum seeker, escaping war, who was allowed to stay. He was a child psychologist in his country, but his qualifications don't count here, so he's doing cleaning. He's a very intelligent and kind man.
People are bigotted, and hate is being stirred up by the Daily Mail and on social media. Take what you read with a pinch of salt.
Even if a person was falsely claiming asylum I wouldn't hate them. I'm absolutely not saying they should stay, just that they don't deserve hatred. People just want to escape poverty.

And this approach is consistent with our judicial system - the bar for prosecution is extremely high and requires juries to be ‘sure’ of guilt.

The reason being it’s better to have 10 guilty men walk free than 1 innocent man be imprisoned.

Wikipedia is not a reliable source! At Uni we were forbidden to reference Wiki.

No i absolutely agree with you it's the system it's always the system just like the nhs. And I agree about them hopefully adding value with the right help. Like I said up post we don't have asylum seekers where I live that I'm aware of but we do have a lot of migrants where I live 13% and some of them are great my gp included. Some not so great for e.g where I live went from a normal small town low crime rate to being the most murderous place to live a few years back and that is again down to a system where proper timely checks where not put into place

I read that Asylum seekers are treated on the NHS because they could have medical problems that can either be spread to others in the country like a disease or impact everyone by letting any problems get worse and then costing more in the future. They have certain human rights that entitle them to housing in this country.
ideally we would have the money spent towards improving the quality of life for our own citizens, as we all know there isn’t enough money for anything.
there must be reasons they aren’t stopped from entering the country or deported. Does anyone know?
I don’t know what we can do though. If we want to do something about it we need to know why it’s happening. but until then there’s nothing we can really do?

The below was in the Telegraph, do you believe this information below is counter factual and can you explain what the bias and manipulation in it is - genuinely I'm curious because I consider myself to be relatively media literate!

"Sgt Clarke confirmed that officers had visited the hotel where the asylum seekers are staying and found no evidence of criminal activity or safeguarding risks. She added: “We are well linked in with the hotel and can deliver some work there around appropriate behaviours and different cultural expectations.”
Deanshanger Primary School informed parents in a letter last month about reports of men loitering near the premises. The school stated it was “taking this matter seriously” and advised parents to remain vigilant. As a precaution, children are being kept away from the back of the school field, which is separated from the hotel by a large field."

there must be reasons they aren’t stopped from entering the country or deported. Does anyone know?

Because they are allowed to claim asylum. They are not doing anything illegal.

I've always thought the people smuggler rhetoric was just a smoke screen. I don't think they exist. Yes, there are some organised gangs involved in smuggling people into the UK but I don't believe they exist in the sheer volume the government want us to believe. I believe that in a majority of small boat crossings, migrants are clubbing together through cash in hand work and buying the dhingys themselves.

I have addressed this already.

Ok but other countries don’t allow this sort of thing so why do we?

I want to push back on the idea that there is such a thing as "our fair share" of asylum seekers.

A lot of the debate about refugee policy rests on assuming that the set of international conventions which make up modern "refugee law" are set in stone and not up for debate. That's incorrect: they are very much up for debate, being pieces of paper that are less than 100 years old and written in a very different migratory context than today.

My biggest issue with the refugee framework that exists today is that it is a defined-benefit scheme where anyone who "qualifies" must be allowed to stay, with no reference to the actual resources available.

Likewise, saying that we must take in X% of the world's refugees, even if there's a world war or mass climate disaster etc, isn't subject to any resource limit. I don't think this is sustainable or desirable.

Re read the thread.

Have you not read the pps on this thread detailing how other countries take in far, far more asylum seekers than the UK?

Can we have thoughts on people who read the daily mail? Are they an issue to society as a whole with their propaganda filled minds and vile hate?

No

But you are conflating crime and migrant numbers.

London has the most migrants - about 40% were not born in the UK in 2021 census - but crime rates are not the highest in the UK.

Also, 13% is a lower than average migrant level - 16% is the UK average.

I would agree the daily mail does seem to cause antisocial behaviour.

Sorry, but we are taking in too many asylum seekers. We haven't got the infrastructure, resources or housing to do it. It's untenable. I live on a large council estate with many long established and second generation immigrants and they feel exactly the same about it. In fact they make up a large proportion when we have community meetings on this very subject. There does also appear to be a disproportionate amount of single, young men seeking asylum which I don't think is a good idea. I don't know what the answer is but the current situation isn't satisfactory for anyone.

Another day, another one of 'those' threads ...

Don’t allow what? Asylum claims?

Every country that signed up to the 1951 UN Convention on Human Rights is supposed to. Australia is now making noises and possibly some other smaller countries are, also. But all the major democracies in the Northern hemisphere are accepting asylum claims.

Even Donald Trump is so far only beginning to round up people in the US illegally. Not those awaiting a decision on a claim of asylum.

Are you joking? There are entire towns of refugees being housed in the UK