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

Which entire towns are you talking about? Can you name them?

Yes, and there are multiple cities worth in some other countries - most of them countries with resources far fewer than ours.

Trafficking networks are multi billion dollar / whatever currency organisations, you just need to read a bit ok that to see their scale and profit making ability

To start with you should know that there are people trained by organisations to defend the asylum seekers. Basically, they are in everywhere like forums, social media and tv to make sure they get your question answered in a rather positive light. Second, yes genuine cases are one thing but the abuse that has been committed is very concerning and detrimental to genuine cases, Third, we can’t possible help every person coming from torn war countries as there are two continents with wars always going on. Having said that the U.K. seems to be doing particularly bad in getting people abusing the system from all sides. Step out of your house and you will see what can’t not longer be denied. I mean not just asylum seekers but immigration gone off the charts. Again, governments can do so much as said organisations have imposed laws that the people from incoming countries are taking advantage of. Now about governments. What do you think about a PM who is a human rights lawyer? Same with the Major of London? Tories did nothing either.

it’s more like the amount of people constitute the size of towns. Is that far fetched to you when there are millions of them arriving in the UK regularly. I’ve read it in the past on previous threads.

The numbers I gave are wrong Wikipedia says 23.6% somewhere else says 1 in 5 so who knows. I was basing the crime on all the murders except 1 haven't involved English people 95% of driving offences aren't English people. Drink driving no insurance no licence

Maybe because they are far, far bigger?
I know you have an agenda. Are you prejudiced in any way?

Not sure what the point of this is?

Presumably men have been hanging out in groups near a school, which has worried parents and the school has taken action to reassure them and prevent further upset.

Police investigated and said no evidence of crimes.

At best it’s an overreaction to seeing groups of men hanging out - which is normal in many cultures, but not so much here, so understandably worrying to some.

At worst there was the potential for something nefarious, so steps have been taken to protect students.

But think about why this story made the news - would a story of a group of white Brits hanging around have made the same headlines? I don’t believe so, which leads me to question why a group of non-white men garnered such interest to a national newspaper.

The same story could also have been written from a different perspective - ‘parents over-react to men relaxing in groups.’

‘Police were called to investigate groups of young men hanging out near a school. They found no evidence of criminal activities or safe guarding risk’.

But the Telegraph prefer to lead with how worried the parents are, and how they are pulling them out of school and how outraged everyone is that it’s been discussed as a cultural thing that men (who let’s remember have fuck all else to do because they can’t work) hang out in groups.

The same information is given, but priority is given to the bits that fit with an anti-asylum seeker agenda.

Put it this way - the frequent flashers outside my girls’ school when I was young never made the local news, let alone national ones.

I think I feel sorry for them.

I also think I pay tons in tax and all the public services are falling apart, the country is getting in more debt, and we shouldn't take any more in.

Anyone who wants to pay for them should have a voluntary opt-in higher tax rate. It's all very easy when you're spending other people's money.

People will always look for the opportunity of a better life somewhere else in the world

To escape war, hatred, poverty

" Free" NHS, education & benefits
Equal opportunities

Some other countries are not like the UK

Financial migrant versus migrant for other reasons

oh dear this thread has gone down hill.

I think, in general, immigration is inevitable because of modern transport.
Any and all immigration restrictions are a desperate rear guard action against that.

We have an obligation under international law to take in refugees and because of that we have to have an asylum system to work out which ones are genuine.
The asylum system as a whole is much harsher than most people realise.

But, if immigration by other means is restricted then people will use the processes open to them. And yes, that includes people who are economic migrants rather than refugees (although the distinction is blurrier than you might think).

In my opinion there's a few things that can be done better:

1. Much faster initial decisions on asylum claims (don't leave people hanging around in limbo for ever)
2. Asylum seekers should be housed in ordinary council housing. Not prison ships, not old office blocks, not shitty private accommodation outsourced to some facilities management company. Large groups of socially excluded young men hanging about in one place is not great- as PP have pointed out.
3. Asylum seekers should be housed in areas with enough housing and services for them. Dispersal to Glasgow actually worked really well when 50% of its housing stock was social housing. Then became more of a problem when the largest housing association started demolishing its stock. Now there are predictable tensions over resources.
4. Point 3 depends on improving housing and public services across the board. For native population and newcomers. That needs to happen anyway; immigration or not.
5. Put some effort into facilitating integration. People integrate better when they have enough money, something productive to do and when they live among the native population, not in ghettos. And on top of that, specific services like ESOL.
6. Have a think about things which are likely to cause tensions and plan not to do them. I know of a tower block where all the tenants were decanted (whether that's what they wanted or not), told that the block would be demolished. Later on the block was refitted and let out as asylum seeker accommodation. It was done thoughtlessly to deal with an intimidate crisis. But what does that look like to the people who were moved out?! If you were trying to create racial tensions on purpose you couldn't have done better.
7. More effort and resources into people smuggling gangs. Noone should be drowning to death in the English channel.

Well, when the OP asked is the Daily Mail not a reliable source of information etc., I think we all saw where it was going. What we have here, by jingo, is a troll, and a racist one at that.

Oh. I see. I think "millions" of refugees "arriving regularly" is exaggerating it just a tiny bit.

"Between 2004 and 2020, there were between 22,000 and 46,000 people claiming asylum in the UK each year. However, since the second half of 2021, there has been a noticeable increase, reaching a peak of almost 103,000 in the year ending March 2023"

www.gov.uk/government/statistics/immigration-system-statistics-year-ending-september-2024/how-many-people-claim-asylum-in-the-uk

People should recognised by now the standard answers of the people invested in protecting and defending the indefensible.
I personally have seen and heard enough and lived through the changes for worse and reasons in this country. I really do not need a bunch of agenda pushers to tell me what is really happening.

There’s a hostel (more like a prison) near me.
Never had any trouble.😈

"millions' 😂

I really do not need a bunch of agenda pushers to tell me what is really happening

This is true. There are potentially three different groups who tend to attract negative attention:

• Asylum seekers/refugees
• Illegal migrants, usually in the UK after overstaying a legitimate visa and disappearing into the irregular economy
• Legal migrants who didn't pass a very high bar to enter (e.g. visa mill university students, low wage care workers on sponsored work visas)

(I also see a fourth category - my own - highly skilled legal migrants who take very high-paying jobs in tech, finance etc from locals. But that's a different conversation)

I was all 'kum-bah-yah' about asylum seekers until the council housed a bunch in my local town. Suddenly, street corners were filled with groups of African and Middle Eastern men in their early 20s in hoodies hissing under their breath as they leered at 12 year old school girls in uniform as they had to step into the road to get past these groups.

Nope.

Do tell, @dottiehens — why is anyone on here invested in ‘defending and protecting’ the right of people to seek asylum?

yes you dont sound very kum bah yah at all.

The west has often been clear of these counties for many many decades. The regimes that filled the power and economic vacuums have been almost universally malign and corrupt.

I'm not feeling any white guilt, but you do you.

Where? Which entire towns are made up of refugees?

Or do you mean that there are the equivalent of entire towns of refugees?

Refugees make up approximately 0.6% of the uk population.

That isn’t very much at all.

If you really mean migrants, then they make up an average of 16% of the population, with higher numbers in London - about 40-45% of people there are not born in the UK.

Most migrants aren’t allowed to access public funds and have to, for example, pay a fee to use the NHS.

Asylum seekers can’t work until they have been processed, so get housed and an allowance of just over £5 per day.

Few of us understand why so many people fly their war torn countries. It's not simply having a better standard of living for their children, it's genuine fear for their lives.

Children are being massacred by bombs, lack of hospital care and malnutrition all over the world. Our countries need to make a difference between people wanting a better financial life without their lives being at risk, and the hundred of thousands fleeing for their lives. Not easy.

But not being easy doesn't mean we've lost understanding the awful situation of refugees. As long as wars keep happening, as long as wars keep targeting civilian populations for political gains, as long as innocent people and their children are at risk of being exterminated, our countries need to accept refugees.