To now be increasingly concerned about illegal boat arrivals

[CalmShaker]

I've kept a level head with boat crossing arrivals but recently I've become concerned that there are some really unpleasant people being let in. This story was hard to watch on the news this evening;

Asylum seeker 'murdered hotel worker Rhiannon Whyte in frenzied attack' - BBC News https://share.google/qxzed2MD19TYPKasQ

I welcome genuine asylum but I don't believe that is what is happening anymore.
The story immediately before the above on national news this evening was the migrant who had threatened Nigel Farrage. I know Nigel is not the most popular of people but the migrant was horrid, clearly dangerous and not safe to be on our streets.
Financial cost and all other factors aside, it's the safety aspect that worry me most.

He hasn't actually been convicted yet, has he?

😂😂 give over

A ‘plant’. Because they have a different view to you.

I worked (in a former life, or so it seems now) for the Home Office - in immigration departments (initially in the tribunals and then more complex casework roles).
Some of the things many don’t seem to be aware of might sway their views on immigration, although possibly not.
Some of these things -
Illegal immigration has always been here since immigration control existed.
The UK has an obligation to accept asylum claims because we signed the commonly called “Refugee Convention “ just after WW2.
Illegal immigration is correct terminology for any person who enters the UK without the requisite passport, using a false or stolen passport/ID or required visa.
Prison sentences exist for illegal or fraudulent use of a passport.
The latter doesn’t pertain to asylum claimants.
Successive governments have stopped detaining at the point of entry for illegal entrants for every case - undocumented and those from countries the UK doesn’t have a returns agreement with are automatically released because we cannot deprive people of liberty if there is no end in sight to that detention.
The UK used to detain and process asylum claimants unless there was evidence of torture, physical illness/ailment or mental health conditions that meant detention was unsuitable.
Gradually - through legal action taken - the UK stopped detaining families.
Cuts to the civil service meant agency staff were employed to process asylum claims and as they didn’t have requisite experience claimants were released on reporting conditions with no timescales for processing claims.
The latter happened under Tory governance.
The family reunion policies are now mostly incorporated into immigration rules which have stringent requirements (not for those granted refugee status). Someone claiming asylum cannot have family join them - those granted asylum can.
Tory government brought strict immigration rules with a system virtually identical to Australian law (without specific reference to points).
Deportation is a process for criminals.
Administrative removal for overstayers or others detained for being illegal entrants or fraudulent passport users was the most cost effective option for the UK - especially if voluntary removal was taken up.
The cost of detaining and removing an individual from the UK is not something I know now being outside the system but was shockingly high back in the day.
The UK tried the make it unpalatable to come here approach and it didn’t work.
Brexit meant it’s harder to return people arriving from the EU (I mean those referred to as boat arrivals).
Plenty of UK problems with immigration- as so perceived - come from actions taken by previous governments and it’s not an easy fix - that’s no comment on its desirability.
I know what I saw through my employment and I always took a firm view that a welfare state is desirable and to be defended. But there are so many nefarious landlords and employers and traffickers who take advantage of desperation.
Id hope people don’t believe there’s an easy remedy either way because there isn’t (and I’m not UK born).

I’m sure many do believe that nonsense. But there are also many who don’t and have other real concerns about the level of immigration. They’re not all thick, they’re not all bigots.

I’m stumped as to why some people don’t realise this

It all reads like it should work doesn’t it? But the numbers are horrific, deporting is all but impossible, and the majority are granted their asylum applications despite being economic migrants. So the reality is very different.

My views on this may surprise you. I too have had enough. The issue of irregular migration is deeply problematic, not least because we are not living in a time of plenty. But it is demonising migrants that is immoral. I think that the government should have opened legal routes for asylum seekers at least five years ago; that it should have decreed that people coming illegally would not be granted asylum; that irregular migrants should be housed on Ministry of Defence property and that hotels and IMOs should never have been used.

Controlled immigration is far higher in numbers, the tories were letting in roughly a million a year towards the last few years of being in power.

Asylum seekers, if successful with their claim, due to Labour's new rules, are no longer allowed to apply for their families to come over without having to meet the normal immigration rules, earning £29k etc etc. This is going to be hard for your average asylum seeker.

What has flooding or wildlife dying got to do with people coming over on a boat? Wildlife - you talking about the swan rubbish?

Nope. Still bollocks. Less than half are granted asylum.

Kent, has changed. There are town centres where groups of men just hang around doing nothing. There are beaches with asylum hotels and security guards. It doesn’t feel safe. Yes we do have our own home grown thugs but why do we need to bring in more undocumented men from countries that really detest women and girls. But like many other topics we are not allowed to talk about it. Just like trans, which the Supreme Court ruled on and a lot of us on here were correct all along.

If you are worried about overcrowded then legal migration is what you need to worry about.

This- and also check death stats in road traffic accidents.

Ed Davey was also stalked but by a Male UK citizen so does that make all UK men in dangerous? Of course not.

yes some people that come over on boats won’t be nice people. But we don’t worry about getting in our car in case some not nice person drives like a loon and causes an accident.

I don’t condone illegal immigration (which refugees aren’t) but I do think it’s important not to get drawn in by the media who choose what stories to publish and think a bit about why they publish and push the news that they do.

The UK population is not declining. Fertility rates have declined well below replacement level, but the population continues to grow due to increases in longevity and immigration.

You could only do this if you didn’t adhere to international law and the convention. I thought that was important to you in your pp?

The undocumented men coming in are on the whole without partners so they don’t have a woman to kill. The white ones do.

That doesn't mean we want more dangerous men

It’s going to be hard for women and children, the men arriving as they do will benefit.

1000 people a day?! I don’t think so!!

Looking at the Border Force figures it’s been averaging around 500 per week and usually around half are returned.

Net migration has massively reduced as well.

I presume this is the whole point, to put off people coming to the UK via boats and lorries. If unable to bring the family in quickly, people may think twice? Or... they just risk their lives as a whole family on boats.

As of June 2025, the UK had only a shade over 100,000 people receiving asylum support, with about 70k cases awaiting a decision. So not millions.

And to answer your question - it's not supposed to help us, that's not primary reason we accept asylum claims. This is the part of the issue that's deliberately muddied - the grouping of immigrants, illegal immigrants, asylum seekers etc as one. They're not.

We allow controlled, legal migration because it benefits us. Asylum seekers and people here illegally make up such a small percentage of overall immigration, it's laughable.

The biggest problem with the asylum system (internally at least) is that it's simply not fit for purpose. Underfunded, understaffed, under-resourced. It takes too long to process people, the systems for housing, monitoring and supporting them are held together with sellotape, and the process for removing people with no right to be here is complex beyond belief.

Many governments have known this, but non want to be seen spending the vast, vast amount of money necessary to fix it 'on immigrants'.

So we're left with mentally ill people who aren't getting treatment. Criminals who aren't being monitored. Traumatised people left unsupported. Regular people driven to irregular acts through poverty or desperation.

The UK does have issues with immigration, abuse of the benefits system, housing, the NHS...but make no mistake, the people who blame all of the above on 'illegals', benefit fraudsters/blaggers or whoever else the boogeyman of the week is, are doing so because they are very easy answers to very complex questions, and that's all some people are willing or able to listen to.

NHS overstretched? "Stop letting people in". Sounds logical, gives angry, frustrated people someone to blame, but utterly fails to address any of the systematic and practical issues at the root of the problem.

And they can’t find a woman to kill?

It’s already in effect and no it’s not putting the men off. They are taking more risks, cramming more in bigger boats and demand for traffickers is still high.

The insanity was providing no route to apply for asylum before making landfall, failing to process asylum claims promptly, and housing asylum seekers in hotels while claims are being processed. Unfortunately the system at the moment seems purpose-built to encourage abuse by economic migrants.