Would you feel differently about a friend if they were a refugee?

[newtothegym]

In the last couple of years I have become good friends with someone I met at a community group. They told me a few months ago that they came to the UK as an asylum seeker and that they've recently been granted refugee status. Would this change your opinion or feelings towards them? Why or why not?

‘What is it that makes this scenario different compared to the feeling towards asylum seekers?’

Refugees need the protection, social housing and services that UK people provide for them - economic migrants don’t and abused the system so much it broke.

That’s dangerous.

The protection/asylum system has largely been taken over by drug/boat gangs.

‘Asylum seeker’ was the word for refugee - now it’s used for illegal immigrants who arrive as cash-seekers.

About 75 per cent of arrivals in 🇬🇧 are young single men from safe countries who aren’t in peril and claim free housing, NHS treatment, welfare etc, for life. They’ve paid £6k for the dinghy ride as an investment.

Including the few women, about 50 per cent of arrivals work after a few years in
the hotel system.

If you cared about tolerance of race and religion, you’d see the difference.

The big rule is that if a person was decent before they arrived, they’ll be decent now.

this post screams that its an intern fishing for material to inform a future political motion/slogan/approach that would garner support/votes from the "mumsnet" community

pathetic

@Dentalmum2 The five * hotels ,free meals etc.
These hotels will be run down and the food will be the cheapest of the cheap to maximise profits.
The Daily Mail and it's comments section is populated by nutters.

All of the above are asylum seekers until (if) they are granted refugee status. Economic migrants are people who are usually professional and come on visas to work, the NHS is upheld by them. If they were white they'd be called expats. For some reason the far right has decided and labelled that asylum seekers are now all "economic migrants" insofar as they are/were not in danger in their home country. We have no basis or knowledge of this, only the court decides. It's very dangerous and false to speak of them "investing in a dinghy". I know many young men in this situation and their lives have been terrible. There is so much trauma, subsequent MH issues and the problems associated with those at the bottom of the socio economic pile. They aren't "given" social housing because they aren't entitled to it.