Westminstenders: Put Your Faith In The Home Office

[pointythings]

Because there doesn't seem to be a new thread yet. I'm no RTB or any of you other experts, but these threads need to keep going.

Give me a couple weeks and I'll be able to post cat placemarks!

round and round we go. Brexit is red meat for racists and the stupid, and usually both.

Never mind Global Britain, we are well on the way to being a global pariah.

But the point is in at the Home Office has a general "Hostile Policy" towards everyone : guilty until proven innocent.

That was why Windrush happened, as people who were legitimately in the UK, but through no fault of their own couldn't prove it, so were marginalised/lost their jobs/deported/not allowed re-entry into the UK

These were not people who were here illegally

That's the same sort of "hostile environment" that faces EU citizens, some of whose who will have been here for decades and now need to "justify" why they are here.

And to make matters worse, even if they had previously been awarded ILR, that automatically expires post 31 June Puts a whole new meaning on the word "indefinite" ....

And given the avowed "hostile" environment policy, that person, say for example an elderly person with ILR but with dementia (thinking worst cases), who thereforehasn't thought to jump through the hoops to get the "new" on line only right to remain, would thereafter be here illegally.

According to LouiseCollins28's naive trust in the Home Office, as well as her declared belief that the hostile environment is perfectly ok for people who are here illegally, it would be perfectly ok for the Home Office to go after such a person, as they are , after all, now here illegally as they haven't jumped through the new hoops despite having been here legally before

There are lots of other examples of people who were here legitimately, who will now find that they are "illegal": children of EU citizens taken into care for example, if the council hasn't sorted out their status for them. Should they then be sent "home" to a country they've never known? Despite the fact that the UK is the only home they've ever known?

I could have been caught up in the Windrush scandal but thankfully, being a middle class family who enjoyed travelling, despite having arrived on a legitimate Commonwealth country passport, we naturalised as soon as we could and got British passports, so that we could travel (especially as a South African passport wasn't very welcome in many countries). If we hadn't, then we might/would have had problems at a later date.

I think a hostile environment aimed at tax evaders, money laundering oligarchs, billionaire freeloaders etc would be perfectly acceptable. A hostile environment aimed at the poorest members of our so called society is simply immoral.

@LouiseCollins28

I'm afraid I think we do need such a policy. If you are happy for illegal immigrants to arrive and stay here then the approach you describe will deliver that outcome Jas. I want that "door" to be open only to those legally entitled to pass through and for those already determined to be here illegally to be removed.

I didn't say that, did you read what i said in my 2nd post on the subject?

One problem with the HE policy is that it stops the UK Govt acting in a compassionate way i.e refusal to take in many Yazidi women, the UK 100, Germany 1200.
Indeed the UK actually deported back to Iraq two women who were held as sex prisoners by ISIS.

Or refusing to take in many unaccompanied child refugees.
But even when we do once adults, we have deported them back to Syria, Iraq, Libya Afghanistan, despite them having lived here for many years as children.

Also, your premise is proven to be incorrect, we keep attracting migrants crossing the channel, despite this policy, no doubt (one reason) because they know the UK can no longer deport back to to France etc, a spectacular own goal by Brexitiers!

The door to removing illegal migrants is well and truly shut now.

@jasjas1973

You do not need a Hostile policy toward illegal and failed asylum seekers, just compassionate law enforcement plus cooperation with our european neighbours - which isn't happen

This one Jas? Are you in favour of our government removing those here illegally or not? "Co-operation" on this (such as it has been) hasn't worked for years IMO.

I know too little about Windrush to have a strong view on it.

Plenty has now been written on the situation, so may I suggest that you spend some time reading up about it, rather than spouting in ignorance. Do you realise that a good many of these people are children born to British passport holders? I strongly suspect you didn't. If you are not aware, the parents were invited here to help the country get on its feet after WW2. Many of these children will have travelled here on their parents' passports, but now if the parents have passed away, don't have the paperwork to prove it. And please don't come out with some guff about how they should have had their own passports - it was quite the regular thing to do. Once my children were born we put their names on our passports. This was now 40 plus years ago and the rules have changed.

Would you like to be told to regularise your own British citizenship, assuming that you are one?

Are you in favour of our government removing those here illegally or not? "Co-operation" on this (such as it has been) hasn't worked for years IMO.

Do you have evidence to back this statement up?

I bet Louise would be singing a different song if the hostile environment cost them £5,000 with fuck all chance of recovering it.

Although I bet they will declare in here they would consider it a price worth paying if it deters just one illegal immigrant

(I speak as someone who lost thousands in the 90s to the Inland Revenue who spent 3 years chasing me for ever more ludicrous and smaller amounts of alleged unpaid tax, until my MP had to step in and tell them to fuck the fuck off.)

Would you like to be told to regularise your own British citizenship, assuming that you are one?

Or, like this guy, think that you have a British passport but have it wrongly taken off you and are then unable to get back into the UK for many years to prove your status

And then, to add insult to injury, be told that although you'll be allowed back temporarily into the UK, you've been out of the country for too long because the Home Office wouldn't let you back in to "meet the requirements for citizenship"

Truly, truly Kafkaesque

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/nov/22/windrush-victim-refused-british-citizenship-despite-wrongful-passport-confiscation

I do, the evidence would be that there are illegal migrants in Britian, and indeed in other nations across Europe. A successful policy and successful cooperation in delivering it would obviously ensure there were so few that their presence need be of no concern to anyone.

Completely get that a lot of Windrush children travelled on their parents passports and that in many cases their parents either held British passports or otherwise passports that entitled them to come here. Seemingly some of those children didn't attempt to regularise their situation upon reaching adulthood. Destruction of the landing cards that did provide proof of their right to be here was the fault of the government and they've rightly been hauled over the coals for it.

I wouldn't "like to be told" to regularise my status Peregrina, I'd expect to have to do it within say 6 months of turning 18.

Destruction of the landing cards that did provide proof of their right to be here was the fault of the government and they've rightly been hauled over the coals for it.

Slap on the wrist, and then they carry on illegally deporting people. And do everything in their power to avoid allowing any of the Windrush victims back into this country.

They are frankly evil. And if you support them...

Seemingly some of those children didn't attempt to regularise their situation upon reaching adulthood.

I am not sure if you are being deliberately obtuse. British citizens are not required to hold passports. So you are saying that a British citizen who doesn't intend to travel anywhere should immediately stump up for a passport as soon as they are 18?

As it happens, both my children did exactly that - but this was not to 'regularise' their position, (UK born and with white skin), but was to prove that they were old enough to go into pubs legitimately! I suspect that a lot of children rising 18 do that.

The presence of illegal immigrants would not be a concern to anyone if they weren't a convenient scapegoat for red top and other right wing media hate campaigns.

The amount of harm they do is miniscule compared to the dirty Russian money pouring in, chronic failure of the likes of Amazon to pay appropriate tax and the fact that we have a corrupt incompetent government who do not have a moral compass between them.

You won't read about any of that in the Torygraph, Daily Bigot or the super soaraway Scum though and that suits the tories just fine.

You do not need a Hostile policy toward illegal and failed asylum seekers, just compassionate law enforcement plus cooperation with our european neighbours - which isn't happened

This one Jas? Are you in favour of our government removing those here illegally or not? "Co-operation" on this (such as it has been) hasn't worked for years IMO

Err Yes, thats what i said isn't it?

As for co-op, if you refuse to take in few migrants who have come over from Libya & Turkey (from war zones which the UK helped cause) then expect cooperation to dry up.

It is also very difficult to return folk with no papers or not knowing which country they first arrived at.....

Do you agree with deporting former child migrants back to Afghanistan Libya etc?

I trust then Louise, that you did immediately apply for a passport when you were 18, if you didn't already have one, regardless of whether you intended to travel anywhere.

I myself didn't apply for one until I was 21. Good job we didn't have the Hostile environment then, or someone might have decided that deporting me somewhere was a good thing to do.

Pretty sure I did yes Peregrina I needed one for a college field trip to Flanders as I recall.

Doesnt count if you were planning to travel.

Even if an 18 year old afford to get a passport that they don't need to "regularise" the citizenship that they already thought that they had , in circumstances such as those experienced by the Windrush generation, they already wouldn't have been able to prove their right to be here - given the Home Office's own destruction of records - whether that be deliberately (despite some officials expressing concern) or through "a flood"

And it's all very well excusing the Home Office by saying they've been hauled over the coals for it. Doesn't change their attitude - not their ineptitude. They're still doing it The Home Office is repeatedly found to be acting illegally.

Border Control's computer systems are not fit for purpose. People who've checked their records have found that entries and/or exits are not all recorded correctly. So how does someone prove they've been in the UK for long enough or, just as awkward, haven't stayed out of the country for too long?

See also "looked after EU children" . How exactly do they prove their right to be here? Are young children in dysfunctional families to have remembered exactly where they stayed and for how long and to have somehow kept paper records? They're a Windrush in the making.

Yep, it's all going to happen again. And the Home Office is going to get away with it again. Because Brexiteers and Leave voters love it.

I wish I could be amazed that so many people lack any sense of empathy and any desire for a just, transparent immigration system. But I'm not - this is a xenophobic nation at heart.

And then Brexiters swear blind it wasn't about immigration. It's not the impression their arguments give.

@LouiseCollins28

Pretty sure I did yes Peregrina I needed one for a college field trip to Flanders as I recall.

So you weren't trying (or needing) to "regularise" your status You were a privileged (doesn't matter your background: you were at college) person who needed a passport in order to travel.

In a country where passports aren't required, someone who already thought that they were "British" strangely enough because in many cases they already were wouldn't "waste" their money on such an unnecessary expense.

Remember because you seem to have forgotten that ID or citizenship cards are not obligatory.

Which, I repeat, means that the Home Office, with its hostile environment, can and does carry out miscarriages of justice - because people don't have the documentation that they aren't legally required to have - or even, in some cases, where the Home Office confiscates the documentation that someone does legally have

Biden at the G7

"US interests are diminished with Great Britain not an integral part of Europe. Had I been a British citizen, I would have voted against leave."

@Peregrina

And then Brexiters swear blind it wasn't about immigration. It's not the impression their arguments give.

Also that they just want it to be all neat and fair and really welcoming to the whole world and that they really know all the details about what they voted for and the administration they fervently support, yet they don't know anything about Windrush, etc