The situation with migrants and illegal immigration

[Gingermakesmesick]

What is the answer?

I would hate to be in the position of making the decision because I hate to think of how desperate the individuals concerned must be.

But I can also quite see that there simply isn't the physical room to allow all of them into the UK, or the resources.

What is the answer? Is there no answer?

Why are they crying and refusing to be processed at hungry? They are safe aren't they? Whats the problem?

THey do not speak Hungarian, they want to go somewhere there is work

Well it's better than being killed

Chipstick
Well it's better than being killed
Wow, you are a nice person.

THey want to make a proper life for themselves.
To live somewhere they can work and earn and have a home and get their kids a good education : as they had before the Syrian civil war kicked off.

THey would be a benefit to this country and our politicians are very very stupid to be blocking their arrival.

Do you know which government runs Hungary at the moment?

This one:
www.dw.com/en/eu-report-finds-rampant-racism-xenophobia-in-hungary/a-18505689

"Migrants aren't welcome in Hungary. The government made that pretty clear with deeply leading questions in a national consultation. Sent out to 8 million citizens aged 18 or older, the survey compares Syrians fleeing civil war to "economic migrants." The survey also asks Hungarians whether they think that refugees should be deported, locked up or sentenced to forced labor during their stay in Hungary. That's just one recent example of the right-wing government's attitude toward migrants."

No, they are not safe in Hungary.

I am a nice person all my family friends and work colleagues will vouch for that. Read the guardian and bbc websites amongst many , not many ppl agreeing with yvette cooper . Not everyone wants them here

Chipstick
Yvette Cooper is the opportunist wife of Ed Balls and has no political value in herself

but all business people : the ones who net pay tax : want more immigrants to fill the gaps in their workforces

and without more workers, pensions and the NHS become even more unaffordable

"No, they are not safe in Hungary."

I'd agree it's probably not the best place for refugees or migrants.
The trouble is that it is one of the few European states trying to apply the relevant international laws......
Even the UN is struggling to define where and when "refugee status" ends.
From your pov its it where the refugees gets to the "country of their choice" (i.e. where they'd prefer to reside) or is it when the reach a state that the european countries regard as "safe"?
I know it's another tricky question but it's one that is being asked across Europe (and one I struggle with myself)

I have spent time in Hungary. It's a very bad place to be poor, even if you're Hungarian.

I cannot look at that pitiful picture of that dead little boy any more. It is heartbreaking. Honestly? I do not care if it means a few extra thousand to try to house, extra benefit payments while they get back on their feet etc. just effing DO something to help these poor people.
The debate about housing, economics or percieved inconveniences is just fucking laughable. While we're all intellectually debating how it might affect us that little boy and many others were dying. Why do we consider our needs to be more important than theirs?

If nothing else the EU must give them safe passage and safe locations to await processing. Start at the top and wipe out the 'people smuggling'. Im not going to have the empty homes debate again but there IS enough space in this country for the proportion of people who want to come here. We need to stop wittering on about statistics and just HELP in any way we can.

MUMSNET CAMPAIGNS

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/mumsnet_campaigns/2459825-Refugee-children?msgid=56405201#56405201

They are already in a safe place in HUngry and yet they are demanding passages to Germany. What is the point of EU laws if they are ripped up Nd broken on a whim because Merkal has decided she wants it done this way.

Sure Budapest train station is a fine place to raise kids.

Guys - there's a huge difference between the UK and Germany. The UK is not really as rich a country as people make it out to be. This makes it relatively easy for Germany to say 'yes' to migrants, but makes it difficult for the UK to cope.

1. Germany has more land compared to the UK.

1. Germany has better infrastructure compared to the UK.

1. The population in Germany is more dispersed. It's not like the UK, where everything has to be in the Southeast. Hence, immigrants can be 'spread out' to different places, and they could still settle, find a job, etc. Doesn't work like that here, where poverty in a lot of places outside of the Southeast is worse than in other places in Eastern Europe. Shocking, but true.

1. Population growth rate in Britain is positive. Obviously, there must be plenty of people here choosing to have more than two kids here. There are plenty of posts on MN along the lines of 'I already have two kids but REALLY, REALLY feel the need for one more'. This is despite the same people knowing that (a) the UK is an expensive country to live in, (b) many schools are oversubscribed as they are and (c) the NHS is struggling.

Population growth rate in Germany is negative. The average number of kids of a typical German household has used to be 1.5. They choose to have less kids despite (a) benefitting from a cheaper way of life, (b) better standard of living, (c) having a far better work/life balance (plenty of single income households). I don't know. Germans tend to be a lot more rational - what can we afford, etc. They think with their heads, while Brits often let their hearts decide.

The above means that Germany actually needs immigrants as their population is decreasing.

1. Germany doesn't suffer from a housing shortage. The majority of Germans (up to 80%) live in flats. In the UK, we have an obsession with houses. In fact, many people seem allergic to flats and 'high rises' (even 5-floor buildings are called that these days). We even build 2-bed houses that take up much land. This is unheard of in Germany. It's a waste of land, really, and doesn't foster 'economies of scale'. But we had a thread here once, where several people said that even those wanting a 2-bed home should have the choice to live in a house, and not a flat. Well, guess what. Most Germans don't get that choice. However, they also don't have a housing shortage.

There are far more differences, but it's late, and I need to go to sleep...

Marigold - 3 pages on, but... I think I love you.

girlcrush

SnowBells makes some good points, esp. the point about the way the UK is strongly tilted towards the SE. Germany, by contrast, tends to have lots of successful largish and mid-sized cities that are spread over the country.

The UK will need to take some, however; morally speaking I don't think we can just say no.

The trouble is that the EU has freedom of movement; like, sure, you can have countries say "OK, we will take on this number of people and no more, based on how much space we have and what sort of country we are," but then what is to stop people just deciding that they will go to another country after a year or two?

I think the time has come to seriously question the EU's sacred cow of freedom of movement. The influx of refugees is starting to make it unsustainable.

Most people are shocked about the refugee crisis, whether they want to open the borders or not. However, I assume not many of those wanting the borders opened after seeing all the heartbreaking pictures, ever thought about whether this would set a precedent. Would you welcome everyone from a war-torn country into the UK from here on?

There are many, many other countries that are burdened by war. Syria is just one of them. They benefit from a close enough proximity to Europe though, as well as the means to pay ghastly human traffickers to get them closer to Europe. See, Syria wasn't really one of the poorest countries out there.

Would you be happy welcoming the MILLIONS of people of war-torn African nations to the UK? They suffer just as much as the Syrians (and one might say they've done so for longer) but might never have had the means to get here.

When would it stop?

The only solution is creating stability in all these other countries. ISIS needs to be stamped out, for example. But the west is paranoid to intervene this time round due to fear of another Iraq.

Who is going to do it Snowbells? None of us believe a word from those who would quite happily send us to our deaths for their next arm sales funded McMansion. We've seen what's happened to those who have come back with war injuries from Iraq (not to mention our own fathers/grandfathers from Vietnam/WW2).

The war in Syria has caused the greatest movement of people since WW2.

These people are refugees. We have a moral duty to let them find safety in our country.
We are part of the EU and other EU countries are struggling to cope.of course we should let Struan people in.
It's utterly naive to think we can solve the crisis in the Middle East instead of offering a safe haven to refugees.

It is a complete lie that "we can't afford it", Bollocks.

We "found" billions for the 2012 Olympics. We "find" billions for weapons and make billions from international arms dealing (ask Liam Fox).

We always "find" the money when we want to.

I am very , very concerned that we as a nation are turning our backs on refugees with absolutely nothing and allowing Hungarian officials to stamp a number or barcode on their arms. Reminds me of Nazis tattooing the Jews.

Watching David Cameron on the news last night droning on about "solving the Middle East problems and bringing stability....".

As if.

Pepperpot66

It isn't really about just money though, isn't it? It's also about demographics. If population growth remains the same in the UK and in Germany (without influx of refugees), the UK's would eclipse that of Germany by 2050 (I think) when the land mass is less and the infrastructure is far, far worse. As I said, there are areas of Britain that now actually suffer from more poverty than Eastern Europe!

Bearing that in mind, Germany can very well "afford it", while with the UK, it's questionable.

Mind you, if you go and start persuading the rest of MN to not have more than two kids, we might be able to do something!

Plus... as I said before: what happens with all those suffering from years of war in Africa?

Do you want to let the millions there settle here, too? If not, why not? There should be no discrimination in who you let in, if the circumstances are the same...

These people fleeing Syria are, for the most part, educated normal people, not wacky fundamentalists. Many have been educated in the West or by Christian organizations in Syria. We can't turn our back on them because they really have nowhere else to go. There was and is a deliberate plan to decimate the entire mid-East region (and possibly Europe) - read "Rebuilding America's Defenses" published in Sept 2000 for a start. ISIS was initially being funded and armed by another middle Eastern country ostensibly because of the atrocities Assad was committing (which were just as bad). We have lost generations of men to these wars that cannot be won - and that's the whole idea.

Totally agree with you isitmebut. Of course we COULD take in hundreds or even thousands of refugees and Britain isn't 'full', but the population projections for this country in the next thirty years are actually pretty terrifying. Germany is opening its doors because its looking at its population collapsing in that same time period - they NEED people to go and live in Germany to keep it going. We in Britain need the exact opposite - we're already more than replacing our population and every indicator is that our population is going to up and up, without adding yet more people. And our infrastructure is already creaking at the seams with schools, medical services and housing all under extreme pressure and inadequate for the population we already have, thanks to large numbers of migrants arriving from E. Europe over the past 10 years.

As for anyone who says 'let the refugees come here temporarily' that's utterly naive. Under what conditions do you let people come here 'temporarily'. Until the wars end and their countries become safe again? What if they never do? What if its 5 or 10 or 20 years before that happens? You can hardly kick people out after that length of time - this country would be their home by then. There would be nothing for them back in Eritrea or Syria or Afghanistan after they'd lived and worked here for that length of time. Plus, they'd have rights to stay and family ties, etc. If we let refugees come here we have to be prepared for them to stay forever. With that being the case we'd better be bloody sure that we can accommodate them forever, because most of the refugees who've arrived in the past are still here. If you give people a safe haven they're not going to be eager to leave it again.