suprised there is no thread on this, french close down "jungle"

[2shoes]

suprised as this will affect us
wonder if they will all be allowed over here now.
can we keep taking all these people, considering the goverment is talking about cutting education due to lack of money. it isn't like they are fleeing a war torn country.

]]uk.news.yahoo.com/21/20090922/tuk-call-to-home-jungle-camp-children-6323e80.html strange it sayes 278 here, not 150]]

The trouble is that the issue has been going on, and so many mistakes were made at the beginning.

I used to live in a town that received a high influx of immigrants from Afghanistan after the beginning of the war. Many were economic migrants falsely claiming asylum.

The did play the system a bit, opened shops and worked illegaly, which did have major consequences on the town,lots of car accidents were nobody stopped as no licence, no insurance etc. Many were expecting to be sent back so were just trying to make a buck while they were here. Suddenly an awful lot of pizza shops were owned by Afghani immigrants. Honestly they were the most shocked when it turned out they wouldnt be forced to leave.

I know the above sounds really nasty but that was the way it was, but when you acctually spoke th=o these men they were mostly nice blokes whoc had come from 'a different world' in so many ways and just wanted the best for themselves and their families.

The scenes from this morning are very distressing

It just seems so unfair.

The comments written in the daily mail have made me so

Serves me right for reading that crap i guess.

They want to come here because we don t have ID cards and they can just disappear into the system and because we are perceived to have a better benefit system + NHS.

If we take that 150, many more will come. Can we really honestly take everyone who wants to flee war-torn Afghanistan?

I watched the news reports today and felt really sad for these poor people.

Elenio, unfortunately those attitudes seem to be the prevailing ones.

I was watching Sky News this morning and they were reading out emails from viewers that were all pretty much of the 'send 'em home' variety. Eammon Holmes actually got pretty angry at one point and said something along the lines of, well I hope you and your children never find yourselves in their shoes.

The Dull Witch is right, the question isn't really whether 150 people will be that much of a problem to support in the UK, but that a precedent has been set and a message sent that if you hang around in a camp for long enough, you'll be allowed into the UK

But why so they not calim asylum in France, or the first EU country they came to?

I saw this on the BBC, it is a very sad state of affairs.

I totally agree with Riven. Britain spent centuries running around exploiting the natural resources and people of other countries, and getting incredibly wealthy and powerful off the back of it, and now the residents are getting all huffy? I'm sorry, but if you insist on messing about in other countries affairs, you have to expect to pay some kind of recompense, and as I said before: Britain is not the country with the largest amount of asylum seekers/refugees coming in (despite what the DM etc. say). The countries with the largest refugee populations are Pakistan, Iran and Syria. The European country that has had the largest influx of refugees is Germany, not the UK. But please, don't let some facts get in the middle of xenophobic scare-mongering.

Exactly, riven.

pah! Switzerland won't have 'em, that's for sure.

What peeves me about this situation is, in addition to many of the excellent points raised her, that they just close the camp, not lift a finger to try to find the inhumane thug bastard people traffickers who subject many of these people to horrible conditions, violence and worse, then make them work in awful conditions to pay back the debt.

So did France bleh. And Spain and Austria and Portugal and the Netherlands and most other European nations. (And today the US does much the same.) Which takes us back to the first point ? why aren't these people claiming asylum in France, or the first European country they reached?

I'm sure some/most of them may well have terrible tales to tell, but they are not actually fleeing persecution right, they have flown. What is it about the UK that is ? apparently ? so desirable, compared to France?

Having lived in France, tbh, if I were an immigrant of Arabic or black origin, I'd rather try to come to the UK myself.

agreed, expat! used to spend entire days trying to get my carte de séjour every year. Gave up in the end.

well I was going to post what edam has posted, but I think I know the abnswer to the question and I am sure she does too.

It does not take away from the fact that asylum should be sought it the first country these refugees reach. It is rather 'bizarre' they manage to make it all the way to our small litle island

anglo-saxon & finnish origin, myself

so would I expat

I managed to get one, but it was a fucking nuisance beyond belief. Only got stopped, however, when I was with Algerians .

On pourrait dire que les frogs sont des sales racistes!

How do the Afghans get to Calais? How many countries do they have to travel through en route? Why don't they appeal to a UK embassy/consulate in the first safe country they come to?

(genuine questions btw - I really don't know how it works)

They have to appeal in a country, not to a consulate or embassy.
They make a decision based on where they can get to & what their chances are in that country (eg Italy is a bad choice cos there are too many refugees there already).

A lot of them say they have family here already - how did they all get in?