Asylum seekers and immigrants.

[doormat]

Carrying on from benefits-unfit parents thread.

Any views on this subject anyone????

I had exactly this "discussion" with a local taxi driver the other day bells which ended with me getting out halfway through my journey as I couldn't listen to his views one moment longer. He refused to accept the problem was one of bored, disaffected youths, rather than just "Paki's" (And I don't think he appreciated my impromptu lesson on the historical geography of the indian subcontinent)

Ha ha - I am forever being deluged by rants from Cabbies on where I live. They are SO rude. Always start off by asking me why on earth I live there which quickly moves on to how the area was so great when they were teenagers at the local boxing club and then often ends up in a blood-vessel bursting racist outburst. I'm afraid I generally respond by smiling beatifically throughout and not giving a tip.

BTW, would you fancy a CW lunch next week? Am feeling rather demob happy.

bells - yes please - I can do Thursday or Friday.

Well, Thursday is my last day so if you can face sitting opposite a large, smug Cheshire Cat that would suit very well. Will email you via Mumsnet,

Did anyone watch the programme.
It was about 4 teenagers(all uner 18) who are seeking asylum.

1. They are housed on day of arrival.
2. They receive £22.50 a week to feed, clothe themselves etc until they turn 18.
3. Washing machine, fridge, freezer etc is provided free.
4. They receive legal aid to fight their claims for asylum.
5. They have to prove they are under 18 either by documentation or a full medical.

At the beginning of the programme I truly felt sorry for these kids.But as time went on you could see most of them were not genuine. Two of them claimed they had family members that were killed also that they were afraid for the families they had left behind and when asked what happened there was no emotion.I accepted that they must of been de-sensitized to the horrors that they have seen in their young lives.BUT when they were told directly after that there benefits they were living on and there accomodation was going to stop once they reached 18 they got very upset. One girl was told her claim had been refused and cried.Am I wrong in thinking that money and a roof over their head was more important than their families.They certainly gave that impression.Some of the addresses that they gave where they lived before coming here did not even exist.Also in one of the shared homes the washing machine and dryer or cooker was stolen(not by them but by a friend of theirs)they got very emotional when told by the support worker NO you can not have a replacement, we want to get these back.
When two of them reached 18, one was sent to live with students, the other in a centre I think in Sheffield.

I do not regard myself a rascist for questioning what goes on in this country.I do not deny anyone genuine coming here and living happily in a civilised society.

But I would like to add that teenagers in this country who are unemployed are given roughly £55 a fortnight for 12 weeks only, and that is only when they can prove that they will be kicked out if they pay no keep.I do not think this is a fair system.

I did see it, Doormat, and thought it was very interesting and thought-provoking. Parts of it I found unintentionally funny (hulking great lads in their 20s cynically trying to pretend they were under 18!) but I felt of the four youngsters featured three were definitely genuine minors and I really pitied their plight. I was impressed with the various voluntary bodies and individual case workers who took these shell-shocked young people under their wings and tried to provide them with a start in life here, often in thankless circumstances (I too was livid when the appliances were nicked from that house and some of the other lads clearly knew what had happened).
To be honest, I thought what they had to live on was paltry, despite the kindness of the officials they encountered, and I thought they seemed desperately lonely and isolated. The Iraqi Kurdish boy looked traumatised beyond belief.
Bells/Prufrock - all the white gangs are round where I live. I had to give a statement to the police this morning about seeing a gang get off a bus last week mouthing off about how they were going to "get someone". And they did, apparently, about five minutes later: a lone black guy who was unwise enough to venture onto their estate. But in the meantime they had threatened and abused the bus driver just for the fun of it, and when one of the other nursery parents, also about to get off the bus, had asked them to stop it (brave guy) they had given him a good punching too. The black victim is apparently pretty badly hurt.
I live about two miles from where Stephen Lawrence was killed and the attitudes round here make me quite sick. Everyone in my road is "concerned" about the house on the end, recently converted into a halfway house for young offenders. They are supervised by caseworkers during the day and the house has not yet burnt to the ground or been turned into a crack den, contrary to the predictions of our neighbours.
How can the young ex-offenders (uh-oh, some are black British) possibly be lowering the tone locally when the young resident population is so incredibly yobbish and intolerant, I wonder?

Marina I thought that was funny when they were alot older trying to be under 18's. If they are genuine asylum seekers why lie about the situation they are in. Also did you find them more interested in their money and accomodation than their families, coz I did get that impression.
Even though it was a paltry amount they get to live on but did you see the other lad in designer rig outs, they must have cost a few bob and the stereo he had.
And before anyone jumps on my back I do not expect people to live in rags or have no assets or fun but you had to see this lad cry poverty.

I have not read every one of these postings but feel I had to make a point. I cannot believe the amount of racist drivel that is on this thread - I thought that mumsnetters were reasonable, intelligent and tolerant sorts - like others I have been shocked by things posted by people whose previous opinions I have respected. A similar thing seems to have happened on another website that i used to visit - I have now cancelled my subscription to that one. Of those of you who have such violent feelings against economic migrants, asylum seekers and refugees I ask you this - you are all parents - wouldn't you do absolutely anything to make a better life for your children? I am going to stop reading this now as it is depressing me - well done beetroot, pie et al for putting the human side

can someone please mention the names of who you think is a racist,i myself hate being called a racist just because a made a comment about a small group of eastern europeans that were probably whiter than me anyway,i told a true story and got bervally abused,so ok,they live in poverty,but so did i when i was a child,that doesnt mean i can come to a country and be dishonest and think im entitled to everything

Clevercat - everyone is entitled to their opinion, some people on here have far stronger views than me, for AND against, but who are we to say they are right or wrong.

I personally feel that this country is at breaking point for health services, schools etc and taking in more and more people is not going to help - if that makes me a rasist, so be it.

Crumbs Marina - that all just sounds dreadful. People often seem to have the most amazing prejudices against disadvantaged areas such as ours, largely on the basis of the high visibility of ethnic minorities. It's as well to be reminded of the extent of problems in less racially mixed areas such as you describe.

exactly beetroot taking the mick out of the system

I live in a very unmixed area, no asylum seekers that I know of (although some Kosovans were harboured in a local mental institution for a while once) but there is a small population of "Asians" (ie probably Pakistanis but could be Bengalis) who seem to provide most of the local taxi services, which is nice as there probably wouldn't be many otherwise.

A small terraced house in a small street here has been used by their community as an education centre for a long time, and now they want to extend it and use it as a mosque (no dome or anything). Admittedly the building itself isn't really suitable and the location isn't ideal either but you would not believe how nasty some people have been about the very idea, and now the BNP have got involved (we are near Burnley) and keep bombarding houses in the vicinity with infuriating leaflets about plummeting property prices etc - the latest tells us how to withdraw our children from the Islam part of Religious Education, which of course would be tremendously helpful for community relations.

There have been planning committee meetings, and a general public meeting too I think, at which a large number of very unpleasant people have behaved very badly. A modified plan for the mosque (restricted hours) has been approved in principle and there is another planning meeting tonight and the council have had to arrange for the police to come in view of what has happened before. It's appalling and there doesn't seem to be any way of stopping these people from touting their repulsive attitudes and very misleading propaganda. Makes me v mad.

wasn't there a muslim family hounded out of a town in NI recently by people who didn't wan't "terrorists" in their midst? Talk about pots and kettles!

Marina - I must live very close to you but have never seen or heard of anything like this going on in my immediate area - maybe I am wrong - the whole world seems to be overtaken with violence at the moment!!!

Admittedly I do not know of anyone that lives at my end of the street that is not white but I would never be against anyone moving in no matter what race they were.

My dad was a complete racist bigot until an (indian)asian family moved in next to us when I was small - he complained that there would be smells etc and how awful it would be but he then found out he quite liked the smell and actually tried their food and ate curry for the first time in his life - we also went to the weddings of their children and my younger brothers played with their children - I do think a lot of racism is ignorance!!

When we sold our house in Essex we actually had people in the street telling us we could not sell the house to anyone who was not white - little did it matter that one of the guys who said this had a daughter that would only date black guys and another had a daughter who was married to a black guy and they had a mixed race child!! Madness I told them that I would sell it to whoever the hell I liked and if they did not like that they could move as well - a comment I got back was well if you want to lower the tone of the close!!!! Never mind that there was a croation couple, a german couple and a lesbian couple in the street - I am not trying to be detrimental about any of these groups - but it was just because there skins were a different colour to ours - was completely bizzare to say the least!!

I actually do not think it is the colour of peoples skin that causes the problem but a lot of the time the religeon and I think a lot of the problem with the Muslims is the bad press that they have got lately - if I were them I would be very warry of mixing with others and would be extremely scared (not that they should be from the majority of the population).

Beetroot, you may well think that I am racist, but I will not apologise for telling the truth about where I live, regardless of the colour of skin of the people involved.

The trouble is too many people are scared to say what they think for fear of being labelled a racist. As a consequence no-one's views get listened to and the BNP get a bigger following because people feel frustrated and angry. If all you can do is to call someone a racist and then turn away and refuse to listen to them anymore, what problems does that solve?

I would love to find out more about the Muslim religion, I am interested in all religions. But when groups of scowling men hang around outside the local Mosque, which happens to be next door to a brothel, I can hardly invite myself inside can I? I know the Muslims feel 'got at' but instead of blaming racism they should look at where they are going wrong and what they can do to make things better. You cannot absolve them from any blame whatsoever just to appear to be pc. I would love to suggest that our local Mosque has an Open Day where people can look round and ask questions, but somehow I think my request might fall on deaf ears.

There is loads of gang violence here too, both from the Asian and white communities. But I think it's more to do with testosterone and group-male mentality, than racism. If a male is violent then he is violent, regardless of the colour of his victim.

Something to think about.....the pensioner who got beaten up in Oldham, his family insisted that the attack was nothing to do with racism, he was simply a vulnerable victim who might have his pension on him. Yet because of the media frenzy that ensued, race riots followed. Perhaps the word 'racism' should be used with caution from now on.

Yes Beetroot, small efforts go a long way and surely you agree that they are responsible for making those efforts as much as we are? I want to go into a Mosque as I've been in every other religious building near enough, plus I would like to find out more about the Muslim religion. I do smile at them in the street, but we've been here for 3 years now and the guy who owns the newsagents has only just started talking to us, and that was because I put up a poster about an anti-war meet in his shop. Which by the way was attended by a group of Muslim Women with their own banners, who didn't talk to any of us on the demo, even when we tried.

beetroot why cant rhubarb go int a mosque, free country isnt it.
"I am not a rascist but" comments I know are directed at me I have to start off a comment with that phrase because there are the likes of you labelling me a rascist when I am not.
Yes £22.50 is a paltry amount and I could not live on it, I was trying to point out that if you are under 18 in this country and unemployed you receive around the same amount but for 12 weeks ONLY.And that is when they prove they will be kicked out of home for paying no keep.
I have never once said anything detrimental towards the genuine asylum seekers coming over here and I have even said that I would put them up.Yet you still label me a rascist because I am questioning things that happen in this country.WHY?
As I said before I watched that programme and it was sad because there are p*takers that are giving the genuine ones a bad name which I dont think is fair.There was a man in his late 20's to early 30's claiming to be under 18 and seeking asylum.If he was truely genuine why lie???? That is what I call taking the mick out of the system.