Illegal immigration - thread no. 101

[MyNameIsX]

People smugglers are offering migrants a discount for crossing the Channel if they film their journey so it can be promoted on social media.

Migrants are encouraged to film the journeys and then post them on TikTok, Snapchat, Instagram and Facebook in order to lure others into making the dangerous crossings.

In return, they get a cheaper crossing as the footage boosts business for the smugglers.

The new tactic was revealed by Paul Brisley, from the National Crime Agency (NCA), which has been taking down the social media posts in an attempt to stem the crossings.

When my DD was six, she deployed a similar strategy to yours.

The videos I've seen on SM like those mentioned in the OP are economic migrants - they're young men all laughing and cheering and holding iPhones - they're not fleeing war torn countries.

You know you're watching propaganda videos (or, at a push, marketing), don't you? The smugglers tell them what to say, and those iPhones don't belong to them, they get taken back by the smugglers. There's an Egyptian man being prosecuted for organising people smuggling in the news at the moment - he is said to have made all the people on his boats throw their phones in the sea presumably so that their journeys couldn't be traced back to him. (I'm also impressed that you can tell which ones are and are not from war torn countries - it's not always easy from a short video to tell the difference for example between a Kurdish man from Syria and a Kurdish man from Iraq.)

Yes. See the poster above for example who seems to think that anyone who hangs out at / is employed in a Turkish barber shop is an illegal entrant economic migrant posing as a refugee 😂they're highly likely to be naturalised Brits.

A remarkably mature six year old!!!

I've spent enough time on threads like this that just go round and round like a hamster wheel to limit the time/energy I devote to them.

@Bromptotoothe trouble is proposing ending crossings by providing all safe routes then skipping how you’d actually do that with how many you’d provide, is just avoiding a viable solution.

It sounds good but won’t work.

And?

The other big problem with safe routes is that they only work where there is a country at war where everyone's at risk of indiscriminate violence - those who need humanitarian protection rather than refugees.

They wouldn't be feasible for anyone who is a refugee on Convention grounds - someone who fears persecution due to race, religion, political opinion or membership of a particular social group (e.g. gay people). If the government is actively searching for you to lock you up due to being a political dissident or a religious preacher, you can't really make an application at a local embassy and sit back and wait for the outcome.

Agree. We can't afford both a comprehensive welfare state including PIP for all that need it as well as welcoming and supporting every young strapping man that makes it across the Channel. Some day some government will have to chose.

It's not just small boats

Yes that’s right. Just let anyone in 🤪

It's scary the disconnect between what the majority of this country clearly want.(reduced legal immigration; no illegal immigration) and what politicians will give us. Even Farage is backing down on immigration. Not sure what is going to happen as this crap cannot continue.

Trouble is we need people to do things like pick fruit, slaughter chickens and be Carers in our old folks homes.

Unless we can crack the problem of getting the indigenous population into those jobs we're stuck.

And it's foreign students, paying customers at our Unis, that keeps Further Education afloat.

Once the Employers NI kicks in and there are unfortunately no jobs for the young people from the Uk then perhaps that will change. Anyway I thought Labour were out to wreck farming to free up land for solar panels and housing? No need for fruit pickers soon..

We can't.be forever sucking from the teat of immigration..it's an unsustainable ponzi scheme just adding more and more people to the eventually NHS/welfare bill.

What doesn't help is that post Covid many more people are struggling to get by. The fact Boris got involved with Ukraine has helped even less because that's made the cost living horrific.

The honest average working family is finding it harder and harder. And it's not due to mindless spending or anything they've done to cause it.

Very few can now buy their own home- myself included- and many rent at extortionate prices. 90% of those who I rented off before taking on a business that comes with a home were immigrants who bought their and their families council homes in the right to buy era of the 80s. That in itself was a huge cock up, selling off housing stock so now there is barely any left meaning rental bills and by default housing benefit costs are through the roof as renting is pretty much a licence to print money

DH had a friend before we moved who was an immigrant, arriving at age 8 in the late 60s. He was very well off. You'd hope by hard work but sadly not.

He was bragging to DH that during the 80s, families like his would take advantage of the council house system which in his area at the time heavily favoured helping immigrant families. Each one who could got a flat or house, whatever they could. As soon as time had lapsed and they offered them the right to buy for cheap, they did so, and then rented that home out as soon as they were able. They then all purchased one large house and lived together, which, according to the guy, was normal in their society anyway.

Now we have our local council building 4000 new homes and planning, openly, to buy unused property. Not for Brits. They have proudly announced that these will be solely for Afghan and Ukrainian immigrants.

Who have, let's be honest, contributed little if anything to the country

This is exactly why we are seen as the best place to go, why they take such huge risks to cross a dangerous stretch of water.

We had a short period between homes when my last contract ended and my ex boss was being investigated so the building was taken back, along with our home. We asked our local council for help with temporary accommodation and were denied any help at all. Yet I've worked solidly since leaving school and we are constantly told that we will be helped when in need by paying our taxes. We ended up sofa surfing and doing an hour's drive daily for four months to get our teens to school. We even had grief off education welfare despite the fact neither missed a single day of school throughout. We were not important.

Give people opportunities to go into further education. My DS wants to go to uni, I've no idea how we can pay for it. I myself was the first year who were effected by tution fees and that was the end of my uni dream and my chosen career option. May University free for Brits and encourage that.

Make school curriculums available to everyone, so restart the type of education we use to have that included training those who weren't into regular education in becoming a mechanic or plumber. Any of those skilled jobs which are now having to employ from outside the UK. Not everyone is interested in Shakespeare and science, for those who would be better in a hands on, lasting vocation give them that opportunity. It's what used to happen.

Fruit picking could be done by those about to leave prison. Give them some outside work to do in the community so they don't immediately fall back into criminality.

The welfare/immigration debate are often two sides of the same coin.

’Incentivise’ the indigenous population, as you call it. These jobs are low skilled with zero barriers to entry.

Look at the infantile language we use..." gangs" " small boats" and so on

What words should be used for ‘gangs’ or the sea-going vessels?

@WillimNot lots of trade, practical courses around for younger people wanting to learn the skills. My great nephew, early 20s, is an electrician, my friend’s grandson is a joiner. They’re making good money.

I grew up when there was no option but to work, most of us left school at 15 or 16 and went to night school if we wanted more education. There was a safety net for the most needy many of whom were disabled due to the war, but that’s all it was. I don’t remember any of my childhood friends in the 50s and 60s having no working adult in their home. Dad was ill? Mum would work, My gran needed care, so my divorced aunt and cousins lived with her. My aunt cleaned offices, and they pooled their resources.

Surely the point is they have no idea how many people have come over on the small boats? This is just the ones they’ve actually caught and we don’t know how many cross successfully with no intervention from authorities.

For people arguing for legal routes (basically out of country applications) you need to ask yourself why France, Germany and other EU countries aren’t doing that. I’m sure Greece would be very grateful as they’re taking a significant number of migrants and their system is breaking.

Having worked for the immigration service there’s no easy answer. The French will tell you that we need to introduce ID cards and and stop our generous welfare (that’s their view right from the top of their civil service/police) and that’s why they don’t see the need to stem the flow of migrants from their beaches as they believe the answer is within our own gift.

They aren't actually barbers or even turkish. It's just what they call their businesses. They are refugees from arabic speaking countries usually.

Have you looked at the Immigration Salary List (used to be called the Shortage Occupation List) at all?

People think of shortage occupations and think low skilled fruit pickers (who generally come on seasonal worker visas and don't intend to settle) or carers, and that we should be making benefits claimants do those jobs instead.

But the vast majority of jobs on the list, for which we are actively seeking migrants, are extremely high skilled and you would not want a disinterested school leaver with no GCSEs attempting them. Nuclear chemists, pharmaceutical technicians, biochemists, boat builders, high integrity pipe welders, roofers etc.

It's not sustainable because it's a brain drain on other countries but the solution is to radically improve STEM teaching and STEM career choices among children and it's not something that's going to be solved overnight.

This chart tells me that problem is that the UK needs to have an honest conversation about immigration. Most immigration is legal and is not asylum seekers. The vast majority are people coming over on work/study/family visas because with a static aging population the UK needs immigration to survive.

The “small boats” get all of the focus but make up a tiny percentage of immigration.

On types of immigration there are cost implications. Someone on a work visa or paying full o/s university fees is paying or doing a job.

We do need immigrants with skills, but we need people who will integrate. There are places where that isn’t the case. I don’t want to see repeats of the Batley teacher incident when a mob bayed for his life because he was teaching free speech. We are not an Islamic state, people of all (and no) religions have settled here for centuries, but integration should be part of the deal for living in a modern society.