Most Albanian asylum seekers granted UK visas are trafficked women

[IwantToRetire]

Analysis from the Oxford Migration Observatory reveals that 86 per cent of Albanians who received positive decisions on asylum applications in the year ending June 2022 were women, whose leave to remain was granted on the basis that they were likely to have been trafficked and in genuine need of protection.

uk.news.yahoo.com/revealed-most-albanian-asylum-seekers-161018072.html

Just wanted to post this as the main stream media and the politicians are just whipping up hysteria by not reporting statistical facts.

But then its only women so who cares. :(

That's incorrect. It was areas mostly unaffected by migration that voted to Leave with those most affect that voted Remain.
E.g. London and Manchester voted Remain Cornwall and parts of the NE voted Leave
Cardiff voted remain while Valley areas of Wales voted Leave.
And so on.

I think it's more nuanced. Didn't areas with high existing levels of immigration, like London, vote Remain. But areas with previously low immigration, like Boston Lincs, which were suddenly receiving large numbers of immigrants, vote Leave?

This thread shows how easy it is for a politician to throw out a lie, get it repeated by the media, and the public will lap it up.

The highest number of asylum claims in 2022 have from those with Iranian nationality.
The biggest increase, in percentage terms, come from Georgia, then Iraq and Afghanistan.
That's all information publicly available from the Home Office's own data.

Numbers of Albanian claimants have increased in recent years, which is unsurprising considering there has been a political crisis there (Wikipedia even gives a very basic summary - so again, not information hard to find). There's also been a very, very recent "spat" (not trying to minimise) between Albanian and Iran, with the US taking sides.
And these events come on top of the long-standing and well-known issues with women's rights, trafficking religious differences, police brutality (torture), and human rights violations of the minority populations there (e.g. Greek).

Albania may be safe and wonderful for some but not for others. When it's a country where trafficking is a recognised problem choosing to move for a new life elsewhere in the country (or even elsewhere in Europe) isn't always an option.

And the U.K. government claimed for years and years that Ukraine was safe and there was no conflict with Russia, despite the fact about a third of the country has been affected since 2014. The Home Office were still telling Ukrainians from areas like Donbas to just go am live in another part of Ukraine as there was nothing to fear from Putin just a few months before the 2022 events!

No one chooses to risk their life on a dinghy across the channel for the possibility of getting £40pw week! That's definitely not voluntary, economic migration and it's beyond absurd and ludicrous that anyone thinks it is.

Yes, it was more nuanced. But nowhere "changes beyond all recognition" overnight,
And it is quite telling that the areas with long term high levels of immigration tend to be pro-migration. Showing the fear-mongering is just that.

Sadly, Brexit and the current incumbents in charge of the U.K. have taken us back about 60s years in attitudes. Enoch Powell would be so proud of Tory leaders and some people on this thread.

Showing the fear-mongering is just that.
That'll do it. Denying people's lived experience. And that's why we have brexit

I’m in London and was a typical remainer through and through for the vote but I can see that my experience is probably different to some in the areas who voted leave due to their lived experience. I’m not keen on stamping out voices as it just drives frustration and people feeling unheard.

I couldn't agree more.

The silencing of those raising concerns about the speed of increase in population by cries of racist and bigot to shut down legitimate questions was awful. People felt they had not been heard for years, so when they were given a voice, they spoke.

This is my lived experience and it is perfectly valid. I worked with vulnerable children and saw the massive rise in numbers of children with complex needs after the 2004 decision by the Blair government to allow unfettered immigration from Eastern European countries. They expected 13,000 and got half a million, and our service could not cope with the rise in demand. The migrants were not doing anything wrong, they moved to Britain to find a better life and better medical care for their children, but the impact on the existing population was not allowed to be discussed. It was a difficult time.

It wasn't all positive.

And who said anything about changing beyond all recognition overnight? It took over a decade.

V v good point @Tallisker

Hooksb - can you think of any reason - any reason at all why people in an area “experienced and heavily populated by immigrants” might vote remain?

I’ll give you a clue - demographics.

are you joining the dots yet or would you rather rant about Enoch?

I would 100% support different rules for women + children than men.

Reading your post back, can you see why many UK citizens are concerned about such a high influx of Albanian men?

Obviously trafficked women need help. But I heard the other day that the recent number of Albanian male arrivals was estimated to be 1-2% of the population of all the men in Albania!

It sounds absurd. I was driving and it was radio and now can’t find a source. I have no idea if this really is true but if it is then that is insane! We really can’t have that.

Some information about the source is here:

news.sky.com/story/exponential-rise-in-albanian-migrants-crossing-the-channel-this-year-mps-told-12730745

The population is 2.8M, so let's say 1.4M males, of whom maybe just over 1M are adult males, so 10000 is around 1%. 10000 is in dispute as not having an authoritative source, the "entire male population of Albania" is an overstatement when what's meant is adult males, and the percentage figure is quibbled over as being too high when, if the 10000 figure is correct, it should probably sit slightly below 1%.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/explainers-63473022

'In 2020, 50 arrived on small boats

In 2021, 800 made the crossing

In 2022, 12,000 have arrived so far

"The rise has been exponential and we think that is in the main due to the fact that Albanian criminal gangs have gained a foothold in the north of France," Clandestine Channel Threat Commander Dan O'Mahoney told the Home Affairs Select Committee last week.

Of this year's Albanian migrants, about 10,000 were single, adult men, he said.
Graphic showing the nationalities of people arriving into the UK by small boat: Albania 2,165; Afghanistan 2,066; Iran 1,723; Iraq 1,573; Syria 1,041; Eritrea 850; Sudan 460; Egypt 305; Vietnam 279; Kuwait 198'

People who've lived in areas with high immigration levels have a far more nuanced understanding, ime. It's complicated - these issues shift and have many variables and local context dependent factors.

Take Pollokshields East, Glasgow. There's traditionally been a fair amount of support there for Pakistani/Asian immigrants, (and a bit of tension, too) but there's more recently a lot of hostility towards recently arrived East Europeans, partly due to massively exacerbated pressure on housing supply, partly due to sharp increases in attacks on women and trafficking.

The simplistic idea that immigration is unfailingly positive is risible. Ignoring the very real issues faced by people at the sharp end helps nobody.

No one chooses to risk their life on a dinghy across the channel for the possibility of getting £40pw week! That's definitely not voluntary, economic migration and it's beyond absurd and ludicrous that anyone thinks it is.

You can swim the channel it's so safe. I regularly cross it on small boats. Hundreds of thousands of people do every year for fun.

This is the problem right here isn't it. Of course it's economic migration. I suppose the question is why do people want to believe that it's not?

That BBC article seems pretty balanced and has informative figures.

It sounds like there is a massive issue with criminal gangs from Albania. It needs to be addressed.

I agree that women and children should have a separate system - I suppose to an extent they already do, seeing as so many more women are approved for asylum status.

It is more nuanced, and it is true that cities with traditionally high levels of inward migration tend to be more open to, well, inward migration. They're often areas which have long had a tradition of 'churn' - people move in, make their money, move on. Those cities tend to see the latest wave of high migration as part of that ongoing trend.

It's also true that higher Brexit votes tended to be associated with recent high migration - either in the places most recently affected, or in a circle round them. So, it's untrue to talk about 'the Valleys' being unaffected. The people who live and vote there may well work in Swansea or Cardiff and have lived experience of the recent high migration.

The major problem with this is the tendency among some to automatically associate this worry about high migration with racism, rather than drilling down. If we drill down we might have to do something about people's worries - and stuff like building new schools for the increasing numbers of children, new social housing for the new families, new hospitals etc, etc, all cost money.

It's so much easier to shout 'Enoch Powell'. And to forget that while no place changed beyond recognition overnight, the worries expressed for years were often rejected as 'bigoted'.

When people aren't listened to, they will find a way of making themselves heard.

100%, Anactor. An approach that attempts to shut down all discussion, that pushes 'no debate' or suggests that any discussion is 'racist', is storing up problems for the longterm.

I‘m not sure that’s the case to be honest. I used to think that way, but I somewhat changed my mind in the last couple of years.
We moved to a town in the UK where there’s a large community from Eastern Europe - many Romanian Gypsies.
I see the issues I didn’t want to know about before I moved here (I used to be completely opposed to Brexit).
There seems to be very little integration going on, no real social cohesion.
Groups of men dominating the town centre, teenagers harassing people. Lots of shoplifting happening too.
Locals try to avoid the town centre, businesses closing as a result.
I never thought I would say it, but I see why this town has voted for Brexit.

I started this thread more because I wanted us to think before allowing emotive and false headlines to influence our feelings - and the voters as a whole.

So there are 2 totally different categories. Those seeking asylum - and I wanted to emphasise that for Albania those accepted as genuine asylum seekers were / are women whose claims are accepted.

Then there are those who are coming as economic migrants, some of whom may be being exploited by gangs. They are unlikely to be accepted as asylum seekers and as likely to disappear from the system, so newspapers shouting about 10,000 Albanian men arriving by boat isn't the same as being able to say that the UK has granted 10,000 Albanian men.

But surely what we can all agree on is that whatever system the Government has is place just isn't working. Genuine asylum seekers wait far too long in terrible conditions to have their claims assessed and during that time aren't allowed to work, so survive on a pittance and as reported in the news today is such unsafe conditions that rape and sexual assault of women and children happens.

Part of the problem is the really petty behaviour between France and the UK. Why doesn't the UK have assessment centres in France, although yet again given the complete dog's dinner that the UK Government made of assessing Ukrainian refugees it seems likely that these would fail as well.

Another problem is the fact that the UK wont allow temporary work visas. Many businesses including agriculural ones want this. But ideology is taking precident over real life. Like Liz Truss' financial package.

And Suella Braverman's decision to stop booking hotel space. Then there is a panic because conditions get out of control. Then government or the agencies they pass the buck too, start taking expensive and unsustainable decisions or just totally fail which ends up with a coach load of migrants dumper at Victoria Station.

Just as a side note, but also about how duplicitous politicians are, it has only recently be revealed that overseas aid money that is usually spent to help communities in others countries has been used this year to pay for Ukrainian refugees temporarily living here. So in other words overseas aid in actual practice has been cut.

In 2020, there were around 6 asylum applications for every 10,000 people living in the UK. Across the EU27 there were 11 asylum applications for every 10,000 people. When compared with EU countries, the UK ranked 14th out of the individual countries in terms of the number of asylum applications per capita.
commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/sn01403/

There are significantly more applications for asylum than the number of people who come to the UK through organised refugee resettlement schemes or as close family members of recognised refugees.

According to Home Office quarterly immigration statistics, between June 2021 and June 2022:
1,622 people came through a refugee resettlement scheme.
5,290 people came through refugee family reunion rules.
63,089 asylum applications were submitted.
14,062 asylum seekers were given permission to stay (rising to 15,716 after appeal).

But in addition to the above, significant numbers of people have come through the visa route for people from Hong Kong with British National (Overseas) status (133,124 visas granted since January 2021), and the two Ukraine Schemes (125,900 arrivals since March 2022). And so far this year, around 11,300 people have been granted indefinite leave to remain under the two bespoke schemes for Afghan nationals and family members.
commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-9630/

There are fewer foreign nationals living in the UK than there are people born in other countries. In 2021 there were approximately 6.0 million people with non-British nationality living in the UK and 9.6 million people who were born abroad.

The UK’s migrant population is concentrated in London. Around 35% of people living in the UK who were born abroad live in the capital city. Similarly, around 37% of people living in London were born outside the UK, compared with 14% for the UK as a whole.

After London, the English regions with the highest proportions of their population born abroad were the South East (13.4%), the West Midlands (13.9%), the East of England (12.9%), and the East Midlands (12.7%). In each of these regions the proportion of people born abroad was lower than for England as a whole (15.5%), which is skewed by London.

Of all the nations and regions of the UK, the North East had the lowest proportion of its population born abroad (5.8%), followed by Wales (6.5%), Northern Ireland (7.0%), and Scotland (9.3%).
commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/sn06077/

For me I just struggle with this. Because there’s obviously refugees and people who need help (trafficked women). But then there’s also a lot of bloody countries which are fucked up.

But besides all that the bit I struggle with the most is that (and this may not be you OP) those who want half the world to immigrate to the U.K. (because let’s be honest half the world are probably in shit circumstances living under dictators, poverty or something), are also the people who say we must be net zero yesterday, not use oil or gas, we must live sustainably, we must have free healthcare/ education and social safety net, adequate housing and space for nature/ care for the planet etc. Whilst all these things are true in isolation and something I wish us to strive for to one degree or another; bringing that all together is something else.

What is the carrying capacity of the U.K. if we are to live off our land for food and energy sustainably. There is a finite number.

'newspapers shouting about 10,000 Albanian men arriving by boat isn't the same as being able to say that the UK has granted 10,000 Albanian men.'

It comes to the same thing, surely, if those 10,000 men are lost into the population. What happens to those 10,000 men? Where do they go while their applications are considered?

I agree that we need a far better system for assessing claims before people try to enter the country.