Illegal immigration - what to do?

Civilian suffering and dying won't stop if we don't do anything. Perhaps the feeling is that civilian dying and suffering might stop if we do do something.

Of course civilians are suffering and dying. However, is the resolution of these terrible conflicts to cause more of them to suffer and die?

I'm not making any judgement on whether it is right or wrong to bomb Absent I'm simply refining S2B's sweeping statement.

We are not talking about drones here. Real aeroplanes with skilled crews. We have to do something against IS.

I don't know the answer to that question, absent. Jews in Germany still suffered and died for quite a while before the evil regime killing them was stopped. But the suffering and dying was stopped. Whether more or fewer would have suffered and died if the Nazis hadn't been stopped is the same sort of hypothetical question.

We apparently had "to do something" against Sadam Hussein - and Gaddafi. Now we have an explosion of violence in the Middle East that is leaking into other areas of the world and we think that dropping more bombs - which, as absent said, cannot be so accurately targeted so as to avoid civilians - is going to solve the problem. Isn't there a real danger that young men and women who see the results of the bombings on their families, their homes and their towns will not be content to accept this as "collateral damage" but will view those that bomb them as the enemy?

One of the questions that has had hardly any coverage is - who is funding ISIS and is it really not possible to block that funding? By all accounts they have the most sophisticated weaponry, fleets of brand new armoured vehicles, etc. One of the explanations is that they are selling precious artefacts and drugs on the black market but they also have control over vast supplies of oil. Who is buying the oil? Why is this question not being asked?

The arms industry is an extremely wealthy one and depends for its ever-increasing wealth on continuous conflict throughout the world.

Saudi Arabia is apparently backing IS. Can,t remember where I've read that but it's in more than one place.

I posted that the Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Kuwait are funding them. Bit of a problem for our government. We never want to upset the Saudies.

This thread started about illegal immigrants.
I read the story of one in yesterday's i. He is from Zimbabwe, and came over here through the Calais route because Zanu PF had beaten up his parents. His father died, and the family thought he would be next, so he gave the money he inherited from his father to smugglers to get away. This was in 2008.
He dare not go to the authorities when he got here as he had no papers. Having lived on the streets in London and Glasgow for a few years he decided he would be better off going back to Zimbabwe and taking his chances. The UK authorities did not believe that he was from Zimbabwe.
The Zimbabwe authorities will not give him a passport because he left the country and has no papers.
He has been trying to leave this country for four years now.
The only money he has is from a charity which gives him £15 a fortnight. He has showers and food at another charity, and sleeps at a hostel shelter.

Ridiculous that someone who wants to go back home cannot do so. There was also the story of an Algerian geneticist who is working in a kebab shop. She came over here to be with her husband who works for an oil company as an engineer. They would go back to Algeria if it wasn't for the war there.
We say we want intelligent immigrants to come here, and they end up working like that?

You can't just judge things on one or two reported stories. if the authorities here think this man is lying about coming from Zimbabwe, then maybe he is lying!All his story may be made up, as well.
As for the Algerian geneticist , why not go to France, Algerians speak French as well don't they.If she wanted to be here with her husband, and his job for the moment is here working for an oil company as an engineer, she should not need to work in a kebab shop, as he will be paid quite well.She may not be able to do anything in the genetics line here for various reasons.

I'm always wary of anecdotes used as evidence too, roses.

Finding Home: The Real Stories of Migrant Britain, by Emily Dugan, out now, costing £12.99, Icon Books.

A few more stories in that. The Algerian geneticist came over here with her husband. He had lived here since 1999, and did not go back to Algeria because of the civil war there. When the company asked him to go back he ran away and found work as a chef in London. He now lives in Edinburgh. He has right of residence here so why would they go to France? His wife met him but could not see him for two years except in secret when he went to Algeria. It is an Islamic country and she was supposed to marry someone chosen by her parents, rather than someone she loved. That's why she came over here to marry him; and why not?

So you are quite happy for a man from Zimbabwe to live on the streets in Glasgow on less than £10 a week even though he wants to go back to Zimbabwe? I thought you did not like illegal immigrants.

You're all heart.

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/the-real-stories-of-migrant-britain-clive-fled-from-zimbabwe--now-it-wont-have-him-back-10362362.html?origin=internalSearch

The story for anyone who wants to read it.

I have no idea how we can solve the issue of desperate people abandoning their homeland to escape civil war, poverty, homophobia etc. etc.
I fully appreciate how hard it is for local communities, in Italy, in Calais etc. to manage the humanitarian needs of these many unhappy people and not to be seen to 'encourage' more immigrants travelling to what they see as safety and streets of gold. I know it all costs money.

What I can't appreciate is how easily some posters appear able to dehumanise these folk and appear to see them as people without normal feelings. I hope I have misunderstood and that was not anyone's intention.

I have known 'illegal' families quite well and they are just like you and me. They love their kids, their parents and, long term, their dream is to be able to go'home' once whatever it was that caused them to flee is no longer a threat.

We were all migrants once.

I've asked this question before and never got an answer. What is happening to their families and the communities left behind without their young men?

In some parts of the world, I think oppression is the answer to that question, anya. In other parts, struggle to manage without young men. Elsewhere plain sadness. And in some places relief that they've gone to find a better life. In short, we don't know.

anya I'm concerned too about the families of these hordes of fit young men who appear to dominate the numbers of potential immigrants. I think they really muddy the waters for genuine refugees from oppression and danger. My suspicion is that these young men just bugger off and leave the women and children to fend for themselves. Obviously I'm a nasty suspicious character but human nature tells me that young men are selfish. Maybe they think our streets are paved with the latest mobile phones and consumer crap -all they need to do is break into a lorry at Calais and Bobs their uncle! As said before I feel extremely sorry for the genuine refugees.

Jane10. A lot of migrants don't need to wait until they get to the uk for their latest mobile phone. An awful lot of them have them now. A lot of them have a contact telephone No. of the people traffickers in THIS country.

petra I was using mobile phones as an example of what appears to be a desirable consumer item. I'm quite sure there ARE people traffickers right here unfortunately.

Jane10 many of these young men come exactly because many do not have wife/kids yet but hoped to get an education & make money to send home. Some have been on the 'journey' for several years, taking a while to cross regions in Africa to get to the coast and then on to Europe. I am sure amongst the many there will be a few 'chancers' but honestly, if you did not have to would you live in a squatter camp in Calais??

I knew a woman and her daughter once who were here illegally. The mother had lost a leg when she set of a landmine trying to escape from some militia that her cast/tribe /religion was in danger from. Her daughter survived because she was thrown clear in the blast. She was brought to UK under humanitarian flag for treatment but was due to be sent back to the horror she had escaped from. She was living in the shadows doing illegal piece work and I suspect prostitution because even that twilight world was better than taking her beloved daughter back to war.

I know some decent immigrants too which is why I'm so sceptical about potential 'chancers'. The immigrants I know rage about them. I think there must be massive misinformation fed back to people. I suppose none of the men at Calais are going to tell their families what a big mistake its all been. The traffickers must spin some yarns in their efforts to get their filthy hands on peoples money.

Can I just ask if many of you saw the mobile phone video footage taken on the platforms to the Eurotunnel trains yesterday - a film taken by a lorry driver was shown on ITN news and from a car on BBC news. Both of these films show men getting onto the Eurotunnel trains after the cars/lorries have gone through all the security checks and got onto the platforms ready to board trains. The Freight trains have trellised sides and at the end of each 'carriage' a place to get on or off the train as the drivers do not remain in their vehicles as the car drivers do - they get into a bus which drives slowly along the platform and they travel in a carriage similar to a tube train while the trains is going through the tunnel. Men wearing yellow fluorescent jackets could clearly be seen waving to these illegal people and showing the thumbs up. There were others on the car platform boarding the trains in the station - no one seemed to be checking this and normally there are staff at the train n trance and along the platform we have never really driven along a train as the cars seemed to be doing but have entered the trains very quickly and driven down the interior of the train.
Once the likes of ISIS or similar realise about this loophole what a target the tunnel will be - think of the damage, chaos and cost to life and the financies if there was a suicide bomber on board!!! It doesn't bear thinking about but shows what dopes are in charge of the security!

Frightening!

Bez, that's a dangerous situation, and if anyone is turning a blind eye in France, and I bet they are, as you say, imagine what could happen!