Criminalisation of refugees

They lock people up who aren't criminals. There are children in Yarl's Wood for heavens sake

We have people leaving our country for say NZ to work and have a better life why deny this to others wanting to come here and before you say about applying we have a real c.>p system here and it makes it very difficult to get a visa that come from worn torn countries should be treated with respect, we have room and we have jobs.

No-one sees the bigger picture...

Has anybody, anybody at all said we should throw open the door and tell the world, come on in, flat screen TVs and mobile phones for all?

Or have people said that we need to be humane, that we need to understand that the vast majority of people who come here are good people trying to make their way in the world? That they deserve to have their cases heard in a civilised manner?

Remember all that outcry about the 2 men in Glasgow who the state tried to whisk away to a deportation centre when nobody was looking? The thing that people were objecting to when they stood in front of that van wasn't that these men were going to be deported if they didn't have a right to be here, but that they were being spirited away to a centre where they would find it much more difficult to access the legal rights that they have.

Try to understand that this isn't about throwing open the door to anyone and everyone, irrespective of who they are. Its about treating people like human beings, and not assuming that they are criminals.

welbeck Chestnut seems not to understand the system, and implies that all foreign nationals in prison are or were asylum seekers.
How so? I never implied anything of the sort. I said a few times that we don't know how many of the prisoners are asylum seekers. I don't know, you don't know. We don't know.

No matter how many clever and talented people there are in the world how can you expect a tiny country like ours to accommodate all those who want to come here from hundreds of different countries? No-one seems to be seeing the bigger picture, how this will pan out over decades when the population gets impossibly huge. It has to stop somewhere. We already have a problem with housing and infrastructure not keeping up. It's no good bringing people into the country when there aren't enough homes for those already here.

Chestnut seems not to understand the system, and implies that all foreign nationals in prison are or were asylum seekers.
as well as being patronising to other posters, re their levels of understanding.
whatever floats your boat.
no pun intended.

I worked for a firm started by a scientist who had fled Germany in the 1930s. He was interned here in 1940 but released on appeal, quite rightly.

It's worth remembering that the two scientists that developed the formula for the Pfizer vaccine were Turkish migrants in Germany. I don't doubt that we have such people working in labs in this country.

Did anyone watch Exodus: Our Journey to Europe in 2016?

It was BBC2 I think. Highly recommended. Different reasons, different stories but very interesting.

One was a teacher, at least one crossed in a dinghy/boat, one was an "economic migrant" using a smuggler...
3 main stories.
Some of it was recorded by the people themselves on mobile phones in places cameras would not be able to go.

We know nothing about these people. They could be criminals, terrorists, we just don’t know

I totally agree. They could also be teachers, surgeons, research scientists, lawyers. You know, professional people with the funds to pay to get their families out of the hell hole they are living in. How could anyone look at the reports of Syria and say, you know, what, he looks a bit dodgy, let him stay there?

I've discovered over the years that there are foreigners and foreigners. Whenever somebody has complained about ”letting in too many immigrants” and I answer ”Well, I am one of them” the reply is often ”We don't mean people like you”. I must be the right kind then.

I have said it before but a solution would be to clearly state that the only way to come here is through the normal application process, and that those who attempt to get here by boat or the back of a lorry will automatically be disqualified from applying for asylum.

Well, you can't do that because it contravenes international law and agreements on asylum seekers.

Not that that would bother our law breaking government.

We know nothing about these people. They could be criminals, terrorists, we just don’t know.

So could lots of people entering through the 'normal' channels.

Do you have deep distrust of the whole of humanity, JE or just all foreigners?

Thank you Alegrias

huge not hug

I find it interesting that people never mention the private companies that make hug amounts of money OUT OF asylum seekers

Gwyneth

Apologies Alegrias so would you take asylum seekers into your own home?

No.

But neither would I teach children, nor accept an elderly person who needed looking after at the end of their life, nor someone who needed care after a hospital stay. But I think all those things should happen.

Becuase there are things that the state is responsible for, and dealing with arrivals on our shores with humanity and fairness is one of them, irrespective of whether they arrived on a commercial aeroplane or a tiny dinghy by night. Becuase they are human beings.

Apologies Alegrias so would you take asylum seekers into your own home?

I answered you about 3 minutes after you posted Gwyneth.

I see no one has responded re my post about taking asylum seekers who enter the country illegally temporarily into their own homes. It’s just that a very kind and generous friend did that and had the most awful experience. Obviously I can’t go into details but sometimes people are not who they appear to be.

There are far more nastier people in plain sight

Do you really think that people cross 1000s of mile by land and take to small boats with their children just because of the people smugglers? They do that because their lives are worse than probably any of us can imagine.

Ms Patel has managed to convince people that if we get rid of the people smugglers, we'll not have to worry about all these nasty people who want to come here and overrun us. Do you really think that people who are faced with war, terror, and all the other things that make a refugee, are sitting in their houses (or what's left of them) thinking that instead of making a run for it, they'll sit tight and fill in all PP's forms, and then wait to see what happens?

The world is not as straightforward as PP pretends it is.

But the current situation can’t continue can it?
Many people have died attempting the Channel crossing and as long as there are people smugglers exploiting migrants to further their very lucrative business, deaths sadly will continue.

As a country we do take genuine asylum seekers and I am sure we will continue to do so, but the current situation has to change.

What we don’t need are boatloads of them trying to sneak in here by sea via the people smugglers.
We know nothing about these people. They could be criminals, terrorists, we just don’t know.

Don’t forget a lot of them destroy their passports and other identifying documents so they can claim to come from war torn countries.

The only winners in this situation are the people smugglers and that’s who we should concentrate on destroying.

I have said it before but a solution would be to clearly state that the only way to come here is through the normal application process, and that those who attempt to get here by boat or the back of a lorry will automatically be disqualified from applying for asylum.

I think the government’s current plan is to accept those migrants who possess the skills and qualifications which we need to enable them to work, pay taxes and generally contribute to our country.

Just ignore all stories of asylum seekers who have come to the UK and become fine contributors to the UK. Many of these people are well qualified and highly skilled but are forced by circumstances to leave their countries without the resources to apply through the 'usual channels'.

But let's just characterise them all as evil lying foreigners who want to play the benefits system and overrun the country.

Yvette Cooper famously declared that she would house an immigrant or two.
As far as I know it never happened.
A good example of virtue signalling at play there.

I think the government’s current plan is to accept those migrants who possess the skills and qualifications which we need to enable them to work, pay taxes and generally contribute to our country.