Asylum seekers

On a regional news programme the other night, an immigration lawyer maintained the allowance given to asylum seekers was £8 a week, not £40 maddyone.

(Not saying she was right and you wrong, just repeating what was said).

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/nov/02/migrant-centre-attacker-planned-to-obliterate-muslim-children-in-final-tweet

Calendargirl

On a regional news programme the other night, an immigration lawyer maintained the allowance given to asylum seekers was £8 a week, not £40 maddyone.

(Not saying she was right and you wrong, just repeating what was said).

From what I understand the allowance varies.

The UK takes the fewest of all EU countries, and is NOT overpopulated, at all. Its services are being deliberately run down- that is why schools are over subscribed and you can't get a GP appointment, or are on a waiting list.

I've posted this before, the gap between asylum applications and processing. It is noticeable that the gap widens after the tory introduction of austerity post 2010. The Home Office suffered cuts, just as did other government departments. That the processing time has become much much longer after cuts to the department isn't exactly a surprise, is it?

Clearly one strand of the solution must be to put more money into the Home Office for the recruitment and training of more staff to process applications faster. But with vicious 'austerity2' just around the corner this isn't going to happen, is it?

The Home Office is notorious for incompetence and delay. Look at the Windrush scandal and how glacially slowly that has been sorted out. It needs a competent Minister in charge with a clear strategy for sorting it out, not a racist ideologue determined to stoke hatred and division.

Baggs

How does it work in other countries? Surely our Home Office could learn from countries where seeking asylum is simpler, if such exist.

Interesting statistic from this year's census: (from the Guardian) one on six people living in the England and Wales was born outside the UK. I wonder how that compares with other European countries.

The people who were born outside the UK include the King's father, the prime minister's parents, Boris Johnson, Jeremy Hunt's wife, Kemi Badenoch's parents, Suella Braverman's parents, Nadhim Zahawi, James Cleverly's mother, most of the players in the Premier League.

Sweden and Switzerland have approximately a quarter of the population born outside their countries. Germany has nearly one in five.

PS. They're not asylum seekers. I was answering Baggs' question.

Immigrants' accommodation can be as efficiently system built as the wartime prefabs some of which I understsnd are still habitable.

However we must not create ghettos. The sooner immigrants are in the community and at school or college the better.

What is entirely bad and unacceptable is the utter inefficiency of the government in their lack of provision for short term or long term accommodation of immigtants.

It's not possible these politicians are as stupid as they seem. One must conclude they have some reason for their lack of foresight.

Which of us here would like to briefly sum up the ethos of the Conservative Party?

I really do not understand it........Everywhere we look we see companies, stores, restaurants, services etc saying that theyare cutting back ontheir hours, etc due to lack of staff.

With these immigrants, most of them young adults - we have an ideal source of labour - of only government had the will and intention of getting them processed speeddilhy and into work for their own sakes as well as for the community.

Calendargirl you may be right, I was only repeating what I’d heard before. Actually the allowance I heard was £39 something, so I just put £40. Happy to be corrected if wrong though.

Just had a look online. The Home Office decided that the weekly allowance for asylum seekers was to be increased from £39.63 to £40.85 from January this year. However (there’s also a ‘however’ isn’t there?) it isn’t clear to me whether that means the people who are in hotels who are obviously getting their accommodation and meals provided.

However there is always a however isnt there?
😂
Nothing is clear and straightforward with most gov. policy it seems to me.
No doubt I'm at fault.

“Why can’t they get on a plane and arrive here legally”

Because they cannot get an entry visa, foreign nationals are vetted very carefully before they are given a visa.

Katie59

“Why can’t they get on a plane and arrive here legally”

Because they cannot get an entry visa, foreign nationals are vetted very carefully before they are given a visa.

Some of them are prevented from leaving their country of origin too or have to leave quickly. Most Eritreans aren't allowed passports or travel documents.

I think that many,of those coming with children, the Afghans in particular are in desperate need a safe place. It is a fact however that some of those coming are from Albania, mainly young men, which is a safe country these days and emerging hopefully from the tyrant dictator Enver Hoxha's rule. Albania is predicted to be one of the next hot spots for tourism which will hopefully bring in more revenue to that previously inhospitable country. With all that in mind, and given many Albanian young men get sucked into criminal gangs already established here, it is perhaps understandable why they should be repatriated back to Albania, I believe I read that they are needed there to rebuild the country, given many of their population have already left for greener pastures.

One thing I learnt from having my DNA analysed, how many of my ancestors came to England from other parts of Europe and stayed, so in many ways I understand those desires. However, different days and our country is small and certainly in the south east overcrowded with an inadequate housing stock that doesn't meet the needs of the population.

As far as Albanians are concerned, I agree that many of them don't have a rightful claim to asylum, which is why it would be beneficial if their claims could be processed more quickly.

The UK really needs to co-operate more with France on cracking down on the people trafficking gangs. Unfortunately, the National Crime Agency, which deals with the issue, has half the budget its predecessor agencies had.

The French are doing nothing, because there is no law that stops a group of people getting into a boat and sailing west.

TerriBull I’ve heard that many of the young men coming from Afghanistan leave rather than be forced into the Taliban.

In answer to Baggs' question about the 14% of immigrants in the UK, there was a statistical chart on twitter today. Basically UK similar to France and Spain, lower than Ireland, Scandinavian countries and Germany. IIRC Sweden was the highest on 20%.

From government website
Your claim for asylum might not be considered if you
Are from an Eu country
Travelled to the Uk through a ‘safe third country’
Etc
A safe third country is one that
You are not a citizen of
You would not be harmed in
Would not send you on to another country where you would be harmed

ronib

From government website
Your claim for asylum might not be considered if you
Are from an Eu country
Travelled to the Uk through a ‘safe third country’
Etc
A safe third country is one that
You are not a citizen of
You would not be harmed in
Would not send you on to another country where you would be harmed

Just another get out.

Katie59

The French are doing nothing, because there is no law that stops a group of people getting into a boat and sailing west.

Why should they do anything? The UK hasn't exactly made efforts to remain cordial with France. From France's point of view, they're glad to see the back of refugees. The UK would do the same.

However, there is some evidence that criminal gangs have gained a foothold in Northern France and Belgium and are making their money from trafficking. It would be in France's, Belgium's and the UK's interest, if the gangs could be broken up, but that's not easy when the countries aren't co-operating with each other.

Also even when asylum is granted, the asylum seeker is allowed refuge for a limited time. If the country of origin is deemed to be safe after a change of circumstances, the asylum seeker may be returned to that country. I was told this by a young lady from Afghanistan!

As the vast majority of these immigrants are young males from perfectly safe European countries like, most recently, Albania, they are most definitely economic migrants not refugees or asylum seekers.

As GG13 said, where are they all supposed to live eventually? We have a housing shortage due to our rapidly increasing population. Then there’s the added burden on an already stretched NHS.
Every country has a right to control its borders doesn’t it?
It’s an intolerable situation.

Completely agree it’s intolerable situation. Government can decide to leave all current conventions surrounding migration and form its own legislation . Parliament to decide policies and civil servants to aid government ministers frame and implement legislation. Sir Humphrey permitting…..