Re-negotiate the Dublin Agreement and provide safe passage

Whitewavemark2

How on earth does leaving the EHCR make the asylum seeker problem better?

This, by Lord Falconer (a former Lord Chancellor), in today's Observer, might go some way to explaining

....there are some basic freedoms that the law protects in all circumstances. They include everybody’s right not to be imprisoned without cause or to be subject to death or torture as a result of the acts of the state, and to have access to the courts to protect their rights.

No, says the government. Those basic rights do not apply to immigrants who enter the country illegally, even if it later emerges that they were entitled to asylum.

Those basic freedoms are protected by the incorporation of the ECHR into domestic law. Hence the implicit threat by Robert Jenrick, the immigration minister, last week to leave the convention if it stood in the way of current immigration policy, which includes, in the Illegal Migration Act, imprisonment without adequate cause, and an unacceptable restriction of access to the courts. The convention is a red herring. If there were a British bill of rights, there is no doubt it would include those same basic freedoms.

The government is playing with fire. It is undermining one of our country’s undoubted strengths – a widespread and well-founded confidence that the law will be enforced without fear or favour, and protects everyone.

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/aug/12/lefty-lawyers-enemies-of-people-upholding-law-a-crime?CMP=share_btn_tw

It occurs to me that these 'Lawyers for Britain' are in much the same mould as the rogue immigration lawyers who are using their 'intelligence' to subvert the law and to profit from their subversion...

Whitewavemark2

How on earth does leaving the EHCR make the asylum seeker problem better?

Was it not a Strasborg judge that stopped people going to Rwanda?

Siope makes a good point. The process of assessing whether an asylum seeker has a valid claim demands staffing and associated expenditure, Until the government is prepared to fund this, the backlog of asylum seekers will continue to grow. Meanwhile, housing and supporting the people must be costing as much as would assessing the validity of their claims.

How on earth does leaving the EHCR make the asylum seeker problem better?

I think a few migrants have shown they already know how to play the system siope by pretending they are under 18y and attending high school when in fact they are much older.

Sorry Siope by saying secret I meant the redacted sections you mentioned. That's keeping it pretty secret from an interested public although probably necessary from a security point of view.

Good Lord. I used to be able to write English. The last part of my post above should read: think of it as being akin to knowing some exam questions.

It’s not a secret! The guidance - which is the process, written down - is publicly available. Some detail of the actions taken are redacted from the publicly available information because, if they weren’t, anyone who was trying to enter illegally would know how to play the system - think of it as the same kind of having the same kind of advantage as knowing some exam questions in advance.

Siope thanks for that interesting info. Sounds like there is a clear assessment route but it's a secret! Does it include lie detectors? I'm sure that it's a time consuming process and needs a large number of well trained staff.

Correction: Live in a very troubled world, not lie in it, tho there is plenty of lying going on...

Cutting ourselves off into a supposedly beneficial Fortress Britain will not help ourselves in the end, of that I am certain: I feel we do lie in a very troubled world, and solutions can only be found by working together not separating ourselves off.

Certainly working against the people smugglers can only be done internationally: and that includes what people have said again, and again, but totally ignored by the Fortress Britain people, which is to set up processing centres abroad.

There are, to me, terrible dehumanising elements in the right here at work: talk of "illegals" (which, btw, comes straight from the USA and Trump - do people realise this?), which means, in effect, "criminals" the criminals hers are, after all, the smugglers
We trad the path of de-humanising peel at our peril: one day it could be us: I really do see at times the beginning of that terrible process so vividly described in the poem by the Lutheran pastor Martin Niemöller:

you all probably know it

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_they_came_...

"First they came for the.......

To be clearer: there is a clear process for assessing ALL asylum seekers, and part of that covers assessing those who are undocumented.

Aveline

I have no problem with genuine asylum seekers. Who decides who is genuine and who is not? It's just not that simple.

I’ve mostly given up posting on asylum seeker threads, because I can’t be bothered with the usual suspects’ racism and xenophobia.

Since I think this is a genuine query: there is a clearly defined process for assessing undocumented asylum seekers. If you care to google, you will find, thanks to FoI requests, the Home Office guidance on assessment. It’s well over 100 pages long and very detailed. The reasons some asylum seekers have no documents is clearly explained. However, details of the tests that are used for proving the validity of claims, particularly for the undocumented, are redacted, because civil servants aren’t daft. You may or may not want to believe me when I say the tests are robust and effective, but do require a government prepared to adequately resource the process, the staff, the training, and the scrutiny, which this government has not been.

The system worked efficiently and effectively when asylum seeker numbers were higher than they are now - the peak of asylum claims was in 2002. Last year’s figures were the highest they have been for several years but were 88% of the 2002 numbers. It is worth noting that there were not the backlogs or associated huge costs in 2002.

Yes, I can’t wait until the next referendum when we will ultimately vote to go back in.

Agreed.

It’s just that I align myself with this particular set of academics. Which is why, like them, I voted as I did.

You and others, chose differently.

The power of the ballot box eh? 😊

Urmstongran

And highly intelligent Casdon?

Well yes, but there are plenty of equally intelligent lawyers, academics, retired judges & constitutional specialists who don’t think the same, because it entirely depends on your political perspective.

And highly intelligent Casdon?

You’d expect home to say that *Urmstongran. Lawyers for Britain is a body of lawyers, academics, retired judges & constitutional specialists who campaigned for Leave in the referendum who claim to now be working constructively towards the best Brexit. They are biased.

Or maybe THIS instead of renegotiating the Dublin Agreement?

“Leaving the EU was supposed to give us back control of our borders. But we won’t truly get back control until we leave the ECHR as well.

We should ask ourselves what purpose is served by having a foreign court which supervises our rights and liberties. Canada, Australia and New Zealand seem perfectly happy that they can protect the rights of their citizens without needing to subject themselves to some external regional court. When the foreign court to which we have subjected ourselves is as deeply flawed as Strasbourg, the question should not be “why should we leave” but “why on Earth are we still a member?”

Martin Howe KC is chairman of Lawyers for Britain

Aveline

I have no problem with genuine asylum seekers. Who decides who is genuine and who is not? It's just not that simple.

No it certainly isn’t simple, but that shouldn’t stop us should it?

I have no problem with genuine asylum seekers. Who decides who is genuine and who is not? It's just not that simple.

Aveline

Apart from it being impossible to address why they want to come here how can asylum staff hope to assess the claims of people who turn up with no papers or proof of any kind as to who they are or where they come from. They have to try to work out who is a genuine refugee and who an economic migrant and who might be from one of the many terrorist groups who have pledged attacks in UK. Get that wrong even once and the asylum staff are in all kinds of trouble (as we might be too) .
It's really not easy at all.

Do you understand the Dublin Agreement?

Your post seems to suggest that you would like no asylum seekers to be allowed to the UK?

Apart from it being impossible to address why they want to come here how can asylum staff hope to assess the claims of people who turn up with no papers or proof of any kind as to who they are or where they come from. They have to try to work out who is a genuine refugee and who an economic migrant and who might be from one of the many terrorist groups who have pledged attacks in UK. Get that wrong even once and the asylum staff are in all kinds of trouble (as we might be too) .
It's really not easy at all.

Aveline

There are no easy answers. I'm amazed anyone thinks there are.

So why do you think that renegotiate the Dublin Agreement and safe passage won’t work?

There are no easy answers. I'm amazed anyone thinks there are.