Why do Asylum Seekers cross the channel on small boats

What would be the legal route to return asylum seeking people to war zones like Syria.
Many seeking refuge from Afghanistan have good reason to fear for their lives there.

Iam64

What would be the legal route to return asylum seeking people to war zones like Syria.
Many seeking refuge from Afghanistan have good reason to fear for their lives there.

I was responding to Wylliw3’s remark

return people who have no right to be here

I wonder what will happen to the Syrian man who claimed asylum here some years ago and went backwards and forwards to Syria on dodgy errands and has just brought some people over in a refrigerated van, they nearly died but were fortunately rescued in time.Abusers of our hospitality like this should be sent back to their country of origin.

Oreo 👍🏻

It is very naive to assume that everyone arriving in the UK is going to be an upright citizen

GrannyGravy13

Oreo 👍🏻

It is very naive to assume that everyone arriving in the UK is going to be an ^upright citizen^

It's equally naive to assume that they are all going to be criminals out to cheat the system.

Asylum Seekers, in terms of their character and likelihood of criminality, will simply be proportional, ie a small proportional of them will be economic migrants and a smaller amount will be criminals.

We simply have to accept that a small proportion of any cohort of people contains a criminal element.

Wyllow3

Thank you Maizie. Words like refugee and asylum seeker are being substituted not just by "migrants" but continually associated with crime, terrorism, danger, attacks, in MSM. It may be subtle compared with onslaughts in SM, but it's pervasive and constant. We do need faster processing in order to determine if they are needed economic migrants but until that point they are technically asylum seekers.

👏👏

Chestnut where did your figures come from please? The ones I have seen suggest much lower figures for people arriving by small boats, ie over a five year period from Jan 2018=87K. That's from UK gov data. There's so much conflicting evidence even from reliable sources!

There was a long report on the BBC radio 4 this morning which is worth listening to. Actually it's genuinely the first I've heard for ages that included numbers arriving by small boats and was in response to the Govt plans to deal with the issue which have just been announced. tbh I thought the report was pretty well balanced.
Just out of interest I did a bit of research on the British papers that I subscribe to. Can I add my choice of media does not represent my political views but I like to compare what is being said by the right and left wing press, it does show how biased the media is and perhaps why it's easy for our views to become rather entrenched?

The Times last had an article about "small boats" on 11/08 about the deaths of two people arriving on a flimsy boat.
Telegraph 07/08 had an article saying the EU should take back AS that land on our shores
Guardian had an article today about the 100 specialists that will be recruited to tackle people smuggling gangs and also an article about 19 female trainee doctors from Afghanistan who have arrived in Scotland to finish their training.
New European had an article on 06/08 saying that Politicians needed to speak up more about the benefits that immigration brings to countries.
Daily Mail, I looked online as I don't subscribe to it and I couldn't find anything but I could have missed it.

We do extradite failed asylum seekers, lots have been returned to Albania and Vietnam but if they have a legitimate claim to asylum, they will be given leave to stay. If we want to stop the boats and the people smugglers profiting from people with genuine claims, surely we need proper ways of allowing people to claim asylum? Currently we don't and we haven't been processing people efficiently since 2018, before then we were sending lots of people back to their own countries. I can't help thinking this situation is partly the result of poor government decisions.

Times now has an article headed "14,000 migrants will go by end of year. "
Guardian now has an article "Labour aims to step up migrant removals to 2018 levels"

Just demonstrating how quickly the news changes on line!

foxie48 Chestnut where did your figures come from please? The ones I have seen suggest much lower figures for people arriving by small boats, ie over a five year period from Jan 2018=87K. That's from UK gov data. There's so much conflicting evidence even from reliable sources!
They weren't my figures. I was just going from what growstuff said, that it was only 107 per day arriving on boats.

Cossy

Asylum Seekers, in terms of their character and likelihood of criminality, will simply be proportional, ie a small proportional of them will be economic migrants and a smaller amount will be criminals.

We simply have to accept that a small proportion of any cohort of people contains a criminal element.

What a defeatist attitude. We do not have to tolerate imported criminals, have enough that are born here. Deportation for those that abuse our laws and hospitality.

Freya5

Cossy

Asylum Seekers, in terms of their character and likelihood of criminality, will simply be proportional, ie a small proportional of them will be economic migrants and a smaller amount will be criminals.

We simply have to accept that a small proportion of any cohort of people contains a criminal element.

What a defeatist attitude. We do not have to tolerate imported criminals, have enough that are born here. Deportation for those that abuse our laws and hospitality.

All that Cossy said was that we have to accept that a small number of the people who arrive in small boats will be criminals.

She said nothing about keeping those criminals in the UK.

Do you deliberately misinterpret what people post, or are you just not able to understand it?

Thanks MaizieD - I understood Cossy’s post but your comments make sure everyone can

Cossy

Asylum Seekers, in terms of their character and likelihood of criminality, will simply be proportional, ie a small proportional of them will be economic migrants and a smaller amount will be criminals.

We simply have to accept that a small proportion of any cohort of people contains a criminal element.

How do you know the criminal element will be a 'small proportion'? Or the economic migrants? You don't know that.

And frankly, even a small proportion of criminals can be devastating to our society if they are rapists or murderers. We've seen some terrible examples of this in the news.

FreyaOf course we don't have to "tolerate imported criminals" however, thank you for mentioning that we have criminals in our own society, too often the criminal behaviour of people born outside the UK is used to stereotype everyone from that ethnic group which, of course, is completely wrong.
"The Home Secretary has a legal duty to deport foreign criminals. This applies to non-British, non-Irish nationals sentenced to at least 12 months' imprisonment for a criminal offence in the UK, with certain exceptions."
commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-8062/

There is a young asylum seeker on Freddie Flintoff's programme, "A Taste of Dreams" who talked about his journey from Afghanistan. His mother sent him because she feared for his life if he stayed there. I think he was only 15 when he left on his own, was beaten many times on his journey. He is now in a 6th form on a sports scholarship (I don't quite know how that came about), is a delightful young man. I found his story moving.

MaizieD

GrannyGravy13

Oreo 👍🏻

It is very naive to assume that everyone arriving in the UK is going to be an ^upright citizen^

It's equally naive to assume that they are all going to be criminals out to cheat the system.

That isn’t the point.
The point is that Iam64 wondered if we could really send people back to places like Syria, the legal route.
I have no idea if we can but think we certainly should be able to do this in cases like this criminal and any similar one.

A lot of these people come from countries they cannot be sent back to because they are at war and too dangerous.

This why they were prepared to risk the dangerous journey from their home to France and on to the UK, because what they have left behind is far more dangerous than the channel crossing.

Why do members of this site keep referring them as asylum seekers. They are all illegal immigrants . True asylum seekers would apply for that at the first safe country they entered.

Why then travel through many safe countries to then pay for a smuggler to bring them across the channel.

The answer is that our government is too soft and will not send them straight back . The Australians intercept them at sea and turn them round. We should do the same, our coastline is much much shorter than theirs.

There is no system for asylum seekers to legitimately request asylum outside of this country. That’s why they are indeed asylum seekers.

Racingsparrow

Why do members of this site keep referring them as asylum seekers. They are all illegal immigrants . True asylum seekers would apply for that at the first safe country they entered.

Why then travel through many safe countries to then pay for a smuggler to bring them across the channel.

The answer is that our government is too soft and will not send them straight back . The Australians intercept them at sea and turn them round. We should do the same, our coastline is much much shorter than theirs.

Your post is simply wrong,ill informed and frankly lacking in any understanding of the lives as those seeking asylum
We have crooks and criminal in our existing population, some will be found amongst those seeking asylum
No amount of nonsense about why don’t the stop in another European country and stay away from us will change reality

There are many reasons why asylum seekers come to the U.K. and Racingsparrow clearly you have limited understanding. Do you think it humanitarian to turn flimsy inflatables back mid channel so that desperate people including women and children may drown?
I consider your post ignorant and provocative so won’t engage again.

Racingsparrow please take no notice of these patronizing and unpleasant responses to your post. You are absolutely correct in your comments. These illegal immigrants are indeed passing through safe countries. They should not be coming here.

On that basisBevsec being an island the UK would never take any asylum seekers unless they were Irish! International humanitarian law does not support your view and, thank goodness, the UK still abides by those laws.

foxie48

On that basisBevsec being an island the UK would never take any asylum seekers unless they were Irish! International humanitarian law does not support your view and, thank goodness, the UK still abides by those laws.

Thanks foxie48, though this calm, accurate and non patronising response will have no impact on posters who continue to ignore reality or legality.