Why do Asylum Seekers cross the channel on small boats

Sorry, Mollygo, but the false narrative has been posted many times. Not as *Babs03 says it because she is posting what her experience tells her is reality. But over the past year or two at least we've had plenty of tales of 'what asylum seekers get' which are untrue or wildly exaggerated.

We even have one today on the thread about Brighton. Asylum seekers are give bicycles, apparently

Babs03 I worked with refugees in the 90's and it made me thankful to have been born in the UK into a safe and stable country. We take our security for granted but I can still imagine how dreadful it must be to have to leave family and friends and everything I know and understand for a precarious and unknown future in a foreign country. It is never done lightly and my experience showed me that refugees just wanted to be able to rebuild their lives, contribute to the society that they now lived in and be accepted by the people they lived among.

I wish there wasn’t this false narrative today of crafty criminally minded refugees waiting to board a dodgy dinghy rubbing their hands with dastardly glee at the thought of being locked in a detention centre then moved onto a shabby b&b to share a room with another family and be given food vouchers or £30 a week whilst constantly running the gamut of racist hostility. Yeah. Sounds great.
Babs03 you’re the only person I’ve seen posting this false narrative.
Are you trying to help them it make it worse?

I wish there wasn’t this false narrative today of crafty criminally minded refugees waiting to board a dodgy dinghy rubbing their hands with dastardly glee at the thought of being locked in a detention centre then moved onto a shabby b&b to share a room with another family and be given food vouchers or £30 a week whilst constantly running the gamut of racist hostility. Yeah. Sounds great.
Having worked with AS I generally met cowed, scared individuals, trying they’d best to avoid eye contact and mostly trying very hard to reduce the actual physical space they took up.
Of course in any cohort of people there will be a few bad eggs, that is a mathematical probability but to suppose they are all the same is as unintelligent as it is risible.
And I would like one person to tell me an actual real story of a member of their family or themselves missing out on a house or a job due to an AS. Fact is those who shout loudest usually don’t live in areas with the largest immigrant uptake.

Thank you babs.

whitewavemark2 the boat people know where they come from and they 💯 know where they’re going! 😉

Primrose53

Babs03

@chestnut
This world is subjected to a constant ebb and flow of peoples moving from one place to another, has ever been the case. Either due to wars, famines, natural disasters, or the desire to find a better life. Climate change is set to make the numbers even greater so we should all be prepared for that. Not so long ago huge numbers of British people colonised many parts of this world and stole the resources and lives of the countless indigenous people who lived there, our migration then was not anywhere near as harmless as people in boats coming here, not our fault today but we should be aware how history shapes what happens today and how it can make some of us sound hypocritical when casting blame. Indeed it is much more recent western government meddling in various parts of the world that has resulted in the levels of refugees coming here today.

Babs03 with respect we should be looking forwards not back.

We all know the UK has always been a welcoming place over centuries but times are very different now.

If you don’t know where you come from, you don’t know where you are going.

Babs03

@chestnut
This world is subjected to a constant ebb and flow of peoples moving from one place to another, has ever been the case. Either due to wars, famines, natural disasters, or the desire to find a better life. Climate change is set to make the numbers even greater so we should all be prepared for that. Not so long ago huge numbers of British people colonised many parts of this world and stole the resources and lives of the countless indigenous people who lived there, our migration then was not anywhere near as harmless as people in boats coming here, not our fault today but we should be aware how history shapes what happens today and how it can make some of us sound hypocritical when casting blame. Indeed it is much more recent western government meddling in various parts of the world that has resulted in the levels of refugees coming here today.

Babs03 with respect we should be looking forwards not back.

We all know the UK has always been a welcoming place over centuries but times are very different now.

But, there are no legal routes for asylum seekers, hence why they risk their lives to get here.

By the way, according to international law, there is no such thing as an illegal asylum seeker.

These are SUCH important points!

One of the achievements of the former government was to get the word 'illegal' associated with asylum seekers and refugees, by consistently using it in speeches and in statements. It has become so ubiquitous that it is repeated in social media, including Gransnet.

As Nano says, it is NOT illegal to seek asylum, and there are now NO legal routes in existence.

Mollygo, where's your statistics for saying that there are doctors etc available for asylum seekers?

Mamie

David49

Whatever they say 70% of crossings are successful, which sounds to me like not really trying, if it depends on the UK paying the French more to do the job properly, it’s going to be a lot cheaper than the stupid Rwanda plan.

Just out of interest do you have the source for that figure? According to Le Monde 69% of crossings have been stopped (April 2024). The figures do include the whole of the channel coast. The local papers and tweets from officials provide quite a lot of information about operations on the ground (in French).

From the website you quoted

François Guennoc, vice-president of the Auberge des migrants, an association which helps migrants, estimates that "the success rate of crossings is between 60 and 70%".

Well said Babs03

@chestnut
This world is subjected to a constant ebb and flow of peoples moving from one place to another, has ever been the case. Either due to wars, famines, natural disasters, or the desire to find a better life. Climate change is set to make the numbers even greater so we should all be prepared for that. Not so long ago huge numbers of British people colonised many parts of this world and stole the resources and lives of the countless indigenous people who lived there, our migration then was not anywhere near as harmless as people in boats coming here, not our fault today but we should be aware how history shapes what happens today and how it can make some of us sound hypocritical when casting blame. Indeed it is much more recent western government meddling in various parts of the world that has resulted in the levels of refugees coming here today.

There’s blaming, and then there’s what I just wrote.
The shortage existed without illegal entrants, but if there are doctors available for one group . . .

David49

Whatever they say 70% of crossings are successful, which sounds to me like not really trying, if it depends on the UK paying the French more to do the job properly, it’s going to be a lot cheaper than the stupid Rwanda plan.

Just out of interest do you have the source for that figure? According to Le Monde 69% of crossings have been stopped (April 2024). The figures do include the whole of the channel coast. The local papers and tweets from officials provide quite a lot of information about operations on the ground (in French).

Many thanks Babs and MOnica.
The constant linking of so called illegal immigrants, better known as asylum seekers, with our difficulties in seeing our GP or getting an NHS dentist, does suggest posters are blaming them for the mess we are in.

Exactly. No one said it is their fault, nor, I suspect would they begrudge them life saving medical treatment.
But if you can’t see that it’s difficult for people to understand that doctors can be on hand to treat those arriving illegally,
when you can’t get a GP appointment,
or your treatment has been cancelled,
or you’re fobbed off with a medical person who prescribes something unsuitable and who has to consult the doctor you can’t see to find out what you should be given,
or you read of the endless complaints about the shortage of doctors . . .

Nano14

growstuff

nanna8

I chat to a group of Vietnamese migrants quite often. They still have parents and family back in Vietnam and they send money back there to assist the older ones because they don’t have pensions or any government help and if you can’t work, have no close family or support, you can starve. That is why many of them like to come and I suppose it is the same with the UK. We wouldn’t let anyone here die of starvation and I assume the UK wouldn’t,either. Economic migrants I suppose but they work very hard.They don’t come on boats,though, and are checked out before they stay. Difference.

But the people who choose to come to the UK and obtain a visa have used a legal route and the UK needs those people. I wish people would stop conflating legal immigration, which constitutes the majority, and those arriving by irregular means, most of whom are fleeing danger.

But, there are no legal routes for asylum seekers, hence why they risk there lives to get here.

By the way, according to international law, there is no such thing as an illegal asylum seeker.

Their lives*

👏 👏 👏

ExDancer

I am one of those who would really like to know if they find the reality of life in Britain disappointing after spending their life's savings as well as sometimes risking their lives to get here.
Does the reality meet their dreams I wonder?

Taking to the small boats is not a long planned choice. Those taking to the boats, have mostly fled appalling conditions in their own country, they or their family have been caught on the wrong side in political fights and fear death for themselves and their family if they stay, many have fled war and destruction in Syria or Yemen.

They did not want to leave home and family. The price of the crossing is not from a nice little pot carefully saved before hand, it is the result of families back in the country of origin colecting together all the money they can and borrowing to help the immigrant get to the UK where they may have friends and families and speak the language.

Many of those coming over are doctors and engineers, who we could well make use of . None want to live on the state, they would rather be back home living in peace and able to live in peace without the constant threat of death hanging over them.

Nobody goes through all the privations of the journey from Afghanistan or the middle east to here, just because we offer them state support, they come here because they see us a haven from a life threatening precarious futurre in their own country.

Imagine you were one of those boat people. Think about what could drive you from home to make that journey - I am sure it would be very extreme circumstances. That is what these people have gone through.

Well said Babs: we also have to work better with the EU on the people smugglers. Yes, tough and "whack a mole", but they can and have been traced by journalists.

Chestnut

Cadeby

I can't understand if these conversations are driven by genuine fear that England will sink under the weight of refugees or something else.

The fact that we can't get near a doctor, a dentist or a council house is not the fault of people arriving here recently by boat.

No-one said it was their fault, but every single person added to the population is adding to the pressure on housing, schools, doctors, dentists, hospitals, transport.

How do you expect us to cope with an endless stream of new arrivals, whether legal or illegal, from all those countries on the map I posted?

Oh back to the map. Would it be more acceptable if the arrivals came from elsewhere?

Populations do and will shift around. Better get used to it and put our energies into a fair and humane and transparent system.

growstuff

nanna8

I chat to a group of Vietnamese migrants quite often. They still have parents and family back in Vietnam and they send money back there to assist the older ones because they don’t have pensions or any government help and if you can’t work, have no close family or support, you can starve. That is why many of them like to come and I suppose it is the same with the UK. We wouldn’t let anyone here die of starvation and I assume the UK wouldn’t,either. Economic migrants I suppose but they work very hard.They don’t come on boats,though, and are checked out before they stay. Difference.

But the people who choose to come to the UK and obtain a visa have used a legal route and the UK needs those people. I wish people would stop conflating legal immigration, which constitutes the majority, and those arriving by irregular means, most of whom are fleeing danger.

But, there are no legal routes for asylum seekers, hence why they risk there lives to get here.

By the way, according to international law, there is no such thing as an illegal asylum seeker.

Cadeby

I can't understand if these conversations are driven by genuine fear that England will sink under the weight of refugees or something else.

The fact that we can't get near a doctor, a dentist or a council house is not the fault of people arriving here recently by boat.

No-one said it was their fault, but every single person added to the population is adding to the pressure on housing, schools, doctors, dentists, hospitals, transport.

How do you expect us to cope with an endless stream of new arrivals, whether legal or illegal, from all those countries on the map I posted?

Nano14

Yes, well said, Babs.

And I add my “well said” too!