So-called ‘migrant crisis’

I agree, Winterwhite. I wonder whether some of the vociferous opposition might be deflated if people understood more about the context.

I heard someone on this morning's TV explain that other EU countries host many times more refugees than we do; that the primary reasons for coming here are 1. Family links and 2. Language, they speak English.

Some are of course professionally qualified. Additionally, many hope and intend to return to their home countries when it is safe to do so.

I don't think people quite realise these factors are at play. If they did, it might quell many concerns (or prejudices).

It's a crisis alright for those poor souls in those boats.

I totally agree Winterwhite nothing more to add people need to wake up to the fact that anyone in need should be helped
I just hope these very xenophobic people are never in need of help from anyone outside their circle or country
We are all human beings trying to ‘live’ it matters not a jot where you come from If you need help and compassion we should be giving it

I don’t think that there is an appalling public reaction, just certain newspapers trying to stir things.
I don’t think any of the migrants intend going home though, if they really are from Iran or Syria.
There needs to be a deterrent factor as it’s incredibly dangerous to cross the busy Channel in a small dingy, especially if there are children in one.

Is it really worse for them to live in France than risk their very lives at sea?

I agree too winterwhite. Total over-reaction. Ridiculous. The patrol boats should be rescue boats. Poor so-and-so's. There was a ten year old boy on one of the boats.

Of course, part of the problem is that the English Channel is the busiest shipping lane in the world, so what they are doing is horribly dangerous.

Muslims and black people don't have the best of times in France.

The crisis is that for every person on a boat in our channel, there are 20?50?more? handing over their life savings and loved ones to criminal gangs on the promise of getting on those boats. Most of them wont get near the channel and will instead be sold/enslaved/used to bribe more money out of relatives/left for dead.

THAT is the crisis.
So it also brings the uncomfortable question about how if we take in one boat load, how many other people will that act encourage to hand themselves or their loved ones and every penny they own over to organised criminal gangs only to end up discarded or used nowhere near our shores?

Or drowned.

IMO the reason its often mostly men on the boats is because the women who pay trafficers are more likely to end up as sex slaves than getting to the channel, in possibly worse situations than they left.

Lots of gangs who promise trafficking to "safe" Britain have no intention of even getting their victims as far as Europe. A rescued boat here = dollar signs in their eyes. It means they can sell their lies more easily.

So how to get the message out to them that it's not worth their while, money or lives to believe these appalling traffickers?

There is a (yes completely fictional) episode of Our Girl which shows what a neat little promise Britain can be for the likes of paedophile rings who want to entice orphans in disaster areas away from the relative safety of NGOs and orphanages. Footage of brits rescuing boat loads with apparently open arms would be a gift to such gangs. Of course in the plot the kids were never destined for Europe at all.

Yes that was a story/drama....but it makes you think!

How and where will we accommodate everyone that has already, and those that want to come, to our shores? We already have a record number of people living on the streets and their appears to be no grand plan by this, or any previous government, to build any more suitable accommodation for them. So what will happen to those arriving now and those planning to arrive in the future?
The Guardian analysis of Home Office data, shows that more than half of all asylum seekers (57%) housed by the government are done so in the poorest third of the country. Some areas are refusing to accept any more because they can't accommodate those that they already have.

So how? And where? And how will it all be financed?

I dont know Jane it is desperately sad either way.

But the consequences of rescueing say 20, which doesnt seem a lot and surely we can put them up, could encourage hundreds more to hand themselves over to gangs..

.....yet those 20 are human beings and its so cold and utilitarian to abandon them for the sake of the greater good for others...

Chewbacca homelessness it not as much to do with a physical lack of houses as it may at first appear. Many of our homeless have been housed but then have become homeless again because other services werent put in place to help them stay off the streets.

We are not out of space. We HAVE enough buildings (many empty) for everyone.

We need to learn to differentiate between migrant, asylum seeker and refugee.
The msm tends to blur these definitions.

www.habitatforhumanity.org.uk/blog/2016/09/refugees-asylum-seekers-migrants-crucial-difference/

Jane10
how to get the message out to them
I'm afraid we can't. Who would you believe while sitting in a camp in Serbia, one of your own kind ( controlled by Albanians) or an English gentleman from the embassy telling you what's really going to happen?

But it's not just a question of finding accommodation is it? There are the ancillary services that have to accompany them; health services, adequate public transport network, schools, health services, translation services, support networks. The poorest areas of Great Britain, that do have these available, are already stretched to breaking point and are saying that they cannot accept more.

At the end of 2016 there were 39,389 asylum seekers in the country receiving some support from the government. The north-west houses 9,491 asylum seekers, 16 times the number accommodated by local authorities in the south-east (580), despite the south-east having a larger population than the north-west by 1.7 million people.

Ten local authorities are responsible for supporting more than one third of all asylum seekers in the UK (35.5%). Six of these – Manchester, Bolton, Rochdale, Nottingham, Leicester and Swansea – have a median annual income that places them in the poorest 25% of the country"

So is it understandable that residents in those areas are reluctant to accept more? And how would it be enforced that more affluent areas of the country must take asylum seekers into their area and provide all the support networks that are needed?

There's an item on the BBC website about the real nationality of many asylum seekers.

A Norwegian recently successfully claimed asylum in Poland.. the Calais/channel/people trafficking issue isn't necessarily typical of asylum seekers in general and is its own distinct issue.

But I think the OP meant the people trafficking/channel crossing issue?

notanan2
On what grounds did a Norwegian claim asylum in Poland?
Most of the Iranians now crossing the channel went to Serbia after Serbia granted visa free travel to Iranians.
Obtaining a false passport there is easy, and as the border between Serbia and Croatia is very weak and open to corruption it must appear attractive to those waiting to come.

She was afraid of forced adoption

I feel very sorry for these people, my neighbour is Iranian and does go back to Iran occasionally. Like most theocracies, what they have there is awful, can a hardline religious government ever be anything else. I don't know what the answer is, it's human nature to want to escape the harsh reality of what the Iranian people live under. I believe many of those seeking to come here are educated and would most likely be an asset. However, what starts off as a trickle rarely stays like that, hence the situation in the Mediterranean. Italy has the government it elected because they were left to get on with the surge of refugees that built up year on year crossing the Mediterranean with little practical help from the rest of the EU, nothing really got sorted and they like Greece remained put upon. Our country whilst being relatively wealthy has finite housing and infrastructure. We already have a problem with more homeless on the street than ever before. It's quite possible of course that some of these migrants may well have family here already who could sponsor them. Meanwhile, there are also several counties in the EU that are now underpopulated, Hungary for example and some of the Baltic states such as Lithuania and Latvia have experienced an exodus of their working populations, so much so that they can't get people to fill key positions. Nevertheless, some countries in the eastern bloc continue to dig their heels in as to taking in anybody who is not white and Christian and that seems to remain a stalemate position as far as I'm aware. Brussels appears to have made little progress in persuading those countries to change their stance. Into the mix, is the fact that migrants are exploited by criminal gangs, Albanians in particular seem to be a the fore of generally trafficking everything from people to arms, and clearly they don't care who dies in the process.

Picture this.
Place a saucer on a bowl of water and it floats. Add a cup of water and cup by cup, add more until it sinks.
That's what is happening to the UK. We are that saucer and our infrastructure cannot sustain an influx of the proportions currently invading our shores.
Many, from Sudan and similar areas, have not stopped at the first safe country. I wonder why?
Their way of life is often incompatible with ours, their treatment of women is, in the main, highly questionable and undesirable.
They have no I mention of integrating, they like grouping together in enclaves, their own foods, own morals and own 'manors'.
I'd feel upset if numbers weren't cut...drastically cut and if their sworn assertion of being under 20 wasn't vigorously questioned and investigated.
France has MUCH more land than we have, twice as much and their population is only 2 million more, 64m v 62m.
Let migrants sort out their own country instead of inflicting themselves on our economy.
No wonder they lie and tear up their papers. Where do they get the thousands necessary to pay a gangmaster to get them here?
The more I hear the more I want us to cut numbers to the bone.