It's obviously not working the amount of traffic coming over the channel

Some of the stories are heartbreaking but wouldn't the best thing to do and take them all back to France as soon as they land obviously make sure they are all checked illness wise

Otherwise more are going to die while crossing

They have left a safe county in France so send them back safely

UPTHEPORT wrote:It's obviously not working the amount of traffic coming over the channel

Some of the stories are heartbreaking but wouldn't the best thing to do and take them all back to France as soon as they land obviously make sure they are all checked illness wise

Otherwise more are going to die while crossing

They have left a safe county in France so send them back safely

You say :

They have left a safe county in France so send them back safely

So they go back to France to what? More misery?
After they have arrived back in France where do they go from there?

What would you say to other Counties if they called us a racist Country for sending them back?

What racist countries are these exactly? Perhaps they are the same ones that the refugees are escaping from in the first place. People should not attempt to gain the moral high ground here. There is no moral high ground.

The history of Britain is the history of inward migration. The early indigenous people, Celts, Picts, Iceanae, will themselves have arrived from elsewhere. Then the Romans arrived, (what did they ever do for us), then Angles, Jutes, Saxons and Normans. Other smaller groups followed. Religious refugees arrived including Jews and the Huguenots.

This country has a fabulous historical reputation of accepting refugees. Don’t attempt to tarnish it. You do yourself a disservice.

Massive vexed and nuanced issue this one and I don’t have all the answers! – I’m married to an immigrant (legal – more on that below) I also go to church where we have welcomed a lot of refugees some of whom I’ve chatted to along the way I’ve even been to an immigration tribunal to support an asylum seeker (not virtue signalling there - I didn’t have to speak but was there for moral support).

On the one hand there are those, such as my wife who jump through all the hoops to stay here legally – all of which have cost us £1000’s and a LOT of stress and heartache more galling as she is an NHS worker and taxpayer and single handedly props up a few retailers with regular clothing purchases (the latest wheeze - https://www.gov.uk/biometric-residence-permits) many of which are counterproductive and reductive but NOT I would argue ‘racist’ per se.

Then we have migrants – mainly asylum seekers, who enter the UK illegally for whatever reason – and by doing so de facto breach the ‘rules’ by not claiming asylum at their initial port of entry.

What’s to be done? Well rigid application of law would be a start point but not inhumane treatment (easier said than done I know!) and definitely speeding up tribunals as well as not being bowed by pressure whether mob as in Glasgow or political when deporting people (if we have tribunals some people will be denied leave to stay and should be deported otherwise the system is a mockery).

I can't remember the exact figures that I read 2 weeks ago but they were something like this.

In 2020, applications for asylum in the UK - 20,000. In France - 96,000.

The way that it's reported in the UK can give the impression that refugees only use France as a transit route when the opposite is true. Why do refugees risk death in an overloaded dinghy in the Channel? They speak English but not French maybe, or perhaps they have family or friends here but not in France.

One thing is for sure, they certainly risk death. And despite what some think, I very much doubt that folk that go through what these refugees go through to get here would settle for a life on welfare benefits.

CathedralCounty wrote:Massive vexed and nuanced issue this one and I don’t have all the answers! – I’m married to an immigrant (legal – more on that below) I also go to church where we have welcomed a lot of refugees some of whom I’ve chatted to along the way I’ve even been to an immigration tribunal to support an asylum seeker (not virtue signalling there - I didn’t have to speak but was there for moral support).

On the one hand there are those, such as my wife who jump through all the hoops to stay here legally – all of which have cost us £1000’s and a LOT of stress and heartache more galling as she is an NHS worker and taxpayer and single handedly props up a few retailers with regular clothing purchases (the latest wheeze - https://www.gov.uk/biometric-residence-permits) many of which are counterproductive and reductive but NOT I would argue ‘racist’ per se.

Then we have migrants – mainly asylum seekers, who enter the UK illegally for whatever reason – and by doing so de facto breach the ‘rules’ by not claiming asylum at their initial port of entry.

What’s to be done? Well rigid application of law would be a start point but not inhumane treatment (easier said than done I know!) and definitely speeding up tribunals as well as not being bowed by pressure whether mob as in Glasgow or political when deporting people (if we have tribunals some people will be denied leave to stay and should be deported otherwise the system is a mockery).

Interesting. I specialized in Immigration Appeal and more than half of my career would have been Asylum Appeals at the Immigration Appeal Tribunal. (IAT)

Here's the thing. If you lose an immigration appeal you have a right of appeal. However it has to be on a point of law. Now a friend of mine who was another immigration brief also lectured in Immigration Law at a London university. The government's attitude is always to keep changing the law. Case law which also forms a voluminous amount of law likewise changed on an almost daily basis. My friend told me that her university had decided no longer to teach immigration law simply because it changed too often.

Now when decisions are given by an immigration judge they have to be given in writing. If in closing submissions numerous points of law were raised the judge would have to rule on them. If you were even moderately clever almost invariably the judge would make an error, and you'd get leave to appeal.

Further because under the Human Rights Convention of 1950 or the Refugee Convention of 1951 removal won't be legal until appeal rights are exhausted. I doubt more than a thousand cases per month ever reached that final stage. Further with hundreds entering the UK every day once you had entered you would need to be very unlucky to be removed.

The system is a mockery. But don't blame the immigrant. S/He is simply a human being trying to make a better life. And in many cases is genuinely a refugee.

That seems ridiculous, Stan. Who (on either side) can hope to stay fully abreast of the legislation?

I lived over the road from a safe house for a time. We'd occasionally have visits from immigration officers asking us to browse photos of various moustachioed Mexicans, identifying any we recognised. We never identified any of the poor sods. They were there illegally to eek out a modest existence. We were there legally because we liked the weather.