I think you're misunderstanding the situation. Whether someone gets in or not has nothing at all to do with race.
Yes they are elitist and with good reason.
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Yes they are elitist and with good reason.
Well it's up to them isn't it. Once they decline asylum they become illegal immigrants.
And that's enough reason to sign their death warrant?
Alright, name one good reason for elitism?
To ensure that the person coming in stands a good chance of being a net contributor to the economy. If you are coming here for economic reasons, it makes good sense to ensure that the person in question will be an economic benefit to the country, otherwise, whats the point?
The decision's theirs isn't it. Either: yes you can apply for asylum or no you can return to your country. OK - I'll return to my country or OK- I'll apply for asylum. Not that difficult.
You realise we're talking about Syrians specifically here, right?
Even with wider immigration I'm not sure it holds up, how is elitism going to ensure that? Elitist policies are part of the reason most of us can't afford houses, how is a rich family coming here and buying a bunch of houses going do anything other than squeeze the middle classes? And rich people are the ones most capable of undercutting the taxman, made especially easier if you're discriminating towards rich people with residences in multiple countries. It helps no one but the already wealthy.
You're still failing to address the humanitarian side of it. How you can advocate a policy that leads to peoples death with such ease is astounding.
Read it again. They make the decision.
So they should be allowed to claim asylum in the UK and have their application processed, exactly what I was calling for. I'm not saying open up the borders to people trying to smuggle themselves in on wagons, but it's part of our humanitarian duty to at least process the asylum claims of those who have arrived on our border which is presently not being done.
The system isn't that elitist where only people with millions of pounds will be allowed in. Personally, I think its reasonable to check that an economic migrant who doesn't *have* to live in the UK will be a net contributor, that they will be able to get a decent job etc. It sounds like you'd rather not allow economic migrants at all? Or would you rather relax the economic migrancy rules to let more people in?
I'd probably weigh it so people from nations that aren't as well represented here have it easier. Would make the country more colourful. Majority of immigrants, regardless of reason for being here, are net contributors anyway.
Its a noble thought, but pretty sure that if you started discriminating against people from a certain country because there are too many of them here as it is you would be labeled racist
Any form of immigration control is racist so it wouldn't change anything.Its a noble thought, but pretty sure that if you started discriminating against people from a certain country because there are too many of them here as it is you would be labeled racist
No its not - as it doesn't discriminate on race. Your system does though.
In an ideal world I'd do away with borders completely, but it would just make it easier for more people to get exploited by corporations. As the stands, I'd rather have more different people than more well off people coming in. It is racist, but a kind of racism that makes society better. As it stands, it's close enough to impossible for ordinary people from certain nations to come here legally. How is that not discriminating on race?
You lost it at "In an ideal world".
Its discrimination based on ability to earn a crust certainly, but that type of discrimination is completely necessary - you can't just let everyone in. I couldn't care less where an economic migrant came from as long as they could make a contribution.
Managing to cross so many borders is a more difficult task than any job they'll apply for here.
I'm sure it is, but that isn't really relevant.
Guess we'll have to disagree on this point - we're going around in circles
I can't see a thread about this so I'll post it here - this has really shocked me, to think of how these poor people died and then were just abandoned.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-34083337
Austrian officials now say more than 70 bodies, thought to be migrants, were in an abandoned lorry found on a motorway.
They originally estimated that between 20 to 50 people died in the vehicle, found near the Hungarian border.
Police discovered the decomposing bodies on Thursday morning after being sent to investigate the dumped lorry on the A4 motorway heading towards Vienna.
The local police chief said it appeared those in the vehicle had been dead for one and a half to two days.
The victims were probably already dead when the vehicle crossed into Austria from Hungary, authorities said.
The vehicle was towed to a customs building with refrigeration facilities in Nickelsdorf on Thursday.
Forensic teams worked through the night to examine the bodies.
Austrian police are expected to reveal the exact toll at a news conference at 11:00 (09:00 GMT) on Friday.
The Austrian and Hungarian police are working together to try and find the driver.
The vehicle bears the logo of a Slovakian poultry company, Hyza, which said it no longer owned the vehicle - but the buyers had not removed the branding.
Hans Peter Doskozil, police chief in the Burgenland province where the lorry was found, said it was a refrigerated vehicle - not the typical choice for people smugglers, he added.
The lorry, which has Hungarian number plates, is understood to have left Budapest on Wednesday morning.
'Warning to Europe'
Tens of thousands of migrants from conflict-hit states in the Middle East and Africa have been trying to make their way to Europe in recent months. Some of them pay large sums of money to people smugglers to get them through borders illegally.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel, in Austria for a summit with Balkan leaders on the migrant crisis, said she was "shaken" by the "horrible" news.
"This is a warning to us to tackle this migrants issue quickly and in a European spirit, which means in a spirit of solidarity, and to find solutions," Mrs Merkel said.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-34083337
It's horrific. This too:
The worst refugee crisis since the second world war. What I don't understand (which is down mainly to my own ignorance) is why so many more people are upping sticks now than at any point in the last 70 years? Is the political instability in their countries of origin really worse than it has been in almost a century? It is down to those wankers in ISIS? What's the main driver here? Why are we seeing such historically unprecedented levels of mass migration?
The majority are coming from Iraq + Syria which has been a mess since Bashar al-Kalb decided to kill his own people, and since the West decided to go in there and fk it up. People can point to IS, but the thing about them is the majority of the land they own is desert, sparsely populated regions. There's obviously the Yazidi regions too, which were displaced so I'm not including them in what I said. Also, since NATO went in and got rid of Qadafi, there has been 3 different factions wrestling for control and so Libya is beginning to become as unstable as the rest.
These all came about after a 40-50 year dynasty in Syria, 40 year control in Iraq and 40 years in Libya. Now, I'm not saying that these are better options necessarily, but in terms of the loss of life, turmoil, and chaos, well then it's obvious which is better.
I think with Syria specifically, the people thought it might be over soon, like most of the other Arab spring incidents, but it's been rumbling on for 4 years, and considering the different number of players involved (Gov't, FSA, LF, al Nusra, Hezbollah, IS), the only realistic option to avoid joining the conflict yourself is leaving.
Ditto though, there's nearly always been strife in that part of the world. It's a bit odd that the numbers fleeing have increased so drastically.
As Uzz says, the political situation in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya in particular is a main contributor and while nobody in their right mind thinks that the Taliban, Bashar, Saddam or Qadafi were the best options, they were all equal opportunity despots who kept everybody down together and prevented the factional infighting we now see. Add to that the ongoing problems in Yemen, Somalia, Mali, Nigeria etc and there's clearly a fair number of people who see getting the feck out of dodge as the only reasonable option for their family's safety.
Why it all seems to have come at once is down largely to the hornets nests Bush and Blair chose to kick which have not only destabilized those specific battle fronts but also allowed the factional uprisings to spill over into neighbouring areas.
Politics is not the only driver though, we're more globally aware now than at any other time and that means that not only can we see how hard people in other places have it but that conversely they are led to believe that we have everything whilst our aid efforts to help people in situ tend to show that we have stuff to literally throw away. The globalization has also extended to increased ease of travel, more planes, more boats, more cars and trains and more freight heading back and forth makes it easier to make a break for it now than at any other time.
Even without the bloodshed and the ease of transport, the onset of climate change and our complete inability to get a handle on our overpopulation of the planet and our diminishing resources all mean that there will be many more desperate people year on year and that they will all look to head to the metaphorical high ground to keep their feet dry. Those of us born on the high ground should just be thankful we never have to experience the hardship many of those lower down the hill face and should do our best to make sure that it's not only our effluent that flows downhill.
The issue in the UK is also conflated by our acceptance of Schengen, over half the new migrants into the UK in the last 10 years are here perfectly legally under European law. Despite all the whinging the right does about Polish plumbers, Romanian beggars and the Hungarian hordes beating down our doors the simple fact is that we get a net income from the EU migrants into the UK and even where some do claim benefits the figures still show that the amount they take is lower than the amount paid out by other EU countries to British claimants there.
Thanks for interesting responses.
So, basically, a perfect storm of unprecedented socio-political instability in the middle east and Africa simultaneously, along with better options in for the migrants in terms of getting out of dodge.
Any link between what's going down on the two different continents?
So, basically, a perfect storm of unprecedented socio-political instability in the middle east and Africa simultaneously, along with better options in for the migrants in terms of getting out of dodge.
Any link between what's going down on the two different continents?
Developed and developing world sitting side by side, even without the west's political interference in recent years and the legacy of colonial exploitation and imperial aggression they are always likely to be uneasy bedfellows. The disparities in Europe between north and south don't help either as the migrants tend to arrive in the area worst able to deal with them whilst the disparities from east to west work similarly for the economic migrants from the former eastern bloc countries.
Yea, tbh Poguey, it was a ticking time bomb from Sykes Picot onwards in my opinion.
You want horrific - try this....
Warning - images might distress some
This isn't simply about people going oooooh I know - they have great benefits for the unemployed in the UK
Or
the other extreme - let everyone in be they refugees, asylum seekers or economic migrants....
If nothing else works, set up some sort of a naval blockade around the smuggling hotspots off the Libyan coast. But, the status quo cannot be allowed to continue.
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It would be good to spoiler that.
Those are terrible images.
There are two issues: refugees from sub-Saharan Africa who now have access to the south shore of the Med due to the collapse of centralised authority in Libya and refugees from failed Arab states like Syria and Libya itself. As regards the latter, many (nearly all) of what became sovereign Arab states were poor, largely ignored backwaters of the Ottoman Empire (built on the Balkans and Anatolia) long before Sykes Picot. Their problems and relative backwardness started long before the Europeans arrived in the 19th and early 20th century, even if that treaty created even more of a mess.
Christ. Those photos.
Here's something to provide some very different emotions.
http://www.middleeasteye.net/news/h...rian-refugees-1941795119#sthash.zuBQtKFo.dpuf
Would that happen in England or Ireland? I hope so, anyway.
Here's something to provide some very different emotions.
http://www.middleeasteye.net/news/h...rian-refugees-1941795119#sthash.zuBQtKFo.dpuf
Would that happen in England or Ireland? I hope so, anyway.
It's snarky as hell and not helpful - but funny because it's true lol
Warning: some disturbing images.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...mbol-yet-of-the-mediterranean-refugee-crisis/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...mbol-yet-of-the-mediterranean-refugee-crisis/
Yeah I posted some of those pics - I put them in a spoiler - but the post was still deleted (rightly so).
They really are horrible.
I restored your post, but as I'm on my phone I can't edit it. Would you be so kind as to replace the pictures with the link @Neutral ?
It's a desperately grim pic. At least they have the decency to spoiler it.
It really is quite difficult to know where to stand on the refugee issue. The volumes risking death to come over are unmanageable for the likes of Greece, but then again people are becoming desensitised to the human tragedy unfolding here.
It really is quite difficult to know where to stand on the refugee issue. The volumes risking death to come over are unmanageable for the likes of Greece, but then again people are becoming desensitised to the human tragedy unfolding here.
Why spoiler it? This is the sad reality of the situation. If that picture doesn't compell you to do something then nothing will. Even if it is something as small as a fb post or donation to a charity, ignoring it so we don't feel offended isn't the solution.
Humanity is so evil man...those photos are horrific.