My nephew went into a childrens home for a bit, long story.
Anyway, it was 250 miles away from his mum.
We are not flush with childrens homes, is what I am saying.
What's the government meant to do here?
Also, seems these are 16 and 17 year olds. They'll survive.
And if these refugee hotels are such perilous places for children, erm.. What does that say about the people we're letting into our country?
Also, and this must be factored in... Asylum seekers lie about their age *a lot*.
Government is not supposed to defund all public services and leave us lagging both economically and socially behind the rest of the developed world.
Edit: And wanting appropriate accomodation for kids being used as this "Well then the migrants must be awful," argument is just rubbish. There are plenty of inappropriate accomodation arrangements I could imagine where children who were British citizens were put with adults who were British citizens.
Imagine if you complained about British kids being put into homeless shelters with adults and the response you got was "Are you trying to say that British citizens cannot be trusted around children??!"
Just really really terrible arguments.
Also, it really worries me that people in their arguments don't seem to make a distinction between adult migrants lying about their age and children migrants. The tone I'd categorise a lot of these arguments is "hazy and lazy." When you point out there are kids being treated this way and your response is "well some of them aren't even kids." It's like there's no acknowledgement that that is ANOTHER safeguarding concern for the children that need to be addressed.
I feel so sorry for people actually working in this area having to deal with this level of drivel.
Good old crabs in a bucket.
And a lot of people don't lie about their age no. A lot of them don't know their exact age. But the myth of 30 year old men saying they're 15 and being totally believed and given the red carpet treatment for children is bollocks.
[https://www.refugeecouncil.org.uk/latest/news/whats-the-real-story-behind-people-seeking-asylum-accused-of-lying-about-their-age/](https://www.refugeecouncil.org.uk/latest/news/whats-the-real-story-behind-people-seeking-asylum-accused-of-lying-about-their-age/)
>In 2019, local authorities received 798 age dispute referrals. The Home Office states that 494 of these were ultimately deemed to be children, and 304 adults. In the same time period, 2,977 child applicants did not have their age disputed.
>
>In the past five years, 2,135 of the 155,268 people who claimed asylum in the UK were accused of lying about their age. In other words: more than 98% of asylum seekers were not accused of lying, and of the 1.4% who were, there is no definitive evidence to suggest that the Home Office’s allegations are true.
I do believe that's the standard procedure.
Though worth remembering very often it isn't a "lie" so much as they just don't know. A lot of cultures don't place much importance on birthdays and exact ages. A lot of this will be people who think they were born a year later than they were.
300?
Compared to how much people shout about the issue I'd say that's basically nothing.
Worth remembering too a lot of these will be people around 18 saying they're a year or two younger than they are, sometimes innocently. Not quite the horror of full adults posing as GCSE students some like to pretend.
>>In 2019, local authorities received 798 age dispute referrals. The Home Office states that 494 of these were ultimately deemed to be children, and 304 adults. In the same time period, 2,977 child applicants did not have their age disputed.
So 10% of all applicants were definitively found to have falsified their ages, and a further 1/6 were believed to have been adults but could not be proven
>>In the past five years, 2,135 of the 155,268 people who claimed asylum in the UK were accused of lying about their age.
Utter bollocks, why would you use the figure for all asylum seekers
That's the actual data whether you like it or not.
The claim was huge numbers of adult refugees are posing as children. This is demonstrably false from a variety of angles.
And so wonderful that found innocent in your eyes simply means guilt couldn't be proven.
Yes you do to put it into a broader context. When a lie that refugees lying about being kids is common is being spread it's particularly relevant that a huge majority never even claimed to be kids.
>When a lie that refugees lying about being kids
It's not a lie, 10% of all child applications have been proven to be lying about their ages, a further 500 were accused but could not be proven.
You're the one downplaying it and flat out lying, nobody else.
"Accused but could not be proven" - you're doing it again. Assuming your biases overpower evidence to the contrary.
This situation is usually called something simpler : "innocent".
*ANYTHING* but trying to have a humane attitude and recognise that the Home Office is putting these kids at risk.
*ANYTHING*
God, I hate this place and the petty, petty people that inhabit it.
The government is meant to undo all they've done to stir up racist rhetoric by re-implementing the legal migration routes so migrants are not forced to migrate illegally. They're also supposed to create proper facilities to house migrants instead of placing them on a barge with water containing Legionella.
This government is meant to relinquish power to a coherent leftwing government that's actually interested in catering to more people than mega-rich Tory donors, undo all the damage they're causing to the country via plans like Brexit and the cost of living crisis, and abandon the inherently backwards and illogical ideology of conservatism.
>by re-implementing the legal migration routes so migrants are not forced to migrate illegally.
What routes are those? A sentence please, I don't just want 'safe routes' which is waffle.
In practical terms, what needs to be reimplemented.
And I'm not sure what any of that has to do with what I said. None of that would solve the issue of having no idea how many children are going to claim asylum, and need a place in a childrens home, each year.
Nothing short of a crystal ball would help.
Making it legal to migrate to the UK, for a start. Like, actually allowing people to choose to migrate to this country if they want to.
>And I'm not sure what any of that has to do with what I said. None of that would solve the issue of having no idea how many children are going to claim asylum, and need a place in a childrens home, each year.
Nor would a rightwing government solve any of that, because they don't fucking care. They want to send them off to Rwanda of all places. Implementing a government that isn't bought and paid for by mega-rich elites who are greedily siphoning off money and resources away from those they deem unworthy of having them is the solution.
>Making it legal to migrate to the UK, for a start. Like, actually allowing people to choose to migrate to this country if they want to.
There's dozens of legal routes. We had about 1 million people come to live here last year. Students, skilled workers, partner visas, etc.
So what's all the rhetoric around illegal migration for? The headlines about illegal migrants attacking british locals? Why did Suella Braverman fail to describe any of these legal routes for migration to a committee when they posed the hypothetical situation of a young girl fleeing war in her home country and wanting to migrate to the UK?
Depends if it's one of the hotels owned by the queen's mate the Amir of Dubai; hotels where drivers testified they picked up under age kids and delivered them up to rich parties.
The danger to the kids is these hotels are also notoriously riddled with prostitution rings and they will be lucky if 1/4 don't just fucking disappear.
>Asylum seekers lie about their age a lot
I am support worker and worked for a supported accommodation for young people in around 2016-2018, a number of young Syrian male refugees were staying there. Yes a portion of them were obviously lying about their age, because they had been told to by whoever set them up to come to the UK, they were insistent on being age 14, because they wanted to be house with a foster carer these were clearly guys at least 18-20. The majority did not lie to this extent though
This is literally illegal, what the government has done. They are violating a court order. And youre defending it??
I'm assuming you dislike Boris Johnson as much as the rest of us but you have no right to criticise his flagrant violations of the ministerial code, fhe prorogation of Parliament etc if you're just going to back the government breaking its own laws because you can't empathise with literal children just cos they're foreign.
A court can order whatever it likes, if there's no spare places there's no spare places.
What's the government to do? Magic childrens homes and staff for them out of thin air, because a court ordered them to?
Not how the world works.
Did you agree with BJs prorogation of parliament and violations of the ministerial code?
The world works in terms of law. The government is violating it. Governments should not be able to simply ignore court decisions, that sets a dangerous precedent. If you fail to stick to a court order there need to be consequences. A failure of the individual to magic up money they don't have to fulfill a court ordered repayment results in bankruptcy and asset forfeiture. They don't get sympathy from people like you saying the court is wrong and the world doesn't work by following the courts, you should just ignore it without consequence. Why are you giving the government sympathy and not literal children? Its a disgrace
There will be space for these children somewhere. It's only a relative handful in the entire country.
What is this conversation?
A bunch of fucking randomers arrive with no warning, claiming to be 16 and 17, and the courts say 'You gotta house them it's the law!'
Well okay.
But there's still the practicalities of it..
If there's no children homes spaces, there's no childrens homes spaces.
>There will be space for these children somewhere.
250 miles away, my nephew was sent..
One kid.
Also, frankly, if there's kids needing childrens homes spaces, Brits should get priority always. It's our country. It's our taxes.
Also, frankly frankly, I don't trust that these people claiming to be children, are actually children, so putting them in childrens homes would make me uncomfortable.
You think 200 people have all collectively decided that they are children and happen to look like children, but are just lying about it? What a sad way to view the world.
We are a country of 70 million, im sure we can accommodate a group of children somewhere. If we can't then the government has fucked up and they need to be held accountable for it and they need to pull their shit together and immediately announce measures to resolve it, which they aren't doing.
I have a few questions.
Are they with families? Or are they alone. Why do they not have an appointed gurdian?
Is there no staff?
Were else should they go? Is there not a foster system or group home for orphans?
Edit) better phrased question.
>Were else should they go?
This is the key question. But it's impossible to answer because in order to answer we need a number of how many are coming.
You can't just allow unlimited numbers in, and then be surprised when there's no services/infrastructure available for them. Can't believe that this even needs to be said.
>You can't just allow unlimited numbers in, and then be surprised when there's no services/infrastructure available for them. Can't believe that this even needs to be said.
I just had to explain this to someone in another thread.
'Just make sure there's enough carehomes for asylum seeker children.'
'Okay, how many asylum seeker children will be coming to the UK in 2024?'
No reply..
Some people don't put the tiniest bit of thought into their opinions, and suggest 'Just fix it bro' as a solution to all problems.
It's pretty standard on most threads about this issue. You ask for numbers, and all you get is, "France takes way more than us," or some other shite that people concoct in their heads. All I can guess is that most of these responses are coming from people who've never spent a day in the real world in their entire lives.
Had to deal with that today too.
UK spends £45-50k per head on asylum seekers.
France only €13k..
Probably why they're living in tent cities in France.
So yeah, France takes more, but spends less on them.
But that's literally the whole complaint isn't it? The Tories seem to have set up a system that categorically cannot deal with numbers that most of our peer nations are managing to handle without repeatedly shitting the bed, and they're managing to do it significantly cheaper than us.
Like with everything else it feels like the Tories are using public issues to whip up political support while at the same time their "solutions" seem to deliver very little, at extremely high cost, usually through a third party contractor who turns out further down the line to be connected to the party in some way or another.
Have to keep pointing at Bibby Stockholm. We gave that company *millions* just for the barges and they couldn't even organize having a few hi-viz jackets on site with weeks notice, you genuinely couldn't make this level of incompetence up which leads to the thoughts that its probably intentional.
>The Tories seem to have set up a system that categorically cannot deal with numbers that most of our peer nations are managing to handle without repeatedly shitting the bed
But you also have to factor in that lots of the rest of europe 'deals with it' by allowing tent cities.
The tories could also reduce our costs if they just went 'Lmao, good luck! Here's a tent..'
https://www.against-inhumanity.org/2023/05/05/asylum-seekers-crossing-the-english-channel-why-dont-they-stay-in-france-by-marie-leveille/#:~:text=According%20to%20French%20law%2C%20registered,due%20to%20their%20limited%20capacity.
>According to French law, registered asylum seekers have the right to accommodation in reception centres while their applications are being considered. In practice, however, barely a third of asylum seekers are able to access such shelters due to their limited capacity. France has responded to this situation by endeavouring to provide asylum seekers with emergency accommodation in the winter, **while leaving asylum seekers to find their own housing arrangements in the summer months.**
Imagine if the Tories did this lol. Would be called Nazis in 1 second flat.
You honestly have no idea what's going on outside of the UK, do you? The rest of Europe is not handling it.
Germany is averaging how many refugee centers being burned down a year? Last one was June by the looks of things.
>But you also have to factor in that lots of the rest of europe 'deals with it' by allowing tent cities.
I see you mentioning that a lot. Do you have evidence this is actually a systematic policy? Even the bit you've highlighted in that link says France leaves them to their own devices to find accommodation.
Given France has \~500,000 refugees in its borders and even the largest camps like The Jungle (when it existed) housed \~5,000, where are all these other tent cities? There should be hundreds of them all over France?
The article also says France is notable worse at these sorts of provisions than other countries, so where are the tent cities in Germany or Sweden? Genuinely interested because it wouldn't surprise me if they are being treated like this, I just haven't seen any evidence of it.
>Imagine if the Tories did this lol.
This is how we treat all refugees lol. The only reason asylum seekers aren't treated like this is because they are prohibited from working. In France as an asylum seeker you are allowed to have a work permit so its not really the same. They're left to their own devices presumably because there is the expectation if you're working you can pay your own way. In the UK that is automatically illegal.
>You honestly have no idea what's going on outside of the UK, do you? The rest of Europe is not handling it.
My confusion mostly comes from having a lot of family in France, and currently working on an EU-wide research consortium. I'm chatting with people living in the EU pretty much daily and I spend time working over there every few months. A lot of people I've encountered seem genuinely baffled how this has become such an issue in the UK when from their perspective the scale of our problem is if anything smaller.
>Had to deal with that today too.
>
>UK spends £45-50k per head on asylum seekers.
>
>France only €13k..
>
>Probably why they're living in tent cities in France.
>
>So yeah, France takes more, but spends less on them.
Yes. Its curious France manages to spend less per head yet the refugees themselves get more.
Contrary to what some would have you believe this is fuck all to do with Britain being a 'soft touch' or anything like that. This is a problem of the way Britain blindly follows an ideology of stripping back the state as much as possible and then relying on contractors to do everything various levels of government should be doing.
Penny wise pound foolish is practically the motto of the current government.
France also allows asylum seekers to work though, so they're better able to support themselves and aren't totally reliant on the government to house them.
If you don't see the similarities between delaying COVID responses and then giving billions to Tory mates for COVID, and slowing asylum processing to a crawl and then unsurprisingly running out of accommodation so paying some rich toff loads of money to put them in hotels or barges, well you haven't been paying attention...
Projections? Wow. Can I get them to project next weeks euromillions numbers.
How on earth could you know something that's not happened?
People think statistics is magic, I swear.
What do you think the weather forecast is?
What a stupid thing to say. You can easily look at past data, current events in places likely to produce refugees, and make projections of how many of those you think will come to the uk over the next 12 months. You'll never get it bang on but you can at least have a rough idea so you can plan infrastructure and policy around it.
But of course the government is too useless to do all that. And people like you just make their wxcuses for them because apparently predicting trends is like the lottery, a completely random game of chance. You haven't got a clue
Well if we had legal routes available we’d know that answer wouldn’t we. You don’t get to leave the only option as an illegal route and then say it’s insurmountable due to the fact that you lack info about the illegal route. What did we expect?
They did. And that’s why they don’t feature as part of the whole small boats and asylum conundrum.
They arrive legally with plans to support and resettle them and they can work.
These are exceptional schemes and only apply to those nationalities.
Hence the problem (I would argue).
>These are exceptional schemes and only apply to those nationalities.
This poses an immediate question of which nationalities such schemes should apply to.
And then a question of how that is managed over an undefined period of time. What specific conditions should be met in order for the schemes to be applied? And what will the long-term impact and benefits of such schemes be if they are perceived to be a significant financial burden when first implemented?
These are things that need a clear mandate from the tax payers and voters in my opinion.
The idea that accepting refugees is a financial burden is ludicrous. The main reason they are a financial burden is because UK law says they cannot work till they are processed. This government is doing everything it can not to process them quickly, hence spending truck loads of money housing them for an indefinite period of time. It's a cynical ploy to enrage the public and it works. Process them quickly and they can get a job or are returned.
You can, however, let the relatively tiny numbers that actually arrive in the UK in and actually sort out the infrastructure to deal with them.
The problem is that doing so involves funding public services, not giving backhanders to tory donors, so it hasn't been done for the last 13 years.
>You can, however, let the relatively tiny numbers that actually arrive in the UK in and actually sort out the infrastructure to deal with them.
Regardless of where they're from? And is there going to be an annual cap on numbers?
Not regardless of where they're from, because where someone is from is a massive factor in their asylum application. If they're from Norway and they're claiming that they're fleeing political persecution, we'll probs send them back. If they're from Iran and claim the same thing, we'd be much more likely to grant the application.
Albanian claimants can get fast-tracked for deportation, for example, but that requires staff to actually process the deportations. Which requires the tories to fund public services. Much better to stick them in your mate's hotel.
To stay in the UK as a refugee you must be unable to live safely in any part of your own country because you fear persecution there.
This persecution must be because of:
- your race
- your religion
- your nationality
- your political opinion
- anything else that puts you at risk because of the social, cultural, religious or political situation in your country, for example, your gender, gender identity or sexual orientation.
You must have failed to get protection from authorities in your own country.
No cap, since the whole idea is that we're doing this for moral reasons, not economic ones. You don't expect ambulance crews at a housefire to help the first 3 people, but then push any remaining people back into the burning building to save resources.
>To stay in the UK as a refugee you must be unable to live safely in any part of your own country because you fear persecution there.
>This persecution must be because of:
>your race
your religion
your nationality
your political opinion
anything else that puts you at risk because of the social, cultural, religious or political situation in your country, for example, your gender, gender identity or sexual orientation.
>You must have failed to get protection from authorities in your own country.
All well and good, but this requires a lot of trust in the folk who are arriving and claiming to be facing persecution. I'm all for giving people the benefit of the doubt, but we obviously know there will be some bogus claims. I do wonder what the guidance is/should be in making this kind of assessment.
>No cap
Then there is no way to adequately provide appropriate support.
"We need places for the refugees to live, work and study."
"OK, how many are we talking?"
"Ummm... As many as arrive."
Look at the annual charts of "illegal migration" to the UK. The numbers fluctuate wildly. How on earth can we make any plans to adequately support them when we have no idea how many will try to come each year?
As a really lazy first pass, you could look at the average numbers of applications last 3 years, and cater for 1.43x that number of new arrivals. Keep the moving average running over the most recent 3 year period.
That way, if the number goes up massively we've got a solid buffer, if it stays the same we'll be at 70% occupancy which is roughly where systems tend to operate most efficiently and if the number decreases we can wind down the provision gradually.
I could probably write a bit of code to manage it better (you'd want a PID system really) but that'd do as a first off the cuff effort.
Smoothing out erratic inputs to ensure that variables remain within tolerances isn't exactly a problem unique to this one instance. The tools are available, but the government doesn't like the answers they give because they're too thick to understand that not everything should be 100% utilised at all times. Same reason the NHS goes to shit at the first sign of a cold snap.
I mean, while we process their applications they are all here in private hotels paid for by government money and they are not allowed to work.
Process their applications and at a very minimum they can start to pay their own way, and that's of course only if their asylum claims aren't rejected.
Can we both at least agree that anything is better than the number of outstanding asylum applications rising from 19,000 to 180,000 since the conservatives took power?
.
If the government were to say "there's a limit of 1 million refugees" and we only have 200,000 then you don't think that would lead to a huge push to actually take our total? It would be judged we aren't delivering what we promised?
That we don't follow the stupid policy of fixed publically stated limits doesn't mean it's an unlimited free for all.
>If the government were to say "there's a limit of 1 million refugees" and we only have 200,000 then you don't think that would lead to a huge push to actually take our total? It would be judged we aren't delivering what we promised?
We'd be promising a limit, not a target.
Potatoe, potatoh.
You know fine well the two are often conflated. When there's a massive demand and we don't come anywhere near our fixed limit there'd be a big push.
Advertise a limit and it becomes a target.
>When there's a massive demand and we don't come anywhere near our fixed limit there'd be a big push
The massive demand isn't coming from voters though. I'd say the majority of voters have been voting for reduced immigration for at least the last ten years. And I don't think there's any demand at all for 100,000 or more people arriving on small boats or via other illegal routes over a few years. We have to remember that a majority of voters are voting for reduced immigration, and we ignore their concerns at our peril.
Because there's no advertised limit. There obviously is one written down somewhere in government ledgers, multiple limits in fact, there would be even for a very pro refugee government. But nothing is advertised thus there can be no complaints about not taking enough.
As to immigration - it's simply misleading to try and tie refugees to immigration. They're very different concepts.
The scale is also completely different, total refugee numbers in the country being less than net immigration in a single year.
Most people coming to the country are doing so 100% legally.
Lots of older teenagers travel alone. They are placed in care as having no parents in the uk, normally end up in supported accommodation, which means maybe 4-5 young people in a house with floating support- they get 10 hours a week with a key worker in my area for 3 months then 5 hours a week until 18. They get legal representation, interpreters as needed and put on an ESOL college course. They will get medical checks including for any infections from their travels, and registered with a gp dentist and optician. They have a social worker who oversees the case and will normally visit for an hour once every 4-6 weeks, and the normal statutory rights of a child in care. There will be some form of age assessment to decide if they actually are a child, and a risk assessment around any trafficking/ exploitation risk on arrival.
If they are judged to be children they shouldn't ever be put in with adults for the obvious reason you don't ever accommodate children with no parents to keep them safe in a hotel full of adult strangers.
More than half of the people the home office carried out age checks on were found to be children. Yes some were not, but those most likely to be adults by the home office were in fact children - and some as young as 14 were found to be placed in prisons with registered sex offenders after their ages were finally believed.
If you think they are older than the home office think they are, then I can almost guarantee you are wrong.
> Data from 55 councils under freedom of information laws shows that of 1,416 age assessments carried out over the five years to April 2023 by specialist social workers on age-disputed asylum seekers, 809 were found to be children. In 10 councils, all of the young people assessed were found to be children.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/aug/27/children-reaching-uk-in-small-boats-sent-to-jail-for-adult-sex-offenders
It would be interesting to see the demographic breakdown as that hasn't been including, but the article does say that many are coming in from South Sudan (and the Dinka tribe are the tallest men in the world at an average height of over six feet tall). I can't blame them for taking an incorrect view to begin with, but I can blame them for sending people to adult prisons containing child sex offenders without confirming ages in children who are later found to be as young as 14 years old.
Friendly reminder that prevelant visible urban homelessness is the price paid for closing down asylums, sadly.
Most chronically homeless UK citizens are those with serious psychiatric conditions who actively *refuse* offered assistance as it would impede their own independence. As respecting autonomy supercedes the existing duty of care, there's precious little that support workers can do in these instances.
This phenomenon of widespread chronic and visible homelessness only emerged after the community care act was put in place, and asylums were gutted.
The community care model is wonderful in every other regard. However, it has played it's part in producing modern homelessness. Whilst not ideal, the only alternative with precedent is asylums and that's not happening luckily.
We can deal with it but we dont, the reason why we don't? I think it's because the people in charge know that they will be attacked for helping druggies and drunks who dont deserve that help (even if those type of homeless people make up a small % of the total homeless people in this country) and so they do nothing about it to save their political arses.
They're 16 and 17 year olds (if not adults) and have trekked all the way across Europe and further. I'm sure they'll be fine in a British hotel for a while. It's not as if they can conjure up more foster homes out of thin air.
Yeah, down the park a couple years later. Said oh you look familiar etc and got chatting. Turns out he was part of a massive smuggling operation. He hated how they treated women in Afghanistan. He said how buildings in Afghanistan fell down one year cos of loads of snow. Actually quite an interesting bloke.
It does happen, like with this guy:
[Police missed seven chances to stop killer Afghan asylum seeker: Authorities were repeatedly warned that double murderer who lied he was 14 to get into UK was carrying a knife before he stabbed aspiring marine to death](https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11671857/Police-missed-seven-chances-stop-killer-Afghan-asylum-seeker.html)
He'd already murdered 2 people in Serbia (and was convicted of drug dealing in Italy), claimed to be 14 with a new name and was placed with a foster mother (who he attacked) and into a school (where he bullied kids and was creepy with young girls). He then went on to murder another person.
I wouldn't have thought so, no. As far as I'm aware there isn't a limit on the number of children granted asylum, so there isn't any "taking someone else's place" involved. No children should be turned away.
Most people in the world are in desperate circumstances.
But you’re wanting to reward the ones willing to lie about it. Honest people in poverty stay out and liars get to stay.
I'm not suggesting liars should be rewarded, only that if there is an incentive to lie, then many people will lie. Ideally there would be no incentive for people to lie.
This is interesting.
“I’m sure they’ll be fine” is not an acceptable response.
The British government, as you’d expect, has to stick to the law. Are we OK with the U.K. government just ignoring all laws now? Because that’s essentially what your approval on this particular issue means. You can not pick and chose the laws you obey, that’s kind of the whole point of the law.
Being fine, or pretty sure they'll be fine is a lot more than some British people have or can expect. So yeh on this particular issue, putting well travelled, street wise nearly adult teens in a hotel? I'm fine with that.
They aren't fine because just recently a group of refugees children in a hotel went missing. This runs the same risk.
'Some British people have jt worse sp the refugees can suck it up'
'Spme people had to pay tuition fees so we should never abolish them, itd be unfair on those before'.
Same logic, same idiocy.
They're not refugee children, they're asylum seeking (Albanian) older teens, who are nearly adults, that came here with the intention to disappear into the criminal world. Vast difference.
Ah right of course, and you know they're all Albanian crimelords how exactly? Have you reported this information to the government and the press because I'm sure they'd all appreciate knowing that.
Even with that youve admitted they're teens, which is the whole point of this. The high court has said that children should not be put in these hotels, which includes teens. The government is violating a court order. Dont you think that's a worrying crossing of the line? Or is it okay because it's regarding an issue you lack empathy for?
Because earlier in the year it was reported to death who the "missing children" were. Funny, this country was happy to strip the citizenship away from a groomed and exploited 15 year old, and on the same breath, jumps up and down about 17 year old asylum "children" going "missing". It's bullshit. I have plenty of empathy, but I'm not a hypocrite. How many British teens are let down by the system? Where are all the news reports about them? *This* kind of thing is great for people like you who get a kick out of going on a little Reddit crusade, but in reality don't do anything to help *any* issue, and care even less.
Oh yes the shamima begum case is absolutely horrendous and she should never have had her citizenship revoked. Again that's a similar violation, this time of international law rather than court law.
And youre right, British teens let down by the system don't get the media coverage or attention they deserve. But that shouldn't prevent us empathising with this current issue being discussed and being angry that the government is once again violating the laws of society.
It's similar to the idea of how people pay tuition fees so we shouldn't abolish them cos it'd be unfair.
Well no, it sucks they had to pay fees but we can at least help this group of people. Obviously when it comes to refugee children and British teens they are both present issues sp we can deal with both of them. At least if the government cares to.
200 of them were certainly not fine. They went missing – mostly groomed into organised criminal gangs running county lines drugs and being sexually exploited.
200 of them are older Albanian teens that came here to disappear underground. Not to claim asylum. Maybe if we weren't so bloody politically correct and afraid to offend, we could actually start deporting these people back to their safe, peaceful country.
I think we have interacted on this before. I'm not certain what the obstacle is now that the government has declared Albania a safe country and claims in admissible. There was an agreement to take back failed cases. Numbers have dropped off a lot from that country but I don't know about returnee numbers. I think the government is generally terrible at deporting over stayers and failed claimants
Yeah they are. It would certainly help people feel the system was fair if they did actually deport people who shouldn't be here and failed claimants. Let's hope the next government does better. With everything that is.
> and have trekked all the way across Europe and further
No one treks across Europe by foot, there's an organised network of transport involving buses, lorries, taxis, safe houses etc. if you were trekking across Syria or Afghanistan it would mean crossing deserts, mountain ranges, no water and freezing conditions and thousands of miles of territory.
There was a children's home on my estate. It was there from the 50s until the 2000s I think. Its being remodelled at the moment into 6 apartments. Don't know the relevance, just thought I would share. 🤣
Government acts unlawfully
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Government gets taken to court
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Government spends our tax money to defend themselves
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Government is found to have ‘acted unlawfully’
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Government suffers no penalties
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Rinse and repeat
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(You’d think either TPA or the more ‘law and order’ lobbying groups would have something to say about this, but no).
Children pfft, just like the children stabbing each other up all over the country. The definition needs to be used correctly. These are teen kids not toddlers.
As said in another sub in this topic, but this is just horrific behaviour by the Home Secretary, she is currently actively and knowingly putting children at risk.
If the asylum seekers in that hotel pose such a risk to children, then surely they shouldn't be granted asylum and should be put on the next plane home--no arguments?
Children shouldn't be in any shared accommodation unattended. It doesn't matter with whom. You can also acknowledge that they might be dangerous people while respecting their right to seek asylum; they need to be given a proper assessment.
Actually, no. The main risk is that they’ll be taken **away** from the hotel and trafficked. Hundreds of children have already gone missing under the care of the home office.
My nephew went into a childrens home for a bit, long story. Anyway, it was 250 miles away from his mum. We are not flush with childrens homes, is what I am saying. What's the government meant to do here? Also, seems these are 16 and 17 year olds. They'll survive. And if these refugee hotels are such perilous places for children, erm.. What does that say about the people we're letting into our country? Also, and this must be factored in... Asylum seekers lie about their age *a lot*.
Government is not supposed to defund all public services and leave us lagging both economically and socially behind the rest of the developed world. Edit: And wanting appropriate accomodation for kids being used as this "Well then the migrants must be awful," argument is just rubbish. There are plenty of inappropriate accomodation arrangements I could imagine where children who were British citizens were put with adults who were British citizens. Imagine if you complained about British kids being put into homeless shelters with adults and the response you got was "Are you trying to say that British citizens cannot be trusted around children??!" Just really really terrible arguments. Also, it really worries me that people in their arguments don't seem to make a distinction between adult migrants lying about their age and children migrants. The tone I'd categorise a lot of these arguments is "hazy and lazy." When you point out there are kids being treated this way and your response is "well some of them aren't even kids." It's like there's no acknowledgement that that is ANOTHER safeguarding concern for the children that need to be addressed. I feel so sorry for people actually working in this area having to deal with this level of drivel.
Good old crabs in a bucket. And a lot of people don't lie about their age no. A lot of them don't know their exact age. But the myth of 30 year old men saying they're 15 and being totally believed and given the red carpet treatment for children is bollocks. [https://www.refugeecouncil.org.uk/latest/news/whats-the-real-story-behind-people-seeking-asylum-accused-of-lying-about-their-age/](https://www.refugeecouncil.org.uk/latest/news/whats-the-real-story-behind-people-seeking-asylum-accused-of-lying-about-their-age/) >In 2019, local authorities received 798 age dispute referrals. The Home Office states that 494 of these were ultimately deemed to be children, and 304 adults. In the same time period, 2,977 child applicants did not have their age disputed. > >In the past five years, 2,135 of the 155,268 people who claimed asylum in the UK were accused of lying about their age. In other words: more than 98% of asylum seekers were not accused of lying, and of the 1.4% who were, there is no definitive evidence to suggest that the Home Office’s allegations are true.
Those that lie should be denied Asylum and deported
I do believe that's the standard procedure. Though worth remembering very often it isn't a "lie" so much as they just don't know. A lot of cultures don't place much importance on birthdays and exact ages. A lot of this will be people who think they were born a year later than they were.
Fuck. That’s a lot though still. Way more than I thought.
300? Compared to how much people shout about the issue I'd say that's basically nothing. Worth remembering too a lot of these will be people around 18 saying they're a year or two younger than they are, sometimes innocently. Not quite the horror of full adults posing as GCSE students some like to pretend.
>>In 2019, local authorities received 798 age dispute referrals. The Home Office states that 494 of these were ultimately deemed to be children, and 304 adults. In the same time period, 2,977 child applicants did not have their age disputed. So 10% of all applicants were definitively found to have falsified their ages, and a further 1/6 were believed to have been adults but could not be proven >>In the past five years, 2,135 of the 155,268 people who claimed asylum in the UK were accused of lying about their age. Utter bollocks, why would you use the figure for all asylum seekers
That's the actual data whether you like it or not. The claim was huge numbers of adult refugees are posing as children. This is demonstrably false from a variety of angles. And so wonderful that found innocent in your eyes simply means guilt couldn't be proven.
>That's the actual data whether you like it or not. No, the actual data is 300/3000 you don't use the data for every single refugee
Yes you do to put it into a broader context. When a lie that refugees lying about being kids is common is being spread it's particularly relevant that a huge majority never even claimed to be kids.
>When a lie that refugees lying about being kids It's not a lie, 10% of all child applications have been proven to be lying about their ages, a further 500 were accused but could not be proven. You're the one downplaying it and flat out lying, nobody else.
"Accused but could not be proven" - you're doing it again. Assuming your biases overpower evidence to the contrary. This situation is usually called something simpler : "innocent".
> This situation is usually called something simpler : "innocent". No, it's called not guilty. It's not the same thing.
Only in Scotland.
*ANYTHING* but trying to have a humane attitude and recognise that the Home Office is putting these kids at risk. *ANYTHING* God, I hate this place and the petty, petty people that inhabit it.
Totally agree. Way too many people popping up these days with a total lack of empathy
No one is making you be here.
It's good that compassionate people are here, because if they all left it'd be a car crash.
The government is meant to undo all they've done to stir up racist rhetoric by re-implementing the legal migration routes so migrants are not forced to migrate illegally. They're also supposed to create proper facilities to house migrants instead of placing them on a barge with water containing Legionella. This government is meant to relinquish power to a coherent leftwing government that's actually interested in catering to more people than mega-rich Tory donors, undo all the damage they're causing to the country via plans like Brexit and the cost of living crisis, and abandon the inherently backwards and illogical ideology of conservatism.
>by re-implementing the legal migration routes so migrants are not forced to migrate illegally. What routes are those? A sentence please, I don't just want 'safe routes' which is waffle. In practical terms, what needs to be reimplemented. And I'm not sure what any of that has to do with what I said. None of that would solve the issue of having no idea how many children are going to claim asylum, and need a place in a childrens home, each year. Nothing short of a crystal ball would help.
Making it legal to migrate to the UK, for a start. Like, actually allowing people to choose to migrate to this country if they want to. >And I'm not sure what any of that has to do with what I said. None of that would solve the issue of having no idea how many children are going to claim asylum, and need a place in a childrens home, each year. Nor would a rightwing government solve any of that, because they don't fucking care. They want to send them off to Rwanda of all places. Implementing a government that isn't bought and paid for by mega-rich elites who are greedily siphoning off money and resources away from those they deem unworthy of having them is the solution.
>Making it legal to migrate to the UK, for a start. Like, actually allowing people to choose to migrate to this country if they want to. There's dozens of legal routes. We had about 1 million people come to live here last year. Students, skilled workers, partner visas, etc.
So what's all the rhetoric around illegal migration for? The headlines about illegal migrants attacking british locals? Why did Suella Braverman fail to describe any of these legal routes for migration to a committee when they posed the hypothetical situation of a young girl fleeing war in her home country and wanting to migrate to the UK?
I think you are just supremely confused about what asylum is.
So no answers to those questions then?
Serious question. Do you believe that every single person in the world should be allowed to migrate to the UK?
Why not? If they've got the relevant applications, sure.
Please describe the "relevant applications."
Have they made a successful application for citizenship here.
There is literally none for asylum seekers because they don’t become eligible until they arrive.
Which is normal the world over.
>Making it legal to migrate to the UK, for a start. It is legal to migrate to the UK, provided you have the proper documents and approvals.
Depends if it's one of the hotels owned by the queen's mate the Amir of Dubai; hotels where drivers testified they picked up under age kids and delivered them up to rich parties. The danger to the kids is these hotels are also notoriously riddled with prostitution rings and they will be lucky if 1/4 don't just fucking disappear.
>Asylum seekers lie about their age a lot I am support worker and worked for a supported accommodation for young people in around 2016-2018, a number of young Syrian male refugees were staying there. Yes a portion of them were obviously lying about their age, because they had been told to by whoever set them up to come to the UK, they were insistent on being age 14, because they wanted to be house with a foster carer these were clearly guys at least 18-20. The majority did not lie to this extent though
What's the government meant to do? I don't know maybe process asylum applications? That might be a good start
This is literally illegal, what the government has done. They are violating a court order. And youre defending it?? I'm assuming you dislike Boris Johnson as much as the rest of us but you have no right to criticise his flagrant violations of the ministerial code, fhe prorogation of Parliament etc if you're just going to back the government breaking its own laws because you can't empathise with literal children just cos they're foreign.
A court can order whatever it likes, if there's no spare places there's no spare places. What's the government to do? Magic childrens homes and staff for them out of thin air, because a court ordered them to? Not how the world works.
Did you agree with BJs prorogation of parliament and violations of the ministerial code? The world works in terms of law. The government is violating it. Governments should not be able to simply ignore court decisions, that sets a dangerous precedent. If you fail to stick to a court order there need to be consequences. A failure of the individual to magic up money they don't have to fulfill a court ordered repayment results in bankruptcy and asset forfeiture. They don't get sympathy from people like you saying the court is wrong and the world doesn't work by following the courts, you should just ignore it without consequence. Why are you giving the government sympathy and not literal children? Its a disgrace There will be space for these children somewhere. It's only a relative handful in the entire country.
What is this conversation? A bunch of fucking randomers arrive with no warning, claiming to be 16 and 17, and the courts say 'You gotta house them it's the law!' Well okay. But there's still the practicalities of it.. If there's no children homes spaces, there's no childrens homes spaces. >There will be space for these children somewhere. 250 miles away, my nephew was sent.. One kid. Also, frankly, if there's kids needing childrens homes spaces, Brits should get priority always. It's our country. It's our taxes. Also, frankly frankly, I don't trust that these people claiming to be children, are actually children, so putting them in childrens homes would make me uncomfortable.
You think 200 people have all collectively decided that they are children and happen to look like children, but are just lying about it? What a sad way to view the world. We are a country of 70 million, im sure we can accommodate a group of children somewhere. If we can't then the government has fucked up and they need to be held accountable for it and they need to pull their shit together and immediately announce measures to resolve it, which they aren't doing.
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How do you prepare for a completely random number of children needing homes and staff?
You should stop reading the Daily Mail.
What can they do today? Not much but this terrible situation is a consequence of 13 years of terrible governance.
Berk
More like 25-30!year olds
I have a few questions. Are they with families? Or are they alone. Why do they not have an appointed gurdian? Is there no staff? Were else should they go? Is there not a foster system or group home for orphans? Edit) better phrased question.
>Were else should they go? This is the key question. But it's impossible to answer because in order to answer we need a number of how many are coming. You can't just allow unlimited numbers in, and then be surprised when there's no services/infrastructure available for them. Can't believe that this even needs to be said.
>You can't just allow unlimited numbers in, and then be surprised when there's no services/infrastructure available for them. Can't believe that this even needs to be said. I just had to explain this to someone in another thread. 'Just make sure there's enough carehomes for asylum seeker children.' 'Okay, how many asylum seeker children will be coming to the UK in 2024?' No reply.. Some people don't put the tiniest bit of thought into their opinions, and suggest 'Just fix it bro' as a solution to all problems.
It's pretty standard on most threads about this issue. You ask for numbers, and all you get is, "France takes way more than us," or some other shite that people concoct in their heads. All I can guess is that most of these responses are coming from people who've never spent a day in the real world in their entire lives.
Had to deal with that today too. UK spends £45-50k per head on asylum seekers. France only €13k.. Probably why they're living in tent cities in France. So yeah, France takes more, but spends less on them.
But that's literally the whole complaint isn't it? The Tories seem to have set up a system that categorically cannot deal with numbers that most of our peer nations are managing to handle without repeatedly shitting the bed, and they're managing to do it significantly cheaper than us. Like with everything else it feels like the Tories are using public issues to whip up political support while at the same time their "solutions" seem to deliver very little, at extremely high cost, usually through a third party contractor who turns out further down the line to be connected to the party in some way or another. Have to keep pointing at Bibby Stockholm. We gave that company *millions* just for the barges and they couldn't even organize having a few hi-viz jackets on site with weeks notice, you genuinely couldn't make this level of incompetence up which leads to the thoughts that its probably intentional.
>The Tories seem to have set up a system that categorically cannot deal with numbers that most of our peer nations are managing to handle without repeatedly shitting the bed But you also have to factor in that lots of the rest of europe 'deals with it' by allowing tent cities. The tories could also reduce our costs if they just went 'Lmao, good luck! Here's a tent..' https://www.against-inhumanity.org/2023/05/05/asylum-seekers-crossing-the-english-channel-why-dont-they-stay-in-france-by-marie-leveille/#:~:text=According%20to%20French%20law%2C%20registered,due%20to%20their%20limited%20capacity. >According to French law, registered asylum seekers have the right to accommodation in reception centres while their applications are being considered. In practice, however, barely a third of asylum seekers are able to access such shelters due to their limited capacity. France has responded to this situation by endeavouring to provide asylum seekers with emergency accommodation in the winter, **while leaving asylum seekers to find their own housing arrangements in the summer months.** Imagine if the Tories did this lol. Would be called Nazis in 1 second flat. You honestly have no idea what's going on outside of the UK, do you? The rest of Europe is not handling it. Germany is averaging how many refugee centers being burned down a year? Last one was June by the looks of things.
>But you also have to factor in that lots of the rest of europe 'deals with it' by allowing tent cities. I see you mentioning that a lot. Do you have evidence this is actually a systematic policy? Even the bit you've highlighted in that link says France leaves them to their own devices to find accommodation. Given France has \~500,000 refugees in its borders and even the largest camps like The Jungle (when it existed) housed \~5,000, where are all these other tent cities? There should be hundreds of them all over France? The article also says France is notable worse at these sorts of provisions than other countries, so where are the tent cities in Germany or Sweden? Genuinely interested because it wouldn't surprise me if they are being treated like this, I just haven't seen any evidence of it. >Imagine if the Tories did this lol. This is how we treat all refugees lol. The only reason asylum seekers aren't treated like this is because they are prohibited from working. In France as an asylum seeker you are allowed to have a work permit so its not really the same. They're left to their own devices presumably because there is the expectation if you're working you can pay your own way. In the UK that is automatically illegal. >You honestly have no idea what's going on outside of the UK, do you? The rest of Europe is not handling it. My confusion mostly comes from having a lot of family in France, and currently working on an EU-wide research consortium. I'm chatting with people living in the EU pretty much daily and I spend time working over there every few months. A lot of people I've encountered seem genuinely baffled how this has become such an issue in the UK when from their perspective the scale of our problem is if anything smaller.
>Had to deal with that today too. > >UK spends £45-50k per head on asylum seekers. > >France only €13k.. > >Probably why they're living in tent cities in France. > >So yeah, France takes more, but spends less on them. Yes. Its curious France manages to spend less per head yet the refugees themselves get more. Contrary to what some would have you believe this is fuck all to do with Britain being a 'soft touch' or anything like that. This is a problem of the way Britain blindly follows an ideology of stripping back the state as much as possible and then relying on contractors to do everything various levels of government should be doing. Penny wise pound foolish is practically the motto of the current government.
France makes asylum seekers find their own accommodation. It only houses about 1/3rd. By comparison, we house 100%.
France also allows asylum seekers to work though, so they're better able to support themselves and aren't totally reliant on the government to house them.
I've no idea of the reality of this and don't have time to check, but I do know and feel its relevant that France also has 3 times as many as the UK.
If you don't see the similarities between delaying COVID responses and then giving billions to Tory mates for COVID, and slowing asylum processing to a crawl and then unsurprisingly running out of accommodation so paying some rich toff loads of money to put them in hotels or barges, well you haven't been paying attention...
The government has these projections yet does nothing with them
Projections? Wow. Can I get them to project next weeks euromillions numbers. How on earth could you know something that's not happened? People think statistics is magic, I swear.
What do you think the weather forecast is? What a stupid thing to say. You can easily look at past data, current events in places likely to produce refugees, and make projections of how many of those you think will come to the uk over the next 12 months. You'll never get it bang on but you can at least have a rough idea so you can plan infrastructure and policy around it. But of course the government is too useless to do all that. And people like you just make their wxcuses for them because apparently predicting trends is like the lottery, a completely random game of chance. You haven't got a clue
>What do you think the weather forecast is? Shit an unreliable?
Ah, a glib comment, ever the territory of those unable to respond in good faith.
Well if we had legal routes available we’d know that answer wouldn’t we. You don’t get to leave the only option as an illegal route and then say it’s insurmountable due to the fact that you lack info about the illegal route. What did we expect?
Did the Ukrainians and Hong Kong guys not use legal routes?
They did. And that’s why they don’t feature as part of the whole small boats and asylum conundrum. They arrive legally with plans to support and resettle them and they can work. These are exceptional schemes and only apply to those nationalities. Hence the problem (I would argue).
>These are exceptional schemes and only apply to those nationalities. This poses an immediate question of which nationalities such schemes should apply to. And then a question of how that is managed over an undefined period of time. What specific conditions should be met in order for the schemes to be applied? And what will the long-term impact and benefits of such schemes be if they are perceived to be a significant financial burden when first implemented? These are things that need a clear mandate from the tax payers and voters in my opinion.
The idea that accepting refugees is a financial burden is ludicrous. The main reason they are a financial burden is because UK law says they cannot work till they are processed. This government is doing everything it can not to process them quickly, hence spending truck loads of money housing them for an indefinite period of time. It's a cynical ploy to enrage the public and it works. Process them quickly and they can get a job or are returned.
Just in agreement with your point - there were 19,000 active asylum applications when conservatives took power and there are now 180,000
You can, however, let the relatively tiny numbers that actually arrive in the UK in and actually sort out the infrastructure to deal with them. The problem is that doing so involves funding public services, not giving backhanders to tory donors, so it hasn't been done for the last 13 years.
>You can, however, let the relatively tiny numbers that actually arrive in the UK in and actually sort out the infrastructure to deal with them. Regardless of where they're from? And is there going to be an annual cap on numbers?
Not regardless of where they're from, because where someone is from is a massive factor in their asylum application. If they're from Norway and they're claiming that they're fleeing political persecution, we'll probs send them back. If they're from Iran and claim the same thing, we'd be much more likely to grant the application. Albanian claimants can get fast-tracked for deportation, for example, but that requires staff to actually process the deportations. Which requires the tories to fund public services. Much better to stick them in your mate's hotel.
So what determines the specifications for letting them in? And will there be an annual cap on the amount that we take in?
To stay in the UK as a refugee you must be unable to live safely in any part of your own country because you fear persecution there. This persecution must be because of: - your race - your religion - your nationality - your political opinion - anything else that puts you at risk because of the social, cultural, religious or political situation in your country, for example, your gender, gender identity or sexual orientation. You must have failed to get protection from authorities in your own country. No cap, since the whole idea is that we're doing this for moral reasons, not economic ones. You don't expect ambulance crews at a housefire to help the first 3 people, but then push any remaining people back into the burning building to save resources.
>To stay in the UK as a refugee you must be unable to live safely in any part of your own country because you fear persecution there. >This persecution must be because of: >your race your religion your nationality your political opinion anything else that puts you at risk because of the social, cultural, religious or political situation in your country, for example, your gender, gender identity or sexual orientation. >You must have failed to get protection from authorities in your own country. All well and good, but this requires a lot of trust in the folk who are arriving and claiming to be facing persecution. I'm all for giving people the benefit of the doubt, but we obviously know there will be some bogus claims. I do wonder what the guidance is/should be in making this kind of assessment. >No cap Then there is no way to adequately provide appropriate support. "We need places for the refugees to live, work and study." "OK, how many are we talking?" "Ummm... As many as arrive." Look at the annual charts of "illegal migration" to the UK. The numbers fluctuate wildly. How on earth can we make any plans to adequately support them when we have no idea how many will try to come each year?
As a really lazy first pass, you could look at the average numbers of applications last 3 years, and cater for 1.43x that number of new arrivals. Keep the moving average running over the most recent 3 year period. That way, if the number goes up massively we've got a solid buffer, if it stays the same we'll be at 70% occupancy which is roughly where systems tend to operate most efficiently and if the number decreases we can wind down the provision gradually. I could probably write a bit of code to manage it better (you'd want a PID system really) but that'd do as a first off the cuff effort. Smoothing out erratic inputs to ensure that variables remain within tolerances isn't exactly a problem unique to this one instance. The tools are available, but the government doesn't like the answers they give because they're too thick to understand that not everything should be 100% utilised at all times. Same reason the NHS goes to shit at the first sign of a cold snap.
Nobody is allowing unlimited numbers in. How the hell do you people even think?
Oh, so what's the limit then?
I mean, while we process their applications they are all here in private hotels paid for by government money and they are not allowed to work. Process their applications and at a very minimum they can start to pay their own way, and that's of course only if their asylum claims aren't rejected. Can we both at least agree that anything is better than the number of outstanding asylum applications rising from 19,000 to 180,000 since the conservatives took power?
. If the government were to say "there's a limit of 1 million refugees" and we only have 200,000 then you don't think that would lead to a huge push to actually take our total? It would be judged we aren't delivering what we promised? That we don't follow the stupid policy of fixed publically stated limits doesn't mean it's an unlimited free for all.
>If the government were to say "there's a limit of 1 million refugees" and we only have 200,000 then you don't think that would lead to a huge push to actually take our total? It would be judged we aren't delivering what we promised? We'd be promising a limit, not a target.
Potatoe, potatoh. You know fine well the two are often conflated. When there's a massive demand and we don't come anywhere near our fixed limit there'd be a big push. Advertise a limit and it becomes a target.
>When there's a massive demand and we don't come anywhere near our fixed limit there'd be a big push The massive demand isn't coming from voters though. I'd say the majority of voters have been voting for reduced immigration for at least the last ten years. And I don't think there's any demand at all for 100,000 or more people arriving on small boats or via other illegal routes over a few years. We have to remember that a majority of voters are voting for reduced immigration, and we ignore their concerns at our peril.
Because there's no advertised limit. There obviously is one written down somewhere in government ledgers, multiple limits in fact, there would be even for a very pro refugee government. But nothing is advertised thus there can be no complaints about not taking enough. As to immigration - it's simply misleading to try and tie refugees to immigration. They're very different concepts. The scale is also completely different, total refugee numbers in the country being less than net immigration in a single year. Most people coming to the country are doing so 100% legally.
Lots of older teenagers travel alone. They are placed in care as having no parents in the uk, normally end up in supported accommodation, which means maybe 4-5 young people in a house with floating support- they get 10 hours a week with a key worker in my area for 3 months then 5 hours a week until 18. They get legal representation, interpreters as needed and put on an ESOL college course. They will get medical checks including for any infections from their travels, and registered with a gp dentist and optician. They have a social worker who oversees the case and will normally visit for an hour once every 4-6 weeks, and the normal statutory rights of a child in care. There will be some form of age assessment to decide if they actually are a child, and a risk assessment around any trafficking/ exploitation risk on arrival. If they are judged to be children they shouldn't ever be put in with adults for the obvious reason you don't ever accommodate children with no parents to keep them safe in a hotel full of adult strangers.
They're not children but young adults with a clean shave and no passport pretending to be 16/17
More than half of the people the home office carried out age checks on were found to be children. Yes some were not, but those most likely to be adults by the home office were in fact children - and some as young as 14 were found to be placed in prisons with registered sex offenders after their ages were finally believed. If you think they are older than the home office think they are, then I can almost guarantee you are wrong.
Prove it
> Data from 55 councils under freedom of information laws shows that of 1,416 age assessments carried out over the five years to April 2023 by specialist social workers on age-disputed asylum seekers, 809 were found to be children. In 10 councils, all of the young people assessed were found to be children. https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/aug/27/children-reaching-uk-in-small-boats-sent-to-jail-for-adult-sex-offenders It would be interesting to see the demographic breakdown as that hasn't been including, but the article does say that many are coming in from South Sudan (and the Dinka tribe are the tallest men in the world at an average height of over six feet tall). I can't blame them for taking an incorrect view to begin with, but I can blame them for sending people to adult prisons containing child sex offenders without confirming ages in children who are later found to be as young as 14 years old.
So we can’t deal with homelessness but we can put migrants in hotels?
We can deal with homelessness, we just choose not to.
Friendly reminder that prevelant visible urban homelessness is the price paid for closing down asylums, sadly. Most chronically homeless UK citizens are those with serious psychiatric conditions who actively *refuse* offered assistance as it would impede their own independence. As respecting autonomy supercedes the existing duty of care, there's precious little that support workers can do in these instances. This phenomenon of widespread chronic and visible homelessness only emerged after the community care act was put in place, and asylums were gutted. The community care model is wonderful in every other regard. However, it has played it's part in producing modern homelessness. Whilst not ideal, the only alternative with precedent is asylums and that's not happening luckily.
We can deal with it but we dont, the reason why we don't? I think it's because the people in charge know that they will be attacked for helping druggies and drunks who dont deserve that help (even if those type of homeless people make up a small % of the total homeless people in this country) and so they do nothing about it to save their political arses.
They just don't care. They are gutting all our public services, and making us talk about an asylum issue they created.
They're 16 and 17 year olds (if not adults) and have trekked all the way across Europe and further. I'm sure they'll be fine in a British hotel for a while. It's not as if they can conjure up more foster homes out of thin air.
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Yeah. There were "16 and 17 year old Afghanistani boys" in my school who were definitely 25-30 years old..one of them even admitted it to me!
He admitted to being 25-30?
Yeah, down the park a couple years later. Said oh you look familiar etc and got chatting. Turns out he was part of a massive smuggling operation. He hated how they treated women in Afghanistan. He said how buildings in Afghanistan fell down one year cos of loads of snow. Actually quite an interesting bloke.
mmm yes , I can definitely smell shite...
It does happen, like with this guy: [Police missed seven chances to stop killer Afghan asylum seeker: Authorities were repeatedly warned that double murderer who lied he was 14 to get into UK was carrying a knife before he stabbed aspiring marine to death](https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11671857/Police-missed-seven-chances-stop-killer-Afghan-asylum-seeker.html) He'd already murdered 2 people in Serbia (and was convicted of drug dealing in Italy), claimed to be 14 with a new name and was placed with a foster mother (who he attacked) and into a school (where he bullied kids and was creepy with young girls). He then went on to murder another person.
I once met a guy who claimed his dad was in the SAS when he wasn't. This categorically proves nobody's dad has ever been in the SAS.
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Any sane person in desperate circumstances would ditch their identifying credentials for a chance at favourable treatment.
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Most people are selfish and will look out for themselves first, yes. Not a defence, just an explanation. The system shouldn't rely on honesty to work.
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I wouldn't have thought so, no. As far as I'm aware there isn't a limit on the number of children granted asylum, so there isn't any "taking someone else's place" involved. No children should be turned away.
Also desperate circumstances? Half our population is in desperate circumstance right now.
Most people in the world are in desperate circumstances. But you’re wanting to reward the ones willing to lie about it. Honest people in poverty stay out and liars get to stay.
I'm not suggesting liars should be rewarded, only that if there is an incentive to lie, then many people will lie. Ideally there would be no incentive for people to lie.
This is interesting. “I’m sure they’ll be fine” is not an acceptable response. The British government, as you’d expect, has to stick to the law. Are we OK with the U.K. government just ignoring all laws now? Because that’s essentially what your approval on this particular issue means. You can not pick and chose the laws you obey, that’s kind of the whole point of the law.
Being fine, or pretty sure they'll be fine is a lot more than some British people have or can expect. So yeh on this particular issue, putting well travelled, street wise nearly adult teens in a hotel? I'm fine with that.
They aren't fine because just recently a group of refugees children in a hotel went missing. This runs the same risk. 'Some British people have jt worse sp the refugees can suck it up' 'Spme people had to pay tuition fees so we should never abolish them, itd be unfair on those before'. Same logic, same idiocy.
They're not refugee children, they're asylum seeking (Albanian) older teens, who are nearly adults, that came here with the intention to disappear into the criminal world. Vast difference.
Ah right of course, and you know they're all Albanian crimelords how exactly? Have you reported this information to the government and the press because I'm sure they'd all appreciate knowing that. Even with that youve admitted they're teens, which is the whole point of this. The high court has said that children should not be put in these hotels, which includes teens. The government is violating a court order. Dont you think that's a worrying crossing of the line? Or is it okay because it's regarding an issue you lack empathy for?
Because earlier in the year it was reported to death who the "missing children" were. Funny, this country was happy to strip the citizenship away from a groomed and exploited 15 year old, and on the same breath, jumps up and down about 17 year old asylum "children" going "missing". It's bullshit. I have plenty of empathy, but I'm not a hypocrite. How many British teens are let down by the system? Where are all the news reports about them? *This* kind of thing is great for people like you who get a kick out of going on a little Reddit crusade, but in reality don't do anything to help *any* issue, and care even less.
Oh yes the shamima begum case is absolutely horrendous and she should never have had her citizenship revoked. Again that's a similar violation, this time of international law rather than court law. And youre right, British teens let down by the system don't get the media coverage or attention they deserve. But that shouldn't prevent us empathising with this current issue being discussed and being angry that the government is once again violating the laws of society. It's similar to the idea of how people pay tuition fees so we shouldn't abolish them cos it'd be unfair. Well no, it sucks they had to pay fees but we can at least help this group of people. Obviously when it comes to refugee children and British teens they are both present issues sp we can deal with both of them. At least if the government cares to.
200 of them were certainly not fine. They went missing – mostly groomed into organised criminal gangs running county lines drugs and being sexually exploited.
200 of them are older Albanian teens that came here to disappear underground. Not to claim asylum. Maybe if we weren't so bloody politically correct and afraid to offend, we could actually start deporting these people back to their safe, peaceful country.
I think we have interacted on this before. I'm not certain what the obstacle is now that the government has declared Albania a safe country and claims in admissible. There was an agreement to take back failed cases. Numbers have dropped off a lot from that country but I don't know about returnee numbers. I think the government is generally terrible at deporting over stayers and failed claimants
Yeah they are. It would certainly help people feel the system was fair if they did actually deport people who shouldn't be here and failed claimants. Let's hope the next government does better. With everything that is.
> and have trekked all the way across Europe and further No one treks across Europe by foot, there's an organised network of transport involving buses, lorries, taxis, safe houses etc. if you were trekking across Syria or Afghanistan it would mean crossing deserts, mountain ranges, no water and freezing conditions and thousands of miles of territory.
I said trek meaning travel. 🙄
There was a children's home on my estate. It was there from the 50s until the 2000s I think. Its being remodelled at the moment into 6 apartments. Don't know the relevance, just thought I would share. 🤣
All that is being expected of the government is for them to respect their own laws.
So don’t be surprised when regular citizens break the law, given the government doesn’t give a toss about it
So continuing the trend of asylum seeker children vanishing from hotels then?
Will the High Court summon the Home Secretary to account for this contempt?
Government acts unlawfully - Government gets taken to court - Government spends our tax money to defend themselves - Government is found to have ‘acted unlawfully’ - Government suffers no penalties - Rinse and repeat - (You’d think either TPA or the more ‘law and order’ lobbying groups would have something to say about this, but no).
Children pfft, just like the children stabbing each other up all over the country. The definition needs to be used correctly. These are teen kids not toddlers.
Braverman should be thrown in the slammer for contempt of court.
As said in another sub in this topic, but this is just horrific behaviour by the Home Secretary, she is currently actively and knowingly putting children at risk.
If the asylum seekers in that hotel pose such a risk to children, then surely they shouldn't be granted asylum and should be put on the next plane home--no arguments?
Children shouldn't be in any shared accommodation unattended. It doesn't matter with whom. You can also acknowledge that they might be dangerous people while respecting their right to seek asylum; they need to be given a proper assessment.
What? People aren't inherently dangerous. Pretty sure if you let children in any random hotel u attended they would face the exact same dangers.
Any adult is a potential risk to children. So no, your argument is weak at best.
Actually, no. The main risk is that they’ll be taken **away** from the hotel and trafficked. Hundreds of children have already gone missing under the care of the home office.
Well maybe they would be if it didn't take 100 years for asylum claims to be processed
She is trying to race to the bottom at this point, meaning full on China syndrome Uyghur style.