I happened upon this post because I did a search for "asylum-seeker" ...
oldandknew wrote:We have legal immigrants from all over the world. They work, earn their wages, pay tax and for the most part obey the law. They have kids and thus raise families. Most of them accept they have to integrate and speak English if they are to survive. We have Indian, Pakistani, Chinese, Afro Carribeans and so on. They are able to retain there own culture but they can't remain aloof from British culture. In fact 3rd generation immigrants and onwards are very much part of British society and are accepted by the vast majority of whites. They have English accents, use the same stores, TV stations, drive the same cars and drink in the same pubs, have equal opportunities.
Our main problem are the illegals, they come in from Eastern Europe and the Middle East and claim asylum. The social services are stretched in trying to support them and it's the indiginous population that pays the bills thru taxes. Next you hear complaints that the aid being offered to them is not good enough. They want more and they want bigger, as if we are some kind of charity.
The irony here is:
a) that the very same things you observe about the current "illegals from Eastern Europe and the Middle East" were being said about the "Indians, Pakistanis, Chinese, Afro Carribeans and so on" when
they came to the UK (some would insist on still saying it about them);
and b) that the only difference between them and the current illegal immigrants is that the British immigration law changed ... the motivations of the immigrants are still the same, good and bad alike. Its just that today's Romanians and Iraqis dont have the relative luck the immigrants of the seventies had in terms of entry regulations.
In a way - though the argument that
some kind of control must be exerted is easy enough to validate - that's a pity. Because if the newest immigrants were given the same opportunities to build a legal life here as their predecessors, you would probably be talking in the same way about them in twenty years as you do now about the Pakistanis, Afro Caribbeans et cetera. What will become of them as illegals is an open question, on the other hand.
(As for those asylum-seekers who eventually get recognized as "real" refugees, they carry the burden of trauma but are on the other hand usually significantly higher educated than the Afro-Caribbean and Indian immigrants of old.)
Just my 2 c.
