The European People’s party (EPP), an umbrella group of centre-right and conservative parties, has said in the final draft of its manifesto ahead of elections to the European parliament in May that it wants a series of deal with non-EU countries with a view to deporting irregular migrants for asylum processing in “safe” third countries.
“Yet another unsavoury EPP chunk of red meat, meant to attract the far-right vote. It will not work. All the EPP strategy has achieved over the past years, is making the far right bigger. So if they know it doesn’t work, why do they stubbornly repeat the same tactics each time?” said Sophie in ‘t Veld, a Dutch MEP, and the lead representative for the liberal Renew group on the parliament committee for civil liberties, justice and home affairs.
Not that I agree with mass murdering or deportation, then again, I’m realistic enough to understand that this mass of “asylum seekers” is absurd. I am not negating that some of them have a quite solid reasons to ask for asylum, but come on, all of them ?
Wrong, you can do it, asking for asylum to the embassy of the destination country which is present in your country. Or you can go to a border and ask for it. Or go to a police station once in the country. Or any other way that don’t involve to try to go on the run the moment they set foot in a country.
And before someone starts to depict me as a racist, I am all in for integration. I have no problems if you want to come to my country for a better life or because you are fleeing from political or other forms of persecution, you are welcone as long as you want to integrate into the society and follow the laws of my country. I will support you and I will respect your hard work and the even harder choices and sacrifices you have done.
I literally have a lot of problems if all you want to do once in my country is to be the scum that make my city more dangerous for any of its inhabitants, you want to live on petty crime and consciously ignore the laws of my country.
And I don’t see any problem in a country (or the EU) not wanting this scum.
You are mixing up cause and effect. The current and proposed regulations to clamp down on migration make it impossible for many of them to earn a living in an honest way, thus resulting in some of them turning to crime to survive. You can’t prevent that by making even harder to get an legal status that allows working in the country.
Which doesn’t work in countries that are subject to civil war or politically opressive regimes. What do you think happens if you are surveilled as a political activist and go to the embassy of that country? You will never make it to your second appointment. Or lets take Afghanistan for example. The people who used to work for Germany were largely fucked over and left to now be killed by the Taliban, as they were told to go through a bureaucratic process at an office, that was already closed for month before the Taliban finally took over again.
Except you can’t because there is noone processing it there, the offices are all in the country.
And voila, you entered the country “irregularly”. It is simply impossible to enter a country regularly to ask for asylum there. That is the whole point of the system.
Never said that it is the only option. It is an option in certain situation, nothing more.
Again. it is an option. But if you are a surveilled, I bet you know from who (or at least have an idea) and you could go to the embassy of some country you know will be friendly with you. I mean, if I am an enemy of Putin I will not go to a Belarus embassy. Once inside you will probably be offered to not leave the embassy if not to leave the country via diplomatics routes.
Yeah, that was bad and totally wrong.
I don’t know where you live, but here in Italy we have officers to every border facing countries not in Schengen (or that have bilateral treaties). Like France now have officers on the “border” with UK. But even if they are in the country, borders are watched anyway, if you stops there someone will come. And chances are that there will be someone else to ask for help, even only to call an officer or accompany you to an officer office.
Maybe. Or maybe not. There are ways to legally enter a country.
But assuming you are right on this point, the difference is that the person who want to ask for asylum the first thing he try to do is to look for some sort of authority or help, not to try to go on the run.
It is hard to defend the people who arrive with a boat (if they are lucky) and than actively try to run from the people who are their first point of contact to ask for asylum. I suppose that someone who truly want to ask for asylum want to be found by the country he is entering.
Not if you require a Visa and you cannot aquire a Visa beforehand. And you can’t because see the points up. Also no embassy can house a million refugees in a year, leave alone help them leave the country that wants to force them into military service (i.e. Syria)
Fine, but in this case there are officers at the border to check the Visa so you can go to them and ask to start the process.
I am not saying that all the options I proposed work in every case, I am only saying that if someone really want asylum there are a lot of options beside entering illegally in a country and going on the run the moment you enter.
I agree with you that sometime the only option to start the process to ask for asylum is to enter illegally, what make the difference is what you do once you are in: if your first action is to look for someone to help you to get the process started then I am fine and I understand that, you have no other options. But if your first action it to try fo flee from the authorities (or you come up with all the asylum affair only if you are caught, even weeks/months/years later) then maybe you are not really looking to seek asylum when entering.
What people are increasily afraid of (and less tolerant to) is the mass of illegal immigrants that live on petty crime, if not worse, and once you caught them magically they are all minors without documents (so no way to have a basic identification), politcal persecuted, persecuted for their sexual orientation (or all of these) so they all ask for asylum.
But that is kind of the issue here. In your perception this would be the extraordinary case, but it is the normal case. This has become even more grave, as illegal pushbacks, e.g. Cops or border military violently beating up and deporting people back over the border, without ever listening to them regarding their case. The same is happening for everyone, who does the journey by sea. You can’t wait on an overcrowded boat for the border police to process your asylum applications.
And again you wrongly assume there to be a mass of refugee seekers living off petty crime. First of all there is no “mass” since the numbers have been going down significantly since 2016. Second of all, most of them get practically detained into processing centers and finally the reason why some people resort to crime is because they are kept being denied to work legally.
If worked at a company that illegaly employed asylum seekers that had no work permit, despite living in the country for years. Their work conditions were absolutely inhumane and highly illegal. Think 12 hours shift with nothing but a 6 hour break in between for sleep. And of course the cash payments did not amount to the mandated minimum wage. Still those guys would rather do that, than sell drugs or steal. But the answer in both cases is to grant people the right to work.
Fine. But I am not seeing as trying to flee as soon as you arrive can end in a better situation. I agree, the situation at the borders is critical, but the solution is not to allow everyone in.
I don’t assume, I see them doing it. From selling drugs to snatching old ladies, from stealing cars to entering homes to steal something to sell at the flea market, from assaulting people to occupy illegally a house just because the owner is on holidays. I see them to made whole zones of my city unsafe for women (and sometimes also men) because I lived in one of these zones.
I was a victim of some of this petty crimes, so no man, I can change what I think but I cannot change what I see. And what I see is not what you are saying.
Yes, but most of the time they don’t want to work legally, they just want to stay here and get whatever they ask.
I agree, there are situations like this. And they are absolutely wrong. But the point is that these situation exist exactly because there are illegal immigrant to be easily exploited.
But the problem at hand here is not “what we do with all the people who want to enter” but “what we do with all the people already in, maybe for years, that live on petty crimes and have no intention to integrate into the society”.
I think you should review your thoughts on this, because some of your examples are not actually possible.
For example, you say that an asylum seeker could go to a police station once in the country. That implies that they didn’t, in fact, enter the country “regularly”.
You’ve also implied that the asylum seekers are going on the run. Those people are called illegal immigrants. Asylum seekers are the ones who find one of the increasingly few and difficult ways to actually enter the country and claim asylum.
Even the UK, which has a Hostile Environment policy for immigration, allowed 76% of asylum applications in 2022. If these applications weren’t legitimate, they would have found a reason to refuse them. They would love to brag about it in Parliament.