European Migrant Crisis- Solutions?

Hi there fellas, just thought I'd start a discussion on this crisis, because I'd be interested to hear what your thoughts were on any potential resolutions to this humanitarian nightmare. I personally don't have a solution but I definitely don't think Cameron's idea of beefing up security along the borders is a long term sustainable solution. Thoughts?

 

A good topic.

I've moved it to the discussion sub-forum as it is precisely the type of thing potential officers may be asked to discuss also.

My thoughts? It has come to the fore because parliament is in recess, so it's the press "silly season". The issue is made worse due to the tailback caused by industrial action by French Ferry staff. There is no doubt that there are unscrupulous British people traffickers in France and there will inevitably be a minority of unscrupulous truckers who use the fees they charge illegals to offset the cost of a fine, should they get rumbled.

If the fines were bigger, the immigrants couldn't afford to pay dodgy truckers a bung.

Similarly, I don't think the immigrants are solely attracted by our welfare hand-outs, it's the opportunity for immigrants to better themselves and earn a good wage which is the draw.

 

Simple in my opinion, stick to the law. The law says that asylum seekers have to apply for asylum in the first safe country they arrive in.

When they get stopped at Calais, they get finger printed and DNA tested and added to a database. At that point they can never be considered for asylum in the UK according to the law - we stick to that. Regardless of what do gooders say, they are not asylum seekers when they get here - they are economic migrants and are trying to migrate from France, or whatever safe country they have just left to get here. The exception is those that somehow got straight here from the country of origin - very few indeed and even then they will need to go through the process of checking their claim.

Fine any landlord who allows someone false to live at their properties without rights to be here.

Failing that, when you catch them on the wrong side of the fence in Calais - take them to the other end of France and let them go. A 400 mile trip to get back to "Go!" should deter a few repeat offenders.

For those who burn their papers so they try to avoid going back home. We should have a agreement with a safe African Country and give them a few quid to give them citizenship - they earn money and the migrant chappie should be happy if he is genuine. Though he tells his mates and they then stop coming to the UK.

Job done, nobody hurt.

 

Too be fair theres not much we can do in my opinion. We dont have the resources to have all of them but then again it would be morally wrong to just send them back home although the fact they keep screwing up the euro tunnel etc. Kind of makes me lose sympathy in them.

 

Some of them are paying $5,000 to get from wherever to the UK. the cheapest I have heard is $1500. Where the hell are they getting $1500 from? I thought they were coming from poor countries.

 

Mines ?

 

Are we talking about migrants to Europe here, or migrants to the UK? If the latter is our only concern then that seems a bit self-centred

 

Let them all in.

 

If 30 migrants are turning up at your house trying to get in, is it self centered not to let them in? Only the media have decided that being self centered is always wrong or a negative, I for one missed that debate.

 

Arguably the 'swarm' of migrants generated by instability has been created by the UK's haphazard 'regime change' tinkering in Iraq, Syria and Libya. Which prompts the question of whether the USA also has a moral obligation to resolve the problem by accepting several tens of thousand migrants.

GreyWing's suggestion that a country be nominated and funded to house the unwanted has some merit. The current state of Israel is a perfect example of a wide kinship community being gifted land that belonged to others.

 

Also, are we talking non Europeans coming to Europe? Or European migrants coming to the UK to work?

Geek

 

I would personally pursue a more humanitarian solution to this problem. If you examine the conditions of migrants in detention centres such as Yarl's wood in the UK and detention centres ran in Australia to house migrants, you'll find the conditions of migrants living there is pretty gash. My solution would be to funnel more money into improving and expanding these 'detention centres' so that they would provide more a sense of sanctuary for migrants. The UK government already spends a fairly large sum of money on financial aid, so why not use that money for improving conditions. This 'plan' might have a few holes in arguably, (such as the long term extent and how to differentiate between asylum seekers and economic migrants) but I think what is needed is to bring some organisation to this chaos by being more pro active in a humanitarian way instead of reacting with dogs and more fences.

 

Whilst I appreciate the sentiment, action like this may well backfire in a public manner. In a country where there are nationals struggling to feed their children or keep a roof over their head, using tax payers money improving the lot for those who essentialky entered the country illegally might leave a bad taste.

Also a detention centre is a detention centre when you're inside it, it doesn't matter how cushy it is.

Geek

 

My only issue with that thinking is that, in this example, shutting your door isn't going to stop them trying to get into somebody else's house. In our case, what will probably end up happening is that everybugger will end up clustering in Italy, since it's all coastline, with no way of getting out because we've all shut our doors. I think it's a classic bleeding-heart move by me, but if mine were the house at the other end of the street, I'd be feeling a bit ticked off if they all ended up coming my way because one guy who thinks he's better than that decided only to participate in the EU and the global community at large when it suited him.

Wait, I've confused metaphors here.

Also, re choosing a country and sending "them all" there, much of rural France - and bits of rural Italy - have been suffering from population decline in the last hundred-and-fifty-or-so years. Surely they can go and bolster the population of useless medieval towns in Aquitaine?

 

Sorry typing on my phone so a bit short in detail.

Totally agree. In my opinion it is for those countries to handle it in a way they see fit.

That is Italy's electorate to deal with in my opinion.

Then you'd have to lock your doors, and let it be known that you won't allow anyone in, unless you choose to let them in.

Totally agree, I'm sure the locals would be able to give an indication of their agreement in the way of a vote.

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Watch RT documentary's on Sweden, it's getting very tasty over there at the moment. If you watch the BBC, it's a harmony of multi-culturism - if you watch RT it's not a pretty picture and they are literally throwing hand grenades at people. For some reason there seems to be a decent supply of hand grenades over there, and they've adopted that as a weapon of choice for some reason.

 

Good point, I am aware of the rising poverty that does surround the UK at the moment, I read that the use of food banks has risen by a hell of lot. But poverty in the UK is a separate issue, which in my eyes the Conservative government has failed to address.
I think the problem is that due to the sheer volume of migrants coming to Europe it's difficult to access the degree of homogeneity of the migrants' intentions. For me a humanitarian approach is necessary because I see this as a humanitarian crisis in the context of the violence perpetuated by Boko Haram and Isis. But as I mentioned diffusing those who are economic migrants and those who have literally lost everything is a seemingly impossible task, given the numbers of migrants.

I'd be interested to see what in happens in the winter though.

 

@GreyWing I think we're fundamentally at odds on this issue here - I'm looking much wider and more idealistically and you are, quite understandably, coming at it from a more isolationist standpoint. I do believe increasing coordination between European nations on issues, especially issues such as this - which, like it or not, eventually ends up affecting all of us - is a good thing and will make life easier long-term. Problem is, in my view, relying on every European nation to say "sod it, we're shut" is not a solution and it's not going to stop them trying to get here (and succeeding in doing so).

Sweden's a weird one. I must confess I'm not totally familiar with it, but it strikes me that Sweden was for a very long time very isolationist and pretty xenophobic, and then when they joined the EU they got a swift and terrible lesson in multiculturalism. Multiculturalism is rarely harmonious, I'll grant you - but one doesn't have to go far back in European history to see evidence that countries right next to each other is any better. But we're taking this from a "European Migrant" issue to a straight-up "immigration" issue, aren't we?

 

Sweden is one to keep an eye on in the next year, their politicians opened the doors to asylum seekers rather than / as well as EU immigration and it's now a mess. I'm not an expert on it either, only what I have witnessed on a few reports that things are nstarting to reach a limit there.

OK then, for a debate let's switch it round, how many do you want to let into Europe? Once you have let them in, in your opinion will that be it? What will you do to those that arrive after the numbers you think should be let in have been let it?

 

I don't think that's a question that either of us could reasonably answer. Unless we were to reduce it to "none" or "all of them", which seems to be the options with which you're presenting me here.

On the flip-side, in the event that every country manages to decide it's not going to be tolerated anymore, how do we follow that policy through? Is that the problem solved? What happens if one of the buggers gets through?

 

I beg to differ, I think mine are reasonable answers. You can't get away that easy - I don't think it is a difficult question to ask - what would you do when your numbers have been reached? You must have an idea.

Hungary is just about to complete a 400 odd mile fence along it's southern border - it is happening. If one gets through, you pick him up when he pops up in the system then you deport him to a safe.