George Dawes wrote:this is a football thread!!
Not quite George. Shrimpsvoices is a football forum that allows non-Morecambe related topics to be posted as Off-Topic (O/T) threads. O/T threads should be prefixed O/T on the Subject line, like this one.
A lot of football forums [and other forums] have sub-forums, so that people can, if they want to, just avoid all the O/T stuff.
No doubt some of O/T stuff mixed in with Morecambe stuff on Shrimpsvoices doesn't appeal to some users, and I'm sure it wouldn't take Keith long to open a general Off-Topic sub-forum. We'd all be happy [
] then.
George Dawes wrote:There is much confusion in the media and in public debate generally about asylum seekers, refugees and economic migrants, they are two different things.
"Asylum seeker" means a person who has applied for asylum under the 1951 Refugee Convention on the Status of Refugees on the ground that if he is returned to his country of origin he has a well-founded fear of persecution on account of race, religion, nationality, political belief or membership of a particular social group. He remains an asylum seeker for so long as his application or an appeal against refusal of his application is pending.
"Refugee" in this context means an asylum seeker whose application has been successful. In its broader context it means a person fleeing e.g. civil war or natural disaster but not necessarily fearing persecution as defined by the 1951 Refugee Convention.
"Economic migrant" means a person who has left his own country and seeks by lawful or unlawful means to find employment in another country.
lets not get confussed, with refugees and migrants.
'Economic Migrants' aren't stupid George. They're generally very well informed about the various fears of persecution of an 'Asylum seeker', and it's not too difficult for them to claim that they fall into one or more of the categories you mention. Single men can simply say 'I'm Gay', and as you don't know or can't prove where they've come from, then bingo they fall into a persecuted group!
Many [most] don't have any Identification Papers, so you don't know who they really are or where they've come from. So they can spin any story they like, and many do. And I suspect it's very difficult for the authorities to disprove their claim.
Once these people are in your country, and if they aren't kept in secure accommodation, they can disappear into the Black Economy, and far too many do. Some will have criminal records or be criminals without a record, some could be carrying a dormant transportable illness/disease, some will be terrorists, the list goes on.
'Refugees', ie approved 'Asylum Seekers' are a different kettle of fish. In small numbers they're manageable. But with the current numbers, and through no fault of the majority of them, they are and will cause a lot of problems for their hosts.
That's my [brief] slant on it anyway. Fwiw my son is an Immigration Liaison Officer in one of our larger Embassies in the Middle East. He'll be home in a couple of weeks on leave, so I'll be picking his brains about what really goes on, and some of the tricks of the Asylum Seeker trade.