Immigration Crisis

[Pat ex]

No its based on my Legal expertise. Go study law as I did, rather than interpreting things without any knowledge.

Then yolu are wilfully ignoring paragraph 2 of Article 31 of the UNHCR

2. The Contracting States shall not apply to the movements of such refugees restrictions other than those which are necessary and such restrictions shall only be applied until their status in the country is regularized or they obtain admission into another country. The Contracting States shall allow such refugees a reasonable period and all the necessary facilities to obtain admission into another country.

An Asylum seeker is a person who has presented themselves to the authorities in accordance with the convention and local laws, in order to seek asylum. Until that point they are likely to be an illegal immigrant if they broke immigration law to get where they currently reside.

See above, which specifically allows refugees to transit through one or more countries to seek asylum in a country of their choice.

Your argument defies logic.
Suppose a gay person was fleeing Saudi Arabia, and arrives in Qatar, or Sudan, or any of the surrounding countries. How could they expect to claim asylum?

One last time.

1. Article 31 of the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees provides as follows:
   1. The Contracting States shall not impose penalties, on account of their illegal entry or presence, on refugees who, coming directly from a territory where their life or freedom was threatened in the sense of Article 1, enter or are present in their territory without authorization, provided they present themselves without delay to the authorities and show good cause for their illegal entry or presence.

Sigh, one more time:
Paragraph 2.:

2. The Contracting States shall not apply to the movements of such refugees restrictions other than those which are necessary and such restrictions shall only be applied until their status in the country is regularized or they obtain admission into another country. The Contracting States shall allow such refugees a reasonable period and all the necessary facilities to obtain admission into another country.

If you need help in understanding it, do let me know.

This suggests that France is not legally allowed to interfere with the transit of refugees through France.
Don't stand too near to that bonfire of your arguments.

 

[Pat ex]

Why is it "dishonest" to focus on the problems? We have a lot of bogus Asylum claims,

About 18% are refused asylum.

we have an industry of charities and professional law firms dedicated to helping people achieve successful claims. On top of that we have Traffickers advising people what to say as part of their "service".

One set are legal, the others are criminals. You conveniently and disingenuously bracket them together.

Regarding your claim they are healthy. You have to remember that these countries have major public health problems: Hepatitis, tuberculosis, HIV etc. If they had desirable skills to be immediate assets to the UK, they could apply for a visa and come via the regular routes.

The visa for work scheme is inappropriate for non-skilled and semi-skilled. A lot of the current labour shortage consists of semi-skilled and non-skilled workforce.
Some areas, such as elementary agriculture has seen about 30% decrease in labour.

 

[motorbiking]

Do you get that Paragraph 2, applies only to those who are protected by paragraph 1? No application = no protection.

 

[Pat ex]

Do you get that Paragraph 2, applies only to those who are protected by paragraph 1? No application = no protection.

Nonsense. It's an either/ or scenario.
If the refugee is seeking asylum in one country, they cannot transit through that country to seek asylum in another country.
That would be asylum cherry picking. But then UK has excused itself from the Dublin Agreement, so of little relevance.

Your claim makes a nonsense of the UNHCR argument that refugees do not have to claim asylum in the first country of arrival.
In addition your argument has already been dismantled by UK courts.

that some element of choice is indeed open to refugees as to where they may properly claim asylum. I conclude that any merely short term stopover en route to such intended sanctuary cannot forfeit the protection of the Article, and that the main touchstones by which exclusion from protection should be judged are the length of stay in the intermediate country, the reasons for delaying there (even a substantial delay in an unsafe third country would be reasonable were the time spent trying to acquire the means of travelling on), and whether or not the refugee sought or found there protection de jure or de facto from the persecution they were fleeing.

https://www.refworld.org/pdfid/3ae6b6b41c.pdf

The judgement goes on to ridicule the "surrender without delay" for asylum.

there is no time limit which can be mechanistically applied or associated with the expression ‘without delay’.

The case shows that the UNHCR Article 31 was amended by the addition of paragraph 2 to allow such transitory of refugees to a third (or fourth or fifth) country.

 

[ajohn]

No its based on my Legal expertise.

if you use that further you will find that the "land" where they actually apply matters as well. The paragraph you have quoted makes no comment about where they happen to be on the way to where ever they wish to go. This is why the 1st safe country they come to isn't relevant.

As you are a legal person you will know who interprets the law. Judges of various types not you. This is an international area like it or not.

So some refugee is refused leave to stay appeals. Well who settles that - a judge. Some numbers
The proportion of asylum appeals allowed in the year to June 2022 was 51% (almost unchanged from the previous year). The appeal success rate has been steadily increasing over the last decade (up from 29% in 2010).
The rest are accepted. So you want to deny them their legal rights? You could argue that the people who defend them should be more careful about who they support. LOL Maybe we should apply that to all legal aspects for everybody. That isn't how it works.

Another one.
As the UK’s involvement in the Dublin III arrangements ended, the government now makes decisions to seek another country’s agreement to process the claim on an individual basis.
Read the rest here. There are some other aspects of interest as well.

Top facts from the latest statistics on refugees and people seeking asylum - Refugee Council

Supporting and Empowering Refugees

www.refugeecouncil.org.uk

Passing the buck for pretty obvious reasons doesn't work out.

So you have the law. You also have internation politics. For all countries people aiming to get to some other country is not their problem. Even @gone appreciates this. The only way in the UK and others is arriving via illegal means. No one out of the EU for instance can get in there without the correct documentation. None have ever been able to get into the UK without that even when we were in the EU.

The land aspect has cropped up before. Even the UK has "imported land" they are called embassies. They couldn't cope and are only the UK in the area they cover. Refugees are also not within their scope - usually, other than an extremely limited scope and likely to apply to people who got some where legally.

 

[Pat ex]

Just to reiterate, if a person has refugee status ( and that is readily defined in the UNHCR *)
They have a right to travel through countries to apply for asylum in their country of choice, without being subjected to prosecution for the minor immigration breaches:

As confirmed by Adimi, nothing in the Refugee Convention suggests that status as a refugee is dependent on the individual making a claim for asylum in the first safe country in which he or she arrives. To put it another way, there is no legal obligation on refugees to claim asylum in safe countries and if they decline to do so it does not disqualify them from refugee status in any way.

“Why don’t asylum seekers stop before they get here?” - Free Movement

“Why don’t asylum seekers stop before they get here?”

freemovement.org.uk

Moreover, in the case sited in the previous post, refugees do not have claim these rights, they should be automatically afforded to them by the countries which are signatories to the UNHCR.

* Article 1 - Definition of the term "refugee"

https://www.ohchr.org/en/instruments-mechanisms/instruments/convention-relating-status-refugees#:~:text=Article%2031%20%2D%20Refugees%20unlawfully%20in%20the%20country%20of%20refuge,-1.&text=The%20Contracting%20States%20shall%20not,obtain%20admission%20into%20another%20country.

 

[motorbiking]

This is an excellent piece of UK Case law for you to read up on. Its been discussed here before and it has relevance not to your argument, but to reinforce the argument that one does not have protection if they do not claim. I would urge you to have another read. All were prosecuted for immigration offences due to having false papers etc. They did not initially claim Asylum and therefore were not protected by Article 31(1). Once they claimed Asylum and presented themselves as Refugees their prosecutions continued (wrongly). In fact one immigration officer even discussed the Asylum claim with the expectation that the individual would make a claim. It has nothing to do with the second provision.

The problem for you of course, is its no longer precedent as the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999 tightened the definition. See. https://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Crim/2013/1372.html

There is a lot more detail here:

Immigration | The Crown Prosecution Service

www.cps.gov.uk

Of course it is irrelevant to a person found in France having committed immigration offences, who does not then claim Asylum or even someone in the UK, who has not claimed Asylum.

So again - No claim = no protection. They can claim at pretty much any stage. Note also it doesn't give them a defence to all offences or any offence committed after they make their claim.

Nothing in the Article by Nick Nason, claims a person is protected by the convention if they do not claim. He merely argues their claim is not invalidated if they passed through a safe country. I'm not disputing this. However, all the time they don't claim their defence they are open to prosecution anywhere.

No would be asylum seeker on their way to the UK wants to claim Asylum in France, so they do their best to avoid interaction with the the French authorities, given they have committed and plan to commit offences. If they were arrested they would have to invoke their rights and that would end their ability to continue on to the UK (unless the UK allowed them here). It would also stop any subsequent offences being protected.

 

[Pat ex]

This is an excellent piece of UK Case law for you to read up on. Its been discussed here before and it has relevance not to your argument, but to reinforce the argument that one does not have protection if they do not claim. I would urge you to have another read. All were prosecuted for immigration offences due to having false papers etc. They did not initially claim Asylum and therefore were not protected by Article 31(1). Once they claimed Asylum and presented themselves as Refugees their prosecutions continued (wrongly). In fact one immigration officer even discussed the Asylum claim with the expectation that the individual would make a claim. It has nothing to do with the second provision.

You are intentionally misrepresenting the outcome of that case.

To put it another way, there is no legal obligation on refugees to claim asylum in safe countries and if they decline to do so it does not disqualify them from refugee status in any way.

“Why don’t asylum seekers stop before they get here?” - Free Movement

“Why don’t asylum seekers stop before they get here?”

freemovement.org.uk

And as refugees they are entitled to rights, whether they have applied for asylum or not.

Provided that the respondents henceforth recognise the
true reach of Article 31 as we are declaring it to be, and put in place procedures to
ensure that those entitled to its protection (i.e. travellers recognisable as refugees
whether or not they have actually claimed asylum) are not prosecuted,..
In any event, the respondents’ argument provides no justification whatever for prosecuting refugees
in transit.

https://www.refworld.org/pdfid/3ae6b6b41c.pdf

The problem for you of course, is its no longer precedent as the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999 tightened the definition. See. https://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Crim/2013/1372.html

Sorry, but that case makes it obvious that signatories to the convention must modify their domestic law to coincide with the convention.
The UK's current definition of refugee is in contravention of the UNHCR, and the UN have declared that to be the case.
In case of a mismatch, the UNHCR definition trumps the British domestic definition.

There is a lot more detail here:

Immigration | The Crown Prosecution Service

www.cps.gov.uk

It's British domestic law and has no standing in the international field.

Of course it is irrelevant to a person found in France having committed immigration offences, who does not then claim Asylum or even someone in the UK, who has not claimed Asylum.

Precisely. France is abiding by the UNHCR, UK is trying to circumvent that UNHCR with domestic law which is only to appease the right wing anti-foreigner electorate.

So again - No claim = no protection. They can claim at pretty much any stage. Note also it doesn't give them a defence to all offences or any offence committed after they make their claim.

The quotes from the case make it obvious that your assumption and interpretation is incorrect.

Nothing in the Article by Nick Nason, claims a person is protected by the convention if they do not claim. He merely argues their claim is not invalidated if they passed through a safe country. I'm not disputing this. However, all the time they don't claim their defence they are open to prosecution anywhere.

He doesn't need to. The definition of a refugee and the rights as a refugee does that.

No would be asylum seeker on their way to the UK wants to claim Asylum in France, so they do their best to avoid interaction with the the French authorities, given they have committed and plan to commit offences. If they were arrested they would have to invoke their rights and that would end their ability to continue on to the UK (unless the UK allowed them here). It would also stop any subsequent offences being protected.

They don't need to avoid interaction, as refugees France must afford them their rights to transit through France, without hinderance to claim asylum in UK. It says elsewhere that as refugees they must be accorded the same rights to travel as indigenous people.

 

[motorbiking]

How do they know they are refugees and not illegal immigrants or people traffickers? Is it:

A - they make a claim for refugee status and provide the necessary evidence to assist the state with determining their status
B - they are just meant to know.

If you need a hint, its not B.

They don't need to avoid interaction, as refugees France must afford them their rights to transit through France, without hinderance to claim asylum in UK. It says elsewhere that as refugees they must be accorded the same rights to travel as indigenous people.

Do you think a can of tier gas in the face complies with this?

 

[ajohn]

The other aspect about these conventions is that politicians of various forms create them backed by the legal side of things.

Trust the EU to provide a brief

https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/ATAG/2015/569051/EPRS_ATA(2015)569051_EN.pdf

So again - No claim = no protection. They can claim at pretty much any stage. Note also it doesn't give them a defence to all offences or any offence committed after they make their claim.

The tricky part is where they want to finish up. No safe country they pass through will agree to all who arrive staying there or processing them. "In transit" they effectively have no legal status at all unless there is something else kicking about that offers them some sort of protection. They are refugees before they request leave to stay. I use the term leave to stay as it can be for different reasons.

The scope of the problem is rather large
At least 89.3 million people around the world have been forced to flee their homes. Among them are nearly 27.1 million refugees, around half of whom are under the age of 18.
There are also millions of stateless people, who have been denied a nationality and lack access to basic rights such as education, health care, employment and freedom of movement.
From here which has more info

Figures at a Glance

At least 82.4 million people around the world have been forced to flee their homes. Among them are 26.4 million refugees, around half of whom are under the age of 18.

www.unhcr.org

A refugee is some one who has fled their country. People calling them asylum seekers is misleading. They become that when they apply,
Those numbers relate to ~5m actual asylum seekers.

Also this from 2021 - probably representing higher actual numbers now
Approximately 22 percent of the world's refugee population live in refugee camps – an estimated 6.6 million people. Among them, 4.5 million reside in planned and managed camps and approximately 2 million are sheltered in self-settled camps

My own feeling on arrivals of this type are mixed. The only way to compare countries is to relate them to the entire population not actual numbers. That shows the true scope of any problems caused as far as the rest of use are concerned. We have problems anyway and reducing isn't going to do much about that. Getting huge numbers who get to stay probably would. The UK's wriggling is not a solution. Processing clearly has problems down to gov's actions. So now they decide to apply more labour to the job.

Italy has tried directly processing arrivals when on "boats" that are rather larger than the ones we get. They leave rejects on the boat. This is to try and dissuade organisations that collect them. One ship had been refused admission to a port. The captain can insist at some point due to international law. Just sale in effectively. They will then need to process the ones they have "taken in" more thoroughly. There may even be legal action concerning the ones left on the ship. No silver bullet there either. Just like here.

 

[motorbiking]

To be fair to Italy, many of those NGO boats were sailing very close to the wind [see what I did there ] regarding their own legal protection. Most countries make it an offence to facilitate illegal immigration even if they are assisting an asylum seeker. Hanging about off the coast of Africa, picking up boats as part of an organised process and ferrying them to Italy, puts them and their captain in a risky situation.

If we had NGO boats doing the same in the UK, we'd find them getting prosecuted.

 

[Pat ex]

How do they know they are refugees and not illegal immigrants or people traffickers? Is it:

A - they make a claim for refugee status and provide the necessary evidence to assist the state with determining their status
B - they are just meant to know.

If you need a hint, its not B.


Do you think a can of tier gas in the face complies with this?

The judgement in that case specifically stated that the CPS should not have prosecuted, but they have no discretion whether to or not.
What they should have done is sought Home Office direction. And it is for the Home Office to prosecute or not.
Therefore when the refugees were arrested, they would have immediately indicated that they were refugees, and the CPS should then refer the issue to the Home Office.
But that does not mean that the refugees were obliged to seek asylum with the UK. They were on their way to Canada. For those who have not read the case papers, the refugees won their appeal, and were awarded costs.

Of course a can of tear gas in the face does not comply with the requirement for refugees to transit through a country unhindered.
But if the police consider themselves in danger, they are entitled to protect themselves. Which may be why the police do not exacerbate any scenario where the refugees are detected on the beaches.
Maybe it also applies in territorial waters.
It certainly indicates that France does take any action open to it, under the UNHCR, e.g. disrupting camps would apply equally to indigenous people, destroying boats would equally apply to native people, etc.

 

[Pat ex]

... They are refugees before they request leave to stay...

A refugee is some one who has fled their country. ...

Precisely.

The UK's wriggling is not a solution. Processing clearly has problems down to gov's actions. So now they decide to apply more labour to the job.

But productivity has gone seriously downhill.

Italy has tried directly processing arrivals when on "boats" that are rather larger than the ones we get. They leave rejects on the boat. This is to try and dissuade organisations that collect them. One ship had been refused admission to a port. The captain can insist at some point due to international law. Just sale in effectively. They will then need to process the ones they have "taken in" more thoroughly. There may even be legal action concerning the ones left on the ship. No silver bullet there either. Just like here.

On leaving the asylum seekers/refugees on the boats, Italy is in contravention of the UNHCR. They must provide accommodation during the asylum process.

 

[Pat ex]

To be fair to Italy, many of those NGO boats were sailing very close to the wind [see what I did there ] regarding their own legal protection. Most countries make it an offence to facilitate illegal immigration even if they are assisting an asylum seeker. Hanging about off the coast of Africa, picking up boats as part of an organised process and ferrying them to Italy, puts them and their captain in a risky situation.

If they are rescuing refugees in distress, they are not committing any offence

If we had NGO boats doing the same in the UK, we'd find them getting prosecuted.

Only because there is no international water for them to operate in, as far as the current channel crossings are concerned.

 

[ajohn]

If we had NGO boats doing the same in the UK, we'd find them getting prosecuted.

If we get some I suspect you would be proved wrong. Another set of conventions and laws.

The only solution to the whole thing at the moment would be an international solution. I don't think that is very likely so we are left having to cope with it. The impact people wise is not that great. It costs but things do.