Worrying situation

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/feb/19/deportation-of-92-year-old-widow-postponed-after-public-outcry

The power of petitioning.

I'd assumed that there was more to Catgate! Silly headline grabbing by Theresa! Thanks for link dj.

Except it wasn't true, Petra.

ukhumanrightsblog.com/2011/10/10/catgate-and-some-other-things-that-happened-last-week/

And I say it once again: But we can't deport a Morrocan rapist ( after he has done his pathetic sentence ) because he has married and bought a cat.

www.change.org/p/the-government-ailing-92-year-old-facing-forced-removal-from-uk

It might be too late.

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/feb/18/widow-92-return-south-africa-deportation-battle-myrtle-cothill

Should this woman be deported?

www.refugeecouncil.org.uk/policy_research/the_truth_about_asylum/facts_about_asylum_-_page_6

This is where the refugees go to. Only 1% in the UK. Most go to poor countries.

Perhaps people in this country ought to get their facts right before criticising.

It is not a fuss about red doors and wristbands. Not if you are one of the people being attacked and insulted.
Rather than criticising the asylum seekers for being ungrateful, shouldn't the perpetrators of these insults be brought to book?
They are gaining millions from the government for putting asylum seekers in awful conditions.

www.google.com/url?q=http://www.refugeecouncil.org.uk/latest/news/4071_mps_slam_asylum_housing_providers&sa=U&ved=0ahUKEwiLsOC2kM3KAhUBWxoKHYsCCSwQFggSMAU&client=internal-uds-cse&usg=AFQjCNEH_pe_gfGgeQrpU2c0JrF8QlXFbw

This is what the government said about accommodation providers in 2014.
It really hasn't improved.

Wilma that's OK

It is an overwhelming situation which can only get worse unless a coherent strategy is developed asap across more than just the EU.
I kept thinking about the young couple with the tiny baby huddled in a shop doorway - she must have been very pregnant en route and perhaps gave birth without much help. Anyway, they are warm and safe now for the time being.
That is why I thought a fuss about red bands and red doors was really a red herring (sorry, unintentional pun).

I must remember to be more straightforward and not obtuse or sarcastic

durhamjen, I wasn't 'blaming' asylum seekers for the housing crisis and I wish you'd be more considerate of others. My post, and earlier comments confirm that I believe the police to sell council housing was plain wrong. The area I referred to has a largely white and extremely deprived population. So far as I'm aware the African community is settling in well. I've seen no reports of racism and watching children/parents coming and going from school suggests lots of positive interaction.

My concern stems from being a social worker in that area, when we had close working relationships with the local housing department with the result we were able to negotiate suitable housing to maintain the vulnerable. I have no problem with African asylum seekers being given a level of priority but what about the vulnerable single mother fleeing domestic abuse, desperate to return to the community where her extended family live so she and her children live in a familiar, safe environment. Yes, we need more social housing but please stop sniping and finding offence where none was intended

Jalima I apologise for being rude to you last night.

reach = reaching

Some of what we're seeing is down to the numbers of migrants reach the different countries. We haven't had anything like the influxes other countries are dealing with and that means we haven't had to resort to using the various kinds of temporary accommodation I mentioned.

Reports are saying many Iraqis migrants waiting for decisions have disappeared, presumed to have returned home for various reasons. A Swedish spokesperson said expulsions - normally carried out using commercial flights - would have to be done using specially chartered aircraft, given the large numbers, staggered over several years.

Presumably this is because they can't return people to war zones and they will either have to wait for the wars to end, find a country willing to take them, or fall back on the Dublin Agreement meaning the country where a migrant first arrived is responsible for dealing with them.

Turkey has already said it will not take the failed migrants, so it will be interesting to see how this will progress.

Yes, it is such an overwhelming crisis that the authorities seem unable to sort those in genuine need of refuge from those economic migrants jumping on the bandwagon of despair.

So a house with or without a red door would be preferable to huts, disused aircraft hangars etc - or a heated tent or shop doorways imo.

I was not being sarcastic, rather trying to get the point across that this is a humanitarian ongoing crisis of immense proportions and making a big (presumably political) fuss about wristbands or door colours is ludicrous; as I understand it (fairly recent Sky news? possibly) the police had not recorded any racist attacks as a result of the offending doors.

There are those of us in the real world who always knew that this was never going to work.
Even 'fluffy' Sweden is seeing the light, potentially, 60,000 being removed.

I agree. I remember saying when it all started that these economic migrants would make things harder for genuine refugees. I also wondered at the urge to 'go West' rather than East. Good Muslims of whatever type should have offered refuge to those in need. I don't know where some of the men got the idea that they'd be given houses and money in the UK. One interviewee confidently announced that he was looking forward to going to Cambridge (uni). Maybe reality has hit. East West home's best?

Apparently some migrants are now returning to Iraq from Germany. This suggests to me that the conditions they left were not intolerable, which in turn suggests that they were/are economic migrants rather than refugees or asylum seekers.

If this is the case, I am sorry for it because I think economic migration has made things worse for genuine refugees and asylum seekers. I'm not against economic migration in principle, far from it, but I think the migrant 'crisis' in Europe has perhaps been exacerbated by too much of it in the last few years.

Feel very gloomy on this subject. Almost certainly climate change will produce high push factors from the countries affected so this problem is only just beginning.

Just read that Sweden is expelling 80,000 failed asylum seekers. Wonder where to? Will the other countries with previous open door policies follow suit? What a shambles and disaster. IS must be laughing at Europe.

Germany - Most asylum seekers are housed in sports halls, disused aircraft hangars, empty barracks with a small number of heated tents still in use.
France - Most are housed in wooden containers, although the conditions in France are probably the worst in the EU.
Denmark - Are the tents at Thisted now in use?
Slovenia - Migrants pass through here on the way to Austria or Germany, so I don't know what arrangements are in place.
Finland - The initiative to replace tents with refurbished shipping containers is almost finished.

I won't list the initiatives I have and continue to support.

Really, wilmaknickersfit?
I am not being sarcastic about the asylum seekers, merely about some of the posts on here.

If you didn't know (puzzled as to why not, it has been on the news) Germany, Denmark, Finland, Slovenia, France house asylum seekers in tents.
And Denmark wants to take away their personal possessions - presumably along with what dignity they may have left.

And personally I have been donating to help start up a drop in centre for refugees in Turkey (no, I do know it is not in Europe) and a friend is helping find accommodation there, with the help of donations, for people found in the freezing cold sleeping in shop doorways, one couple with a newborn baby.

so I don't need moralising from any posters on here - some posts seem to come from the indignant lofty heights and not from experience.

In that last article, there are a few mentions of Clearsprings. That is the company that issued the red wristbands.

www.irr.org.uk/news/g4s-jomast-stockton-hostel-and-the-mother-and-baby-market/

This is the company in 2012. They've been mistreating asylum seekers since then at least.

Jalima several of your posts are dripping with sarcasm about the treatment of asylum seekers, so stop playing the injured party.

Would you like to tell me which EU countries have asylum seekers in tents?

The houses in question are below the standard to be used as council or housing association properties. Private landlords do not have to meet the standards councils and housing associations are legally required to provide. Most of the properties would be classed as slums by UK standards.

The executive being asked the questions may not have known the answers, but that doesn't change the fact that the organisation previously said doors were painted one colour for easy identification by their staff. And even if the figure of 59% is correct, if the 59% are all in one area then it will look like all the doors are the same colour. There's been no explanation either why the white doors were repainted red.

Nobody is saying the company are deliberately making asylum seekers easy targets for abuse by painting front doors the same colour, but that's what's happened anyway.

And I haven't heard anything about asylum seekers complaining about their accommodation, so why are some posters implying that they are?

I agree there, Penstemmon, about the racist people. But there was still no need to single out the asylum seekers to the racists.

The doors is only one symptom of that company's problems. It wasn't a faux pas, and the government knew about the problems in 2012 and 2013.

The irr link is about their problems with race relations and how they have treated asylum seekers for years. It's only now that it has been reported in the national media.