For migrants under 24/7 surveillance, the UK feels like ‘an outside prison’ | Hacker News Reader

For migrants under 24/7 surveillance, the UK feels like ‘an outside prison’

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9 pointsvinnyglennon20 comments

So the guy in the story, Sam, was aware that if he committed a crime he could be deported because of his non-citizen status. Then he committed a crime. Surprised pikachu at what happened next.

Semi-related:

Eyes on the poor: Cameras, facial recognition watch over public housing

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/05/16/surveilla...

https://archive.ph/ffGdV

The whole project is futile and serves only to placate anti-immigrant feeling.

Tags do not prevent someone from absconding - they could simply remove the tag and disappear, into those parts of society where people are able to live without paperwork.

The only reason tags work is because most petty or white-collar criminals have no interest in disappearing, and can be easily found if they do. They only serve to enforce bail conditions such as not going out in the evening.

"The way the government treats refugees is very instructive because it shows you how they would treat the rest of us if they thought they could get away with it."

Why even bother to immigrate to the UK in this day and age? Is it really a better lifestyle?

On the basis of human rights violations, it is rapidly becoming a worse place to live than many of the places the people of the UK have been bombing into oblivion with impunity, creating the refugee crises in the first place ..

I wasn't aware the UK (or anyone for that matter) has been bombing Albania recently.

In 2021, the top five most common countries of nationality of people who applied for asylum in the UK were Iran, Iraq, Eritrea, Albania and Syria. Of all refugees resettled in the UK from January 2010 to December 2021, around 70% were Syrian citizens.

...

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/british-forces-ai...

According the UNHCR [1]

The top nationalities of people applying for asylum were Syrian (75,615), Afghan (49,905), Venezuelan (19,235), Colombian (18,160), Pakistani (17,960), Iraqi (16,420), and Turkish (13,845).

We bombed a couple of those ... and no Albania.

[1] https://www.unhcr.org/uk/asylum-uk

From your link:

"Albania was the top nationality claiming asylum in the UK in the year ending September 2022 (13,650 applications)."

Full text of the paragraph you partially quoted:

"In the year ending September 2021, EU+ (EU, EEA and Switzerland) countries have seen a 4% fall in asylum applications, receiving 418,495 first time asylum applications from non-EU citizens. The top nationalities of people applying for asylum were Syrian (75,615), Afghan (49,905), Venezuelan (19,235), Colombian (18,160), Pakistani (17,960), Iraqi (16,420), and Turkish (13,845)."

I thought your numbers were a bit high for the UK.

I stand corrected, thanks

Let me introduce you to 2000 years of history

I wonder if that has anything to do with the fact that most of the British citizens don't want them there

Here's an idea - control your border better and quit letting everyone in. Then.... you won't need to put ankle bracelets on them.

It's almost like you can't support the entire world and they need to fix their own problems.

"their own problems" like post-colonization?

Ahh yes because they were living in literal utopia beforehand. Child sacrifice, murdering, robbery, rape.... none of those existed before the evIL wHiteY ChRIstIAn came.

EVERY single race, culture, group etc. on this planet has been subject to some horrific event. Stop making excuses and grow up. Placing blame on something that happened centuries ago for you current plight is about as childish and ignorant as you can get.

> quit letting everyone in

What if they are already in, especially by international waters? Force to walk the plank?

Australia has a solution to that problem in the form of an island where those who attempt to enter the country illegally are kept while awaiting deportation. The message is clear, do not try to enter the country illegally, you will NOT be allowed to stay. Combine that with a functioning legal migration policy and make sure to enforce the illegal migration ban rigorously. Just as important is to make sure the message is spread widely in those countries where traffickers operate so their promises of a land of milk and honey where migrants get a house and car and wife without ever having to lift a hand are dispelled. Make clear that the practice of sending 'anchor babies' (underage children/minors who are sent to gain residence permits for themselves - which tends to be easier for unaccompanied children - who are supposed to then turn around and invite their entire families to join them) will not succeed by either finding their families and reuniting those children with them or - if the family can not be found or disavows kinship in hope of using the child in the aforementioned way - by denying the family the right to enter the country.

Also, catch the traffickers and prosecute them, relieve them of their ill gotten gains. In a way the fight against modern traffickers resembles the fight against Barbary pirates in the early 1800s [1] in that the pirates needed to be defeated to put a halt to their activities.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbary_Wars

If by plank, you mean sending them back then 100% yes. Acceptance is only enablement and reassurance that you can expect them to continue acting the same way.

Easier said than done.

Do you think there's actually a "let everyone in" policy in place? There isn't.

Firstly, there is demand. Even if Britain announced it was closing the country tomorrow, roughly the same number of asylum seekers would arrive, and Britain would still be obligated to rescue them from its seas. If there were some war or instability in regions of the world that made people there feel they should move to Britain, that would also boost the numbers. That's entirely outside the UK's control.

What is within the UK's control is:

1) agreements they make with other countries for processing asylum claims. In the EU, which they chose to leave, the Dublin III Regulation would prevail, meaning most asylum claimants trying to reach Britain would be processed in the "first safe (EU) country" [0]

Even though they lost access to that sweet deal by "taking back control", France offered to negotiate a deal with Britain, and urged it to allow asylum claimants to make their claim in France and remain in France until they're approved/rejected by Britain. [1] Britain chose not to agree to that. Instead, all it chose to agree was to pay the French to patrol their beaches more often [2]

2) How how quickly they process with asylum claims. The UK Government has an enormous backlog, and it's just getting bigger, because there aren't enough caseworkers, and the amount of time taken to process each case has grown. There is no exact reason why the time taken has grown, but explanations include high staff turnover, and the lack of having a top-level policy focusing on reducing the backlog. Such a policy used to exist in the previous government, it was removed. [3]

In that same report's second graph, you can see the previous Labour government (1997-2010) had a massive backlog of asylum claims by 1999 (much of it sprang from the Bosnian War), they cleared it down and kept it low for the rest of their governance. Since the Conservatives took over in 2010, it has spiraled out of control and is a full blown crisis today.

Regardless of where you lie on the "too many!/too few!" ideological line, the current UK asylum crisis is caused by internal incompetence alone.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dublin_Regulation

[1] https://www.france24.com/en/france/20211129-french-minister-...

[2] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-63615653

[3] https://migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/resources/briefings/th...

On 2), it wouldn't surprise me if that's intentional:

If you process asylum requests quickly, that would take some minimum amount of legal & investigative work. And as 'reward', many asylum requests could turn out to be valid, granting applicants a permanent status.

But if you let asylum seekers hang in a backlog, few costs for legal etc. Just a minimum for temporary housing. From which asylum seekers may disappear, after which they're 'not your problem' (probably still are, but somebody else's problem).

Or situation in their home country improves, upon which you can hasten procedure, deny asylum & send 'em off.

In the meanwhile, temp status asylum seekers could be subjected to all kinds of dehumanizing measures that wouldn't fly for permanent status holders or regular citizens.

Yes it's dirty. But much shameful acts have already been used to counter the inflow of (undesired) migrants.

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