Miscellaneous -
Asylum Seekers 9
A
mob of asylum seekers sparked a riot at the end
of a Butlins holiday funded by taxpayers when
they brawled with terrified trippers who had
scrimped and saved for their breaks at the
resort. The asylum seekers at Butlins were aged
14 to 18 and mainly Kosovan. They were sent to
the company’s complex at Minehead, Somerset,
by Kensington and Chelsea council, West London.
Officials had sanctioned the £160-a-head,
week-long trip. Although police were called, no
arrests were made (naturally). The asylum seekers
were accompanied by five council employees, whose
trips were also paid for by public money.
A spokesman for Kensington and Chelsea council
said, “Refugee children in care are entitled
to receive outings. The group was made up of a
variety and mixture of backgrounds. There were
some Kosovan Albanians and some from the Horn of
Africa. There was taunting between youths and
that led to a fight between two youths. We
apologise for any distress caused.” A Home
Office spokesman said the Butlins trip was part
of the Home Office’s “purposeful
activities scheme,” which helps asylum
seekers get involved in community activities.
A
report by MPs shows bogus refugees are flooding
into the country. Yet the Government seems unable
to deal with the growing crisis. The report by
the all-party Home Affairs Select Committee also
reveals that:
* The number of
asylum-seekers arriving on our shores has
soared from 4,223 in 1982 to 110,700 in 2002.
* The Home Office has
no idea how many who have been refused asylum
have stayed and slipped into the population.
* Gangs of traffickers
have grabbed control of the immigration
system.
* Promises made by
ministers to eject thousands of fake refugees
are impossible to keep, and
* Our benefits system
makes Britain a magnet for cheats.
The
study by the Labour-dominated committee —
published days after the British National Party
gained footholds in several town halls —
also warned the problem could lead to extreme
politics. The MPs fear “social unrest”
could erupt across the land unless solutions are
found by the Government. They demanded the
immediate removal of cheats, saying they should
be locked up prior to deportation if they are
likely to go on the run or are seen as a criminal
threat. They called for deals with other
countries so bogus refugees can be easily
repatriated. And they warned PM Tony Blair the
crisis will deepen until the public sees that
cheats are being turfed out.
Liberals who refuse to acknowledge the scale of
the problem were accused of sticking their heads
in the sand. The report calls the rising number
of asylum-seekers “clearly
unsustainable”. The MPs declared, “If
allowed to continue unchecked, it could overwhelm
capacity to cope, leading inevitably to social
unrest. It’s evident the efficient removal
of asylum-seekers whose claims have failed is a
pre-condition for the credibility of the entire
asylum process.” The MPs blasted the Home
Office’s inability to say how many cheats
have slipped the net.
Their report said, “It’s very difficult
to address the problem effectively in the absence
of reliable statistics. It’s not
satisfactory that the Government is unable to
offer even a rough estimate of the number of
failed asylum-seekers remaining in the UK. It is
difficult to know the extent of the problems
caused by absconding. It is unacceptable the Home
Office simply does not know what proportion of
failed asylum seekers abscond.”
The report confirms suspicions that the
BNP’s recent local election victories were
down to the Government’s failure to control
immigration. It says, “There are signs this
may already be happening. It will lead to a
growing political backlash which will in turn
lead to the election of extremist parties with
extreme solutions.” The alert over our
inviting benefits system was sounded by Rezgar
Ghafor, of Oxfordshire social services. The
expert told the MPs, “The welfare system
does encourage many economic migrants to exploit
the weaknesses in the system under the name of
‘asylum seekers’. This understandably
creates resentment amongst the population.”
On the villains trafficking asylum-seekers, the
committee said, “It cannot be right to leave
migration in the hands of criminal gangs, as to a
large extent it is at the moment. Nor can it be
right to admit only those who can afford to pay
the large sums demanded by traffickers.” The
MPs said the key to tackling mass illegal
immigration was a robust but humane deportation
system. And they demanded a £20million scheme to
reinstate port controls to count migrants going
in and out of Britain. The committee welcomed
recent signs that fewer bogus refugees are
heading here.
Nearly 250,000 non-EU immigrants will enter
Britain every year, the independent think-tank
MigrationWatch UK predicts. It said official
statistics fail to estimate those who sneak in
and visitors who over-stay. It added, “The
Home Office view appears to be that, since they
cannot be counted, they should be ignored.”
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