Migrant Crisis Bandwagon

Time to jump on the bandwagon and express an opinion on the current ‘migrant crisis’ that is mildly correct and equally a load of old rubbish as indeed many articles in the press are.

What is the Migrant Crisis?

Parts of the world are suffering a religious war brought about by some so called extremists of a so called non-violent religion trying to enforce their way of life and belief system on others. This oppression is being brought about in a very violent way and naturally those people who do not want to get caught up in this or simply don’t share the view that God can be worshiped through the medium of explosives are leaving their home.

Let’s be clear here, these people leaving their war-torn homeland in order to find safety are not migrants, they are refugees and when they arrive at another country, a place of safety they remain refugees until the authorities process them and if they are allowed to stay they become immigrants, having moved from one country to another and taken up the new country’s nationality.

These people are not migrants since they have not left one country for another in order to find work, they have left as a result of war or persecution.

This loose definition helps to set things into perspective.

Refugee – a person who has been forced to leave their country in order to escape war, persecution, or natural disaster.

Migrant – a person who moves from one place to another in order to find work or better living conditions.

Immigrant – a person who comes to live permanently in a foreign country.

Why Europe and Why UK

Europe is the next continent to where most of these war-torn countries lie being the African and Indian continents. Europe has a general system of acceptance where anyone is allowed to come in to Europe to live and work as long as they match certain loosely defined criteria.

In general refugees will be able to received accommodation and welfare until their immigration status is sorted out this is also where those who do not qualify are sent back from whence they came. . . in theory.

The level of support provided is roughly the same whichever European country they choose to go to including the UK however some countries make it easier for refugees to gain access to support than others.

The urban myth is that the benefits in the UK are greater than anywhere else in Europe which of course they are not. What they are however is easier to get at and this makes travelling to the UK to gain access to those benefits very attractive.

When is a Migrant Not A Migrant?

Or rather when does a refugee become a migrant?

When they land in Europe they have escaped their threat, they are safe and their refugee status will hopefully be favourably assessed and their immigration status sorted.

When they then move across one or two countries to get to the UK with no prospect of work, they are not refugees from terror, they are economic migrants looking for better benefit healthcare than they think they would get in Europe.

This is a clear intention to deliberately gain access to the UK rather than accept refuge in the first European country they land in as refugees.

These people are neither refugee nor illegal immigrant, they are fraudsters who oddly enough would have easier access to the UK by becoming a member of any other European country such as Greece, Italy or France before getting to the UK.

Those in Calais fighting to get through the tunnel or onto ferries should therefore be returned from whence they came as they are clearly not refugees.