@P'rot,

That was Bullsh!t -- NOT "facts"

There seems to be a strange malady that afflicts many on the open-borders side:assemble a grab-bag of lefty links, attach some puerile comment like "(here are the) facts" or "this site explains it all" then dump them on the thread in lieu of reasoned argument.

How about some independent thought?
_____________________________________________________________

@Rhian,

1) <<I think the term “economic migrant” is another vile weasel expression, like “people smugglers”>>
Surely you are kidding, if you want real weasel words have a look at:"irregular maritime arrivees" or "asylum seekers" --thems are the REAL weasels words.

2) <<The “people smugglers” must be extraordinarily good teachers, and the immigration officials extraordinarily dumb, for the 90% acceptance rate to be attributable to “coaching”>>

BENEFIT OF THE DOUBT! When they have no papers, no history and a well rehearsed story the UN convention instructs signatories to give scammers THE BENEFIT OF THE DOUBT.

Rhian,

My last post never claimed that economic factors were the most important, only that both economic and political factors are at work, sometimes in the same person. Migration Watch UK would hardly lie about Home Office statistics, as these are easily checked. If you want to spend time looking at the primary sources, be my guest.

Britain, like Australia, doesn't have land borders, so people can't easily sneak in. Numbers of asylum seekers started off small in Europe as well. They only really started to snowball in the 1980s. People who will be starting from nothing in a strange country know that they are likely to need a support network, so they prefer to settle in places where there is already a community of their fellow countrymen. The first asylum seekers from Ruritania may well be genuine refugees and pretty desperate, but once they have an ethnic community in the host country, it acts as a magnet for more asylum seekers, especially the friends and relatives of the people who are already settled (chain migration). These people are not necessarily refugees. Doesn't it make you suspicious when so-called refugees return for a trip to the home country that they supposedly fled in terror?

The snowballing process has already started in Australia, with around 44,000 asylum claims from boat arrivals since Rudd has his brainstorm. There is no natural upper limit. There was a post from Yabby some time ago suggesting that a lot of money could be made by buying old sheep transport ships and bringing in thousands at a time.

You haven't addressed the issue of how we deal with failed asylum seekers. SPQR is right about benefit of the doubt. No official wants to read in the papers about how the asylum seeker he rejected ended up being tortured or killed. Not a good career move. Why shouldn't the absence of travel documents be taken as prima facie evidence of fraudulence, except in cases where the asylum seeker has not passed through third countries, as with some Sri Lankan Tamils?

SPQR,

Excellent.....deny the fats and call it bullsh!t - if they don't happen to agree with your biased opinion.

And then claim to be an exponent of "independent thought"...

(As in, "anybody who holds a contrary opinion to SPQR obviously can't think independently")

You're just as partisan as the next guy, so give up on the objective/ independent thought line.

Poirot
Have to get in before you make a correction

<<Excellent.....deny the fats>>

LOL

Yes, I noted that....

(double LOL:)

<< I’m all for realistic assessment of refugees, and would agree that people who claim refugee status but are found not to be refugees (by a fair and impartial process) should be returned. >>

Rhian, I’m pleased to hear it!

<< But asserting that someone is an economic migrant doesn’t make it so >>

Of course they need proper assessment. But you’ve got to think that those who pay large sums, and when they come from particularly poor countries these are very large sums indeed, to people-smugglers, then there is something decidedly more economic-migrantish than genuine-refugeeish about it all. These two categories are not necessarily discreet; there can be elements of both within the same people.

<< Evaluation of arrivals against internationally agreed criteria has found about 90% of claimants to be actual refugees. >>

Yes. But this is the benefit-of-the-doubt lenient-end-of-the-spectrum interpretation. I put it to you that a considerably tougher interpretation would still fall within the 1951 Convention definition very comfortably, and indeed a much tougher definition is used to select those who are resettled in Australia through our formal immigration program.

If boat-arrivals had been assessed using just the same interpretation as for those assessed through our formal programs, then the number accepted would be very much smaller.

There should be a no-displacement principle. Those coming here on boats should NOT ever have displaced more eligible refugees that would have been brought here. The most needy should get priority! This most important principle went by the wayside.

Failing this, there should definitely have be a no-advantage principle, whereby those coming on boats should be assessed to the same level of toughness as those offshore refugees that they would then displace if accepted.

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