You initially claimed that he’s “here illegally”. I pointed out that he shows a residence permit in the video. You challenged that he isn’t from an “unsafe country”, but the site you linked states he’s from Yemen and I showed you evidence that Yemen is, indeed, an unsafe country.
Now, rather than admit you either misspoke or unfairly maligned a stranger, you subtly shift from “here illegally” to “came here illegally”, and you’ve invented a story about how he got here, based on no evidence that you’ve shared, to justify a conclusion that you already believed without evidence.
And while I’m not versed in UK immigration law, I’m willing to bet that there was nothing illegal about the way he “came”, based on the fact that he was issued a residence permit. (Before you go looking for a law that he broke, notice that you don’t know what it is, and you don’t know the facts to which that law applies.)
It seems like you’re talking about a stereotype of a parasitical immigrant, rather than the specific human being depicted in your video; like you believe that the presence of this specific human being in the UK must be illegal, because the presence of any parasitical immigrant is illegal. And you’re looking for reasons to keep believing that the stereotype fits this specific human being, about whom you know almost nothing – other than that he comes from a war-torn country, he’s been granted legal residence in the UK, and he’s happy about it.
He was showing the resident’s permit that he’d only just received, so up until that point he was here illegally, having paid 1000s of pounds to board a people-smuggling small boat to get here, so arriving here illegally.
¿Now why would he have to arrive here illegally if he was coming from Yemen as a refugee? …because he had already gained residence in a safe country, but didn’t want to remain there because he wanted to live in ‘jolly olde England’ instead.
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Both… he was here illegally and came here illegally… because he arrived on a people-smuggling small boat.
The article states that he arrived on a small boat that took him across the channel, so that is the evidence right there.
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…he paid 1000s of pounds to board a people-smuggling small boat to take him across the channel.
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Balderdash!
It’s your character that is questionable, not mine!
Countries have their quotas, so illegal border-hopping puts strain on already over-burdened populations and economies - we/the UK have to now find a London-sized city to accommodate our burgeoning population, with money from where?
Yes, I missed you saying what country you thought he was from and why you thought that. I’m not kidding. Did you explain what country you thought he was from and where you got that information from?
OK, so you thought he didn’t come from a dangerous place, and you say you’ve explained it, but you didn’t explain what country you thought he was from that led you to conclude it wasn’t dangerous. Very interesting.
I must be retarded. You see, for me, if I wanted to determine if they came from a dangerous place, I would first figure out where they came from, and then I would try to find out if that place was somewhere dangerous. But that’s just my retarded logic. What do you suppose is the right way to go about it?
Mags, you’ve said a number of things about this man that aren’t in any source you’ve provided. The only source you’ve cited says he was in the UK legally from Yemen. It also calls him a “channel migrant” and says he arrived “via a small boat”, though the video they are describing doesn’t say that and the “Guido Fawkes” blog is not as reliable a source as Sky News. There’s no mention in either about paying people smugglers, the route he took to get to the UK, or previous grants of asylum or residency.
That video is a clip from a longer piece, so maybe there’s more information in the original – do you have the full piece?
Where did he previously receive residency or asylum, and what evidence do you have for it?
K: the basic premise is that the way he came into the country makes
him illegal… but the path into a country doesn’t make one illegal…
thus, you are saying if he came by airplane, or by train,
he must be legal… the mode of transportation does not make
one legal or illegal… it is just a mode of transportation…
“Illegal” is mostly rhetorical as applied to asylum seekers (other sources prefer “irregular migration”).
Particularly as there’s no way to apply for asylum from outside the UK, it would mean applying for asylum in the UK would require being a criminal. My guess is that applying for asylum is a complete defense against the law that criminalizes entry without prior permission.
In any case, “crossing illegally” and “being [there] illegally” are not the same thing. Even assuming the crossing is “illegal”, it does not entail that they are in the UK illegally, because if someone is granted leave to remain their continued presence is legal. And according the this asylum information booklet published by the UK government,
your rights and responsibilities whilst you are claiming asylum include:
remaining in the UK throughout the duration of your asylum claim
Before 2023, channel-crossers applying for asylum had a legal right to remain.
The law was changed in 2023 to make people arriving by small boat ineligible for asylum, but there are a lot of exceptions. It doesn’t apply to anyone who arrived before the law went into effect (subsection 2(3)). The new law also exempts certain types of asylees – unaccompanied minors, people fleeing slavery, certain human rights claims (2(11)) – and the Secretary of State can make additional exceptions (4(7)).
It also requires that an individual “requires leave to enter or remain in the United Kingdom but does not have it”, which seems like a pretty big carve out? It seems like any law that grants temporary permission to remain in the UK would also allow a person to make a claim of asylum.
So even with the new law meant to further restrict access to asylum in the UK, someone whose application is pending is in the UK legally, and someone who is granted asylum is in the UK legally, regardless of how they arrived.
