Home Office says only half of UK asylum decisions meet its quality standards
Sam Ashworth-Hayes on X - "The UK gave out 1.1 million visas in the year to September. This insanity has been driven by short-termism, shifting costs into the future through pensions and welfare in exchange for a short term sugar rush - and to avoid fixing things the government broke. 🧵
We can start with the care worker visa. This was essentially invented to get out of a jam: local authorities paid for care, local authorities had no money, the Treasury was presumably too busy funding migrant hotels and train driver pay rises to bail them out. Rather than grudgingly give British workers a pay rise, the Government decided to firehose in labour to hold wages down. Once you see this pattern of using immigration to cover up problems, you see it everywhere.
Universities are going broke and fee rises are unpopular? Maintain demand by pushing students through undemanding courses in exchange for post-study working rights!
Destroyed your ability to train doctors due to union pressure? Substitute in lower quality replacements! This isn't a large route in terms of quantity - 12,148 doctors in 2022 and 24,000 nurses - so the NHS would be fine if you halved migration. But it illustrates the point.
When people tell you immigration is the lifeblood of our economy they're telling you they've not looked at the figures. Of that 1.1 million visas, just 241,000 were to work applicants. Some 211,000 visas went to their dependants - around 130k for the 51k health and social care visas, a ratio of more than two dependants for each worker. The bulk of the rest is the university Ponzi scheme. 392,000 visas, 47,000 extensions. And 159,000 graduate route extensions on top of that!
So to summarise: rather than building a system that takes in the best and brightest, selectively, we're bringing in huge numbers to avoid addressing failed systems."
Clearly, if you stop refugees coming in, the NHS will collapse
Matt Goodwin on X - "The British people just paid £5.4 billion last year to manage our broken & failing asylum system
Let’s do some number crunching shall we? We took winter fuel payments off our British pensioners to save £1.5 billion. That’s 27% of the asylum budget. Our local councils just cut frontline services to save £564 million on adult social care overspend. No more Wheels on Meals for Nan, then, and no more libraries. That’s 10% of the asylum budget. We just smashed family farms up & down these islands to raise £520 million when Mum and Dad die. That’s not even 10% of the asylum budget. Sorry you have to sell your farm and home that’s been in your family and community for generations. We have to put Vietnamese illegal migrants in hotels and give them cash cards and phones. Worried about crime? We just penciled in £450 million in budget cuts for the Metropolitan police. That’s 8% of the asylum budget
Sorry we can’t solve burglaries or stop the de facto legalisation of shoplifting and gang violence. We have to give illegal migrants from Iraq, some of whom have gone on deal cocaine and heroin, free healthcare on the NHS. Worried about Russia, China, and our enemies? We just handed the Ministry of Defence cuts of £500 million. That’s 9% of the asylum budget. Sorry we can’t keep Britain safe. We have to pay for illegal migrants from Afghanistan, some of whom have gone on to murder young Brits like Thomas Roberts (google him)
Worried about our schools? We have a £1.5 billion black hole in the education budget. That’s 27% of the asylum budget. I could go on. The point is that all these examples reflect specific political choices. And the political choice of both Labour and the Tories for much of the last decade, if not longer, has been to prioritise anybody and everybody except the hardworking, tax paying British people
Illegal migration is making us poorer, costing us billions and pushing us into managed decline. Look around. We are being pushed into Immigration Austerity. The fact that Labour, the so-called “party of the working-class”, can’t even bring itself to do what needs to be done to fix this scandal (leave the ECHR, reform the HRA, and have a deterrent) speaks volumes. You are not their priority. In the end, the people who will suffer will once again be you, the British people, and your children. You deserve more than this. Great Britain deserves more than this."
Clearly, if you're not in favor of the asylum budget being unlimited, you're a racist, xenophobic bigot who doesn't know that this can all be paid for by "taxing the "rich""
Meme - "Net Costs to the British Economy & Taxpayer PA (Sources: GOV.UK, OBR, NAO, BBC)"
"The combined revenue and savings from the farmer tax, the private school VAT levy, lifting the 2 quid bus ticket cap and scrapping chunks of the winter fuel payment all account to less than half of annual spending on "asylum". Lol, Imao even."
Cost of UK asylum system hits record £5.4billion - "Home Office spending on asylum has surged by more than a third in a year to nearly £5.4billion to hit the highest figure since records began - with 66 per cent arriving on small boats being granted leave to remain. The eyewatering bill includes all the department's costs related to asylum, including direct cash support and accommodation, but excludes costs relating to the interception of migrants in the Channel... By way of comparison, the most recent bill is nearly half the £10.4bn spent on the Ministry of Justice, which runs the country's legal system, and more than the total annual spend on all the UK's intelligence services... Ms Badenoch warned yesterday that immigration levels are 'a world away from where we need to be'. She promised a 'strict numerical cap' on arrivals, with only those able to make a 'substantial and clear contribution' to Britain allowed in. She will review Britain's membership of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) and the continuation of Labour's Human Rights Act, which have both been blamed for blocking past attempts to get tough."
How many farms would be affected by Budget changes? - "The Treasury expects that the changes to inheritance tax , as well as changes to Business Tax Relief, will raise £230m in 2026-27, the first year of their introduction."
Budget bus fare row: 'The £2 cap was a rare policy that dramatically improves lives – it's so cheap people talk about it' - "Increasing the bus fare cap to £3 will save the government around £350 million upfront"
VAT on private school fees - "It is estimated that this will raise £460 million in 2024/25"
Changes to Winter Fuel Payment eligibility rules - "It is expected to save around £1.3 billion in 2024/25 and £1.5 billion in subsequent years."
Breaking point - "What makes a nation? I’d suggest six things. A people who share a common territory, who feel a shared identity, who have a collective memory or history, speak a common language, have a similar set of values, and as a result of all these things, have a distinctive culture and way of life. Yes, economic prosperity matters. But much more important than money, than GDP, as philosopher Sir Roger Scruton once said, is a deep and powerful sense that ‘we belong together and that we will stand by each other in the real emergencies’. A nation, in other words, requires a “we” —a deep sense of unity that transcends politics and markets. And for that you need something else —social trust. For a nation to work and survive, its people must be willing to trust others in the community they do not know but who they support because they see them contributing to the collective pot, playing by the rules, and preserving and passing on the same cultural inheritance. Which raises a different question. How, then, might you destroy a nation? You would undermine all these things. You would, either gradually or suddenly, strip away this belief among people that they share a distinctive identity, history, and culture. You would flood the national community with outsiders who do not contribute to the collective pot, who do not play by the rules, and who hold radically different if not incompatible identities, histories, religions, cultures and ways of life. And in this way, slowly but surely, you would erode and then finally destroy that much deeper sense of “we” which lies at the very heart of a nation, has been built up over countless generations and holds it together. Sound familiar? I ask because I suspect that’s how many people in Britain will be feeling today when they cast their eyes over the latest statistics, released yesterday, about how mass, uncontrolled immigration is fundamentally changing the nature of their country. What we can see in the shocking numbers is a national community and a people that are now being subjected —against their wishes— to an extreme policy that is transforming, undermining, and hollowing out the country they once knew. They are astonishing and alarming in equal measure. In the year ending June 2024, some 1.2 million people —equivalent to a city the size of Birmingham—migrated into Britain. And more than 1 million of them came from outside Europe —from countries that have completely different if not incompatible histories, religions, and cultures. Here’s just one of many mind-boggling statistics I could put before you. Astonishingly, today, some 86% of all immigration into Britain comes from outside Europe —typically from India, Nigeria, Pakistan, China, and Zimbabwe. In fact, in every year since 2022 immigration from outside Europe represented more than 80% of all immigration into Britain... The vast majority of immigrants flooding into Britain are now coming from countries that have much lower levels of education, skills, and prosperity, as well as religions and cultures that are utterly different from those that incubate European nations. How can you build an integrated, cohesive, prosperous, and high-trust society on this? Can anybody in the expert class tell me? Does anybody even have a plan?... This number is more than twice the number when the British people voted for Brexit, in 2016, believing their elected politicians when they said this would help “lower the overall numbers”, and more than three times the number when the Tories came to power in 2010, similarly promising to slash net migration to the “tens of thousands”... At what point, one might ask, did our mainstream politicians on both the Left and Right decide they would not only consistently ignore people’s request for lower immigration but also completely destroy people’s trust in the entire system? Because that’s what they’re doing. They’re treating hardworking, tax-paying people with contempt, promising one thing only to then do the complete opposite while lying to their face. Full-scale revolutions have started from less. While all this is further hollowing out the shared sense of “we” that has long guided our nation, it’s also unquestionably making us poorer, too —even if the pro-migration zealots in the Treasury, charities, universities, and the elite class refuse to accept it. For example, here’s another shocking statistic you won’t hear about on BBC Verify. What percentage of immigrants who have come to Britain since 2018 came on work visas —to do decent jobs, on decent money, making a net contribution to the pot? 16%... the situation is now so absurd that last year relatives of migrant workers outnumbered actual migrant workers!... what we’re now living with is what I call “immigration austerity” —a policy that’s pushing us all into a low-growth, dismal, and unproductive Deliveroo economy with shabby and declining public services to go with it. A place that works well for global corporations addicted to cheap labour and radical woke progressives for whom pro-immigration is a new religion, but which does not work at all for the Forgotten Majority in this country who are left to pay the price. And the economic price is clear for all to see. As even the Office for Budget Responsibility has been forced to point out, every low-wage, low-skill migrant entering Britain today, usually from outside Europe, costs the British taxpayer, on average, between £150,000 and £1 million. But look too at the astronomical economic cost of our broken asylum system, released yesterday. Last year, the British people paid —wait for it— £5.4 billion on the asylum system, which is visibly failing to deal with illegal migration... All these numbers reflect political choices and our leaders on both the Left and Right have clearly chosen to represent anybody and everybody except the British people. We’re now having to say goodbye to winter fuel payments for our grandparents, family farms that have been here for generations, public services in our communities, and safe streets all so we can put illegal migrants from places as different as Vietnam and Iraq, who have already broken our laws, including a not insignificant number who go on to commit further crimes, into fancy-looking hotels with cash cards, phones, and private healthcare. And over time we’ll have to say goodbye to many other things, too. Because when a nation so visibly stops putting its own people first, when its leaders stop cultivating that shared sense of identity, history, culture, and way of life that has long held it together, you have to wonder what will happen to that deeper sense of “we”. And in the end, I suspect that this will be the price we are forced to pay. The price will not just be measured in money but in the destruction of all those things that make a nation and which have long held us together in this place we call home."
Sanctuary city Denver spending a whopping $356 million on migrants: study - "Denver has seen an unprecedented influx of migrants arrive in the city under the Biden-Harris administration and Johnston has already slashed city services to house and feed those migrants. Cuts included reducing services at recreation centers and stopping the planting of spring flower beds, while the city tapped into a contingency fund to pay for the spiraling costs... Meanwhile, Denver doctors earlier this year said that the migrant crisis had pushed the state’s hospital system to its breaking point and was causing a humanitarian crisis... Johnston said during a recent interview that he was prepared to protest against anything he believes is "illegal or immoral or un-American" in the city – including the use of military force – and was then asked if he was prepared to go to jail for standing in the way of policies enacted by the administration. "Yeah, I'm not afraid of that, and I'm also not seeking that," Johnston said. "I think the goal is we want to be able to negotiate with reasonable people [on] how to solve hard problems." Tom Homan, Trump's "border czar" designate, told Fox News' Sean Hannity this week that he would jail Johnston if he broke the law in shielding illegal migrants."
Virtue signalling has very real costs. Time to blame Trump
Nobody is above the law - unless they are pushing the left wing agenda
1,700 years ago, the mismanagement of a migrant crisis cost Rome its empire - "The military officials who were in charge of provisions for the Goths—an ancient version of the support offered to migrants arriving in Greece or Italy—were corrupt and profited off of what was meant for the refugees. The starving Goths were forced to buy dog meat from the Romans. Marcellinus has no doubt: “their treacherous covetousness was the cause of all our [the Romans’] disasters.” The trust between the abused Goths and the Romans was broken several times before Adrianople, and the Goths went from wanting to become Roman to wanting to destroy Rome. Less than two years later, Marcellinus writes, “with rage flashing in their eyes, the barbarians pursued our men.” And they took down the empire."
Of course, the failure of integration in European welfare states shows that they must do more to help migrants and be even more generous to them, and not accepting migrants is not an option
Meme - "60 years of immigration *shit from Central and South America and Africa on North America and Europe*"
This is a response to that strip claiming that the Global South was exploited by the Global North
Chris Cillizza on X - "A new @scrippsnews poll find 54% of voters support the mass deportation of undocumented immigrants. A CBS poll in June put the number at 62%. It's now clear that a majority of the public supports this proposal. This is how Trump wins. But can he stay on message??"
Clearly most Americans are "far right" extremists who hate legal immigrants, and need to be sent to reeducation camps
Wesley Yang on X - "Illegal immigrants are enterprising figures who made a bet that the country they went to in violation of the laws wouldn't deport them. For tens of millions of them between 1985 and the present, it was a good bet. That's fine. The politics of their receiving countries may change to make this no longer a good bet. That's also fine."
Wesley Yang on X - "I don't expect mass deportations to happen because of the cost and practical difficulty. But some gestures to symbolize the end of many decades of tolerance of illegal immigration seem likely if Trump wins. (And possibly even if he doesn't.) If you just close the asylum loophole, the problem will mostly be solved."
Italy has cut illegal migration by 60%: How have they done it? - "Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said Meloni's government's approach to tackling organised immigration crime is something Starmer is looking at... Since becoming prime minister in 2022, Meloni has signed deals with individual African countries to try to block departures of immigrants... The third part of Italy's immigration policy is their approach to returning asylum seekers who have claims denied to their countries of origin... A further part of Italy's immigration policy highlighted by the home secretary is a deal made with Albania. Meloni's government has a third-country processing agreement with the Balkan nation."
Too bad Starmer scrapped the Rwanda plan just as Parliament finally overruled the UK courts
Britain has most illegal migrants in Europe, study finds - "Britain is home to more illegal migrants than any other European nation, a new study has found. There are up to 745,000 illegal migrants in the UK, accounting for one in 100 of the population, according to the research led by Oxford University experts. This is more than double the 300,000 in France and ahead even of the upper estimate of 700,000 in Germany, which has the second-largest population of illegal migrants in Europe... Senior Tories demanded that Sir Keir Starmer rethink Labour’s approach after the Prime Minister scrapped a scheme in which asylum seekers would have been sent to Rwanda while they were processed. The Government is under intense pressure to tackle people-smuggling gangs responsible for the crisis, and to crack down on crime committed by migrants in Britain. The Telegraph disclosed last week that one in 50 Albanians in the UK is in jail... The up to 745,000 people estimated to have come to Britain illegally include foreign arrivals who have overstayed their visas, failed asylum seekers who have disappeared and some migrants who have crossed the Channel in small boats... Sir Keir has rejected calls to quit the ECHR to help tackle the crisis, and at the weekend French and European sources told The Telegraph that Britain would only get an EU deal to send Channel migrants back to France if it remained in the European Court of Human Rights... The 745,000 illegal migrants – equivalent to a city the size of Leeds – come on top of the overall backlog of 224,742 asylum seekers who are awaiting a decision on their claim, appealing a rejection, or have exhausted or not yet exercised their appeal rights."
Still 1/3 the US proportion
'We were totally betrayed' – 500 migrants for tiny German village of 600 will nearly double population - "A small village in Brandenburg, Petersdorf, will receive 500 migrants despite having only 600 residents, and local residents are outraged, alienated, and feel helpless. It is a story happening across Germany and is likely to only fuel anti-immigrant resentment. Petersdorf is situated next to Bad Saarow, a spa town, and is known for attracting Berliners for the weekend for its thermal baths, restaurants and beautiful views of the local lake, the Scharmützelsee, However, just outside the town in an old army barracks, which the local district is planning to convert into a home for hundreds of migrants. It is the type of story that conservative critics say is further evidence of the Great Replacement, which describes the ongoing demographic replacement of Europeans in their native lands by non-Western immigrants. While the left describes it as a “conspiracy theory,” the right states it is an irrefutable fact supported by data, and in many ways, illustrated clearly by these types of cases. The barracks are a four-story building that can house 300 men, but they are set to be expanded, including with the installation of residential “containers.” Construction teams are already at work and are set to soon finish. In total, the accommodations will house 500 migrants. The plans for the construction are moving forward despite the local council unanimously voting against expansion plans a year ago. Once the men are settled, there will be nearly as many migrants as residents. The German government is running out of spaces in the cities, but there is never an end to more newcomers, which has led to a push in small towns and rural areas. Over the years, German newspaper Welt reports that many other small towns have undergone a similar fate, including Upahl, Dabel, Seeth, and Bernkastel-Kues, and “there was trouble every time.” In many cases, there is little offered in terms of planning for how social services and infrastructure will cope with the newcomers, including even the removal of sewage. Once again, this is the case for Bad Saarow and Petersdorf. The local mayor of Petersdorf, Thomas Schoppe, told the local paper Märkische Oderzeitung that the containers were already being built “while the local council was still discussing it.”"
It's only oligarchy when the unimplemented will of the majority pushes the left wing agenda
US woman, 20, accidentally stabs Eritrean, 64, to death during struggle after he groped her at German train station - and now faces 10 years in prison - "An American woman accidentally stabbed an Eritrean to death during a struggle after he groped her at a German train station - and now faces up to ten years in prison. The woman, 20, was standing on an escalator at Kaiserslautern train station, in the southwestern state of Rhineland-Palatinate, when the 64-year-old man grabbed her backside on June 29. An argument ensued before the woman drew a folding knife and made stabbing movements at the man. The American, who lives in Kaiserslautern, told investigators she wanted to keep the man at a distance. When he finally backed away, the woman followed. The Eritrean man grabbed her arm holding the knife and as the woman tried to free herself, she stabbed him in the heart 'during the same movement', according to prosecutors. He died within seconds."
Australia immigration: Bridget McKenzie says public support for migration has ‘snapped’, as Premier Roger Cook seeks legal advice on delaying West Australian election - "The long-held social compact that migration is good for the country has “snapped” due to the cost-of-living crisis and the post-pandemic surge in arrivals, Coalition frontbencher Bridget McKenzie says... Days after Opposition Leader Peter Dutton said migration levels and the cost of living would be at the forefront of his election campaign, the Nationals senator and infrastructure spokeswoman said universities, big business, government bureaucracy and the union movement had benefited at the expense of first home buyers, renters and people with mortgages. “We have, to some degree, a bipartisan approach to the economics of migration. We have a de facto population policy whereby we agree that immigration is important to the economic growth of our nation, but in the last couple of years, that compact with the Australian people has snapped,” Senator McKenzie told The Australian Financial Review Infrastructure Summit on Monday. “It is actually making real people’s daily lives worse, increasing traffic congestion and hospital waiting lists. That is the reality in our suburbs … that Australians are struggling with each and every day.”"
Meme - Arthur Sido @ArthurSido: "Weird how people flee from countries full of people like themselves to come to countries full of people like me and then immediately start scolding me because I am not more like the people they fled from in the first place."
White people are uniquely evil, which is why they need to be culturally enriched
CBS Sacramento on X - "California Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond is proposing a statewide policy that school districts do not cooperate with ICE."
Thread by @skepticaliblog on Thread Reader App – Thread Reader App - "The MS-13 gang clique that was based in a San Fernando Valley high school murdered at least 10 people, including a 16-year-old student at the school. One victim had their heart cut out by machete. 19 of the 22 defendants entered the country illegally
The school officials did not inform or warn parents even after a 16-year-old student was murdered (they lied and referred to him as "missing"). They knew there was a MS-13 clique based in the school. They knew they were killing people"
Meme - pagliacci the hated 🌝 @Slatzism: "its funny that this is supposed to be a sympathetic comic portraying the plight of migrants and instead it just accidentally proved everyone right that they’re just young men shopping around for a country with the best benefits"
MSF Sea @MSF_Sea: "We were arrested, and after being released from prison, I decided to LEAVE. KUWAIT -> TURKIYE -> GREECE -> GERMANY -> CALAIS, FRANCE"
Suspect in New York City subway fire killing charged with murder, arson - "The man accused of killing a woman on a New York City subway train by setting her on fire was charged with murder and arson in an initial court appearance on Dec 24. Sebastian Zapeta, a 33-year-old man who police say lives at a homeless shelter in Brooklyn, was charged with three counts in a criminal complaint at the Brooklyn criminal court: first-degree murder, second-degree murder and first-degree arson. According to the police account, Zapeta used a lighter to ignite the clothes of a woman who appeared to be sleeping on a stationary F train at the Coney Island-Stillwell Avenue subway station on Dec 22. He then used a shirt to fan the fire until the woman was engulfed in flames, the complaint said... The US Department of Homeland Security said on Dec 23 that Zapeta is a Guatemalan citizen who had entered the country unlawfully and that they would eventually bring removal proceedings against him."
Meme - "'DEPRAVED BEHAVIOR'. Illegal migrant allegedly set train passenger on fire and watched her burn to death"
"I can't imagine why no one attempted to help her *Daniel Penny arrested and in handcuffs*"
Eric Daugherty on X - "HOLY SH*T! NYC Mayor Eric Adams just dared the left to "cancel" him over working with Border Czar Tom Homan and Trump. "Cancel me because I'm going to protect the people of this city." He says illegals are "committing crimes, robberies, sh*oting at police, r*ping innocent people.""
Opinion | Why Trump’s Deportations Will Drive Up Your Grocery Bill - The New York Times
From Paul Krugman. Weird. Left wingers keep claiming that mass migration doesn't lower wages, but somehow mass deportations will raise wages. This voodoo economics is very odd indeed
