• itztalal@lemmings.world
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    2 days ago

    No, race doesn’t have anything to do with it.

    If you oppose illegal immigration, though, you should ask yourself why.

    If it’s solely that you don’t want people coming over to your nation illegally, then it’s very likely that they aren’t able to because of how complicated and exclusive your nation’s immigration system is.

    • steeznson@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      Their mode of entry into the UK was illegal but any asylum claims they make will be assessed as being potentially valid. I think you were saying the same thing but not sure.

      The reason people are particularly pissed off is that Farage and co. have framed the debate as an issue of fairness. Essentially the charge levelled at the irregular migrants is queue jumping, which we don’t look upon fondly in our culture.

      • AA5B@lemmy.world
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        1 day ago

        On our side of the pond, it’s becoming more apparent how many ways immigrants can end up undocumented. Of course it’s always framed as drug cartel member sneaking over the border at night to rape the women, or whatever bs stereotypes they can use to frighten people, but

        • sometimes it’s a college student who dropped out of school and didn’t leave
        • sometimes it’s a tech worker who got laid off and hasn’t yet found another sponsor
        • sometimes it’s someone struggling to do the right thing and missed something. Maybe a paperwork thing a decade ago
        • sometimes it’s an ambush when they are doing the right thing
        • sometimes they’re refugees from horrible circumstances.
        • sometimes it’s someone just trying to work
        • sometimes they’re just trying to live as a family when a cruel system would separate them

        If your system, like ours, uses the worst stereotypes to scapegoat all undocumented aliens, deprives them of their rights, uses racial profiling to decide who to attack, “officers” hide their faces and identities and don’t even seem to know the laws they’re supposedly enforcing, use escalating violence for infractions that have always been civil issues, claim they’re deporting “the worst of the worst criminals” while setting ambushes at work sites and immigrant processing centers, then you too may be racist

        We’re over here trying to set an example of what NOT to do, apparently.

        • steeznson@lemmy.world
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          1 day ago

          There are genuine integration issues in the UK so the anti-migrant bloc do have some valid concerns. However, there will be a non-insignificant amount of racists among them.

          Weirdly, the “skipping the queue” rhetoric even works with fellow migrants. I have a friend from Iran who I used to work with that moved to the UK ~3 years ago; he’s way angrier about irregular channel crossings than the average Scottish person I know. I’d imagine spending a lot of money and years on a waiting list before being given a work visa was a grating experience though.