The meaning of words is important.What does the word “illegal” mean? My thesaurus offers: unlawful, dishonest, criminal. So if an immigrant is illegal, the state has an obligation to repatriate them, or to declare them refugees and process them in some other legal fashion. They cannot simply be dumped into already suffering communities.
Burning people to death, whatever their origin, is also illegal. And the state has an obligation to charge, prosecute and punish.
This government has some work to do.
4 comments:
I work for (what is now suddenly called) the UK Border Agency.
Fortunately, we have an independent judiciary, so attempts to criminalise people are subject to third party perusal.
Much as the UKBA would love to decide who is in the UK illegally and act accordingly, it is ultimately up to a court to decide. Until the court has ruled, nobody is "illegal".
Long may it be so.
I'm slowly honing in on what you actually do. And this sounds a good way to go about it.
At the moment I think we just let people through porous borders and don't do anything at all until someone tries to kill them.
It's an impossible problem, especially if you've got land borders. People have always moved about.
Question: is it better to deny services to people who have crept in and force them underground, or let them work and tax them like everybody else?
Kicking people out is not easy. You have to find a country who admits to "owning" them for a start.
And the interesting thing about immigrants, I think, is that they are desperate for work. They've risked all for a new life. Most of them, therefore, are going to be a positive force in the country.
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