I’m on it!

Once I’m off work I’ll be joining too once I’ve looked into it.

I trust that one or both of you two fine, upstanding gentlemen will be first in line at the gates of Colnbrook, eager to offer Mr. Noumbiwa accommodation chez vous as well as providing the necessary financial assistance for support and maintenance.

Nothing like putting your money where your is, is there?

Fred – we already do. We pay taxes.

Fred:

I think you’ll find that he has a home in Middlesbrough and would happily get a job and support himself, if that were what the rules allowed.

Fred Nimbus in EPIC DALE!

Unity

Anselme seems a decent guy and I wish him well. But I’m not sure quite what his case for asylum is.

It appears that Anselme’s family tried to force him into becoming a tribal chief against his will and beat him up, even totured him, when he declined. Not nice, but worse things have happened in Middlesborough. I see no evidence that the government of Cameroon was in on it.

You write:

the immigration judge decided that he could have avoided the problems he faced back home by simply moving to another part of Cameroon

….maybe the judge has a point?

A rich powerful man has a dispute that it is managing improperly. Why did he not take himself to another part of Cameroon as the Judge rightly pointed out.

@7 flowerpower

So unless the government is in on the torture, we should just ship him back? Do you actually have a conscience, or is it just too dulled by the thought of keeping foreigners out to kick in?

Middlesborough, whilst hardly an advert for the cover of a holiday brochure, wasn’t that well known for organising the beating and torture of people who refused to join the family business last I heard.

Immigration judges…..hmnnn..I’m sure they must be renowned for their fairness and impartiality, and of course telling torture victims to move, well yeah..course, that’d be fool proof and always work wouldn’t it?

Good grief.. it’s bad enough we have a system which sends people like this home, never mind having to listen to people without any sense of empathy in here applauding it!

Indeed Galen10, although Flowerpower is on vile form of late, strafing the comments here with his right-wing, glib blather such as this bizarre and insulting equation between Middlesborough and what Anselme Noumbiwa could be facing.

I do agree that between him and Danny we have people barely capable of the most basic human effort of empathy.

Let us hope if they are ever in need in their lives they come across decent folk capable of such things…

”No deportations” is a fine and upstanding position to take.

I remember a campaign for a man called Julius Alexander 20 years ago, and it used the title ”Julius Alexander must stay” … and wasn’t really so concerned about his legal status, but that he had made a new life in England and that was enough.
http://edmi.parliament.uk/EDMi/EDMDetails.aspx?EDMID=2029

I wonderd though should a person’s case (and the story of why they are seeking asylum) be really that important? Or should people who don’t want to be deported be supported under any circumstances?

The lefty group I used to be associated with, took a ”any one who wants to stay should be allowed to stay” kind of approach. Which is one I’d probably be in favour of too.

And Daniel Hoffmann-Gill, I’m guessing that’s where you are at too?

I just cross threaded this post on the Irish site called ”Politics.ie” which is neither left or right, but has all kinds of opinions, and the first few commentators have had a laugh at it, as it sounds similar to this story from Ireland a couple of months ago where a guy from Nigeria sued Tesco for unfair dismissal after he had to return home to become king, and was absent from his job for longer than had been agreed.

http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/local-national/tesco-sacked-african-royal-over-time-off-14685491.html

On his website it says

“He should not be detained or deported because he is still waiting for the medico-legal report of the Medical Foundation for the Care of Torture Victims to submit as evidence for his claim for asylum.”

And above it says

“Despite producing evidence of his treatment at the hand of his tribal elders, including a medico-legal report commissioned by the Medical Foundation for the Care of Victims of Torture”

To me this says compeltely different things

I found the top paragraph hard to understand – does anyone know if they have submitted this report or not? Could the deportation attempts be some administration error that could be easily be rectified so he can stay

damon:

In answer you your question I prefer to stay away from sweeping statements, I’m an each case on its merits kind of chap but I do err on the side of humanity and of benefit of the doubt.

Sunny @4

Yes indeed we do pay taxes, but many (most?) taxpayers would no doubt prefer that their contributions were not directed towards thwarting the immigration regulations.

If individuals like Mr. Hoffman-Gill wish to circumvent the rules and provide sanctuary for illegal migrants and failed asylum-seekers then it is incumbent upon him and his fellow-travellers to provide the necessary means from their own resources and not demand that the rest of us fund such activity.

Nimbus:

No thwarting is occurring and you cannot presume to speak for all taxpayers.

I am not circumnavigating any rules, you seem to exist in a parallel universe.

@15

As I understand the case, the Border Agency has been trying to evict this fellow for over two years and their efforts have been repeatedly thwarted by, amongst others, the NCADC. It is a racing certainty that venal ‘human rights’ lawyers funded by Legal Aid are an important part of the picture as well.

You did indicate at #1 above that you were ‘on it’, which I took to mean that you have added your name to the petition to thwart deportation.

If that’s not what you meant to say then I apologise.

And I did not suggest that you were ‘circumnavigating’ the rules personally but rather that you support the efforts being made to do so. In that case it is quite legitimate that you and others of the bleeding-heart liberal mindset share the costs of such efforts and do not try to foist them onto the general public.

@ 15 Daniel

Surely Mr. Nimbus would exist in cloud cuckoo land?

@16 Fred

“…..you and others of the bleeding-heart liberal mindset share the costs of such efforts”

I don’t suppose it has occured to you that the man involved may have a legitimate case, and has been treated unfairly? No doubt you think our courts and political lords and masters are infallible too? I mean, it’s not as if they’ve ever been found to break laws in matters such as these is it?

Oh..hang on…

@18

Assuming everything he says is actually true and he would be in mortal danger in returning to Cameroon, do we know why he chose to travel all the way to the UK rather than simply popping over the border into Nigeria?

Nigeria, like the UK, is a signatory to the UN Convention on Refugees as are indeed every other country in Africa except Western Sahara and Libya. He could have claimed asylum in any of those countries, but chose to come all the way here. Why here?

Daniel Hoffmann-Gill @13

In answer you your question I prefer to stay away from sweeping statements, I’m an each case on its merits kind of chap but I do err on the side of humanity and of benefit of the doubt.

”Each case on its merrits” is not a left wing line you know.
I’m just saying that I dont think it is.

Compared to these ‘Spiked-online‘ people who Sunny hates.

http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php/site/issues/C137/

Damon:

I hate to have to be the one point this out but Brendan O’Neill is a complete and utter twat.

The doctrinal schism between the neo-marxists here and the paleos at Spiked has all the hallmarks of a Peter Simple column.

Goulasch socialists!

I know that people have that view Unity.

Myself … I just take things one issue at a time.

Like this one on Liberal Conspiracy

”‘I love Migrants’ campaign launches in London”
http://liberalconspiracy.org/2010/04/18/i-love-migrants-campaign-launches-in-london/

And his one which ridiculed it:
http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php/site/article/8522/

But I do think that group can be pretty nuts too.
They are for ”open borders” and still are supportive of what the IRA did.
But they make a good argument too sometimes I think.

I also agree with Daniel Hoffmann-Gill @ 13 about humanity and of benefit of the doubt.

A good point was made earlier that no one here has answered: If this man was truly seeking asylum, why did he not go to neighboring Nigeria, also a signatory to the UN Convention on Refugees, or one of the other dozens of African countries that do the same.

Why come here? And given that it breaches the UN Convention on Refugees rules, why should we allow it?

damon:

I don’t care whether it is left-wing or not; one’s political beliefs should not be at the beck and call of party lines but what your heart tells you, general my beliefs err on the side of humanity and of the positive, of the best case.

I also prefer the grey to the black and white, life exists in that grey for me, absolutes are worrying.

Galen10:

Cloud cuckoo indeed, or perhaps shouting all alone in a room of bitterness?

@24 Why come here?

Well look at his shirt – he loves England

@ 19 Fred Nimbus & @ 24 t.m.

I don’t know this case in detail, and couldn’t find from a brief search if he came direct to the UK, or via somewhere else, neither am I an expert on the UN Convention on Refugees.

Are you saying that no refugee should be regarded as legitimate unless they go to a contiguous or neighbouring country? It’s always seemed to me that if you look at the numbers of refugees taken in by this country it was in general pretty small in relation to other countries, as happened during the Bosnian and Kossovan crises when mass displacements occurred. Presumably most of these refugees subsequently returned to Bosnia or Kossovo.

In the case of individual refugees like Anselm, you both appear to have a problem with the UK hosting such people in principal, not just because you have accepted the (still disputed) case that he isn’t a genuine refugee or asylum seeker.

Is this on the basis that you think we should only agree to host people fleeing from France, Ireland, Belgium, the Netherlands and Norway and Denmark given that they are nearest to us? Or because you think we are in some imminent danger of being swamped?

The figures I could find here:

(http://www.refugeeaction.org.uk/information/challengingthemyths1.aspx)

suggest that the UK hosts 2% of the world’s refugees, and that in 2002 asylum applications in the UK accounted for 0.01 per cent of the global refugee population and about 0.03 per cent of the refugee population in Europe. We are also not taking a disproprtionate number in comparison with other European countries.

Or is it perhaps just because you don’t like the idea of any refugees being hosted here at all?

Galen10:

“Are you saying that no refugee should be regarded as legitimate unless they go to a contiguous or neighbouring country?”

You misunderstand; it is the law that says this under the UN Convention on Refugees.

Anyone breaching this law is not a legitimate asylum seeker under the very convention used to claim asylum in the first place; it is a much abused and cherry picked humanitarian convention.

If this man is truly after asylum and not illegal economic migrancy, why would he not comply with the very convention he uses and seek asylum in Nigeria or another signatory of the UN Convention on Refugees?

“Is this on the basis that you think we should only agree to host people fleeing from France, Ireland, Belgium, the Netherlands and Norway and Denmark given that they are nearest to us?”

Again, you confuse what you claim I think and the actual law contained within that convention; and yes, that is the gist of it.

It was never meant to serve as a backdoor around immigration laws and rules, it was only meant to be a fair humanitarian convention to be enacted in the event of serious issues or turmoil and only for the asylum seeker to seek refuge in the nearest safe country.

Any asylum seeker who has not done so is illegitimate and bogus under this convention.

@28 t.m.

I’m genuinely interested to know your views, as this isn’t an area I know that much about. I’ve heard of asylum shopping, but presumably the logic of the rules is that if this man flew into the UK, or another EU state, that country is responsible for dealing with his asylum claim?

Isn’t the problem with insisting people make a claim as soon as they entera country, that in some cases (like Bosnia and Kossovo) you end up with hundreds of thousands of people in border areas?

@28

You versus, erm, international legal opinion. I wonder who’s right when it comes to international law? Thank goodness you’re here, t.m, we require your profound expertise and vast knowledge on regarding the law around refugees. I don’t know how I’ve coped without it.

Galen 10′s correct about the tiny proportion of the world’s refugees that come to the UK but I’m more interested in t.m’s definition of international law.

Specifically, his/her claim that unless a refugee claims asylum in the first signatory state (which includes such countries as Iran, China and Sudan) she/he arrives in then that refugee “breaches the UN Convention on Refugees rules.”

Article 1 A (2) defines a refugee as someone who has a “well founded
fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality,
membership of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside
the country of his nationality and is unable or, owing to such fear,
is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country; or who,
not having a nationality and being outside the country of his former
habitual residence as a result of such events, is unable or, owing to such
fear, is unwilling to return to it.”

Article 1 paragraph F lays out the exceptions to being considered a refugee:

F. The provisions of this Convention shall not apply to any person with
respect to whom there are serious reasons for considering that:
(a) he has committed a crime against peace, a war crime, or a crime against
humanity, as defined in the international instruments drawn up to
make provision in respect of such crimes;
(b) he has committed a serious non-political crime outside the country of
refuge prior to his admission to that country as a refugee;
(c) he has been guilty of acts contrary to the purposes and principles of the
United Nations.

Article 33 states:

1. No Contracting State shall expel or return (“refouler”) a refugee in any
manner whatsoever to the frontiers of territories where his life or freedom
would be threatened on account of his race, religion, nationality, membership
of a particular social group or political opinion.

Full text of the convention is here:

http://www.unhcr.org/protect/PROTECTION/3b66c2aa10.pdf

Can you please show where it says what you claim it does?

@31 – Dont worry, his well written, non offensive comment has been removed. Why not just have an “I agree” button rather than a comments box.

Has it? I was responding to the claims at 28 and 24 and they’re still there as far as I can see.

Oops think im just being a blind idiot. Apologies.

Dave seems a little bit to eager it seems to cry “censorship”, with a hari trigger liek that, why do you even come here?

hari=hair and liek=like

To read and hear what people are thinking. I dont understand what you mean by hair trigger, I mistakenly thought a post was deleted, checked aagain and was sure it had gone.

If there was a suitable word in the English language to convey my remorse then I would have posted that as a follow on so everyone understood…

Just an observation.

While we’re waiting for t.m. to provide proof of his claim I’d like to remind everyone that Anselme has been given new removal directions for the 28th April despite the fact he is still waiting for the medico-legal report of the Medical Foundation for the Care of Torture Victims to submit as evidence.

@ 39 RG

Thanks for the info above. I’ve been reading up on his case, and it does sound pretty awful to me. There seem to be an increasing number of these type of cases where our authorities insist on sending people who are in clear and present danger back to their home countries.

Is it true that a reason that one of his earlier appeals failed was on some technicality that an earlier medico-legal report was from a doctor not listed on the Medical Foundation’s list? It all sounds a bit dodgy to me!

The UN Convention on Refugees does not require that a would-be refugee claims asylum in an adjacent country so Mr. Noumbiwa’s claim could not be refused simply because he failed to claim asylum in e.g. Nigeria.

But the question still remains: why here and why not, for example, France. As a former French colony Cameroon is primarily Francophone and Mr. Noumbiwa is not of English mother-tongue (the NCADC link indicates he was taking English lessons in Middlebrough).

It’s understandable that he might not wish to be stuck in Nigeria, but why select the UK in preference to France? Especially since he would have almost certainly had to pass through France on the way here, there being no direct flights from the UK.

To answer my own question, I would say that it is probably a combination of a lax and inefficient immigration regime open to abuse by venal lawyers sustained by the taxpayer-funded legal aid scheme, a vociferous pro-immigration lobby, and an open channel for clandestine entry managed and operated by earlier ethnic-minority arrivals.

@Galen10

The earlier report was rejected byt he UKBA because the doctor who commissioned it did not work full time for the Medical Foundation.

Asylum seekers being failed on somewhat spurious legal grounds is nothing new, unfortunately. A policy experiment called the Solihull Pilot was carried out in March 2006 where asylum claiments were guaranteed quality legal advice from the earliest stages of the process.

Not only did acceptence rates go up but the cost to the taxpayer went down. The decisions were made within 6 months, NASS didn’t have to shell out for asylum seeker support and fewer people went through the appeals becuase the decisions were more likely to be fairer. Full report’s here (bit long though!):

http://www.parliament.uk/deposits/depositedpapers/2009/DEP2009-1107.pdf

Shame a somewhat workable system can’t get implimented nationally. Guess it might upset the “vociferous pro-immigration lobby” and the legal aid-industrial complex. Or the freemason space lizards that we all know REALLY run things.

PS Another good report on how stupid things can get sometimes (or oftentimes) here:

http://www.ecoi.net/file_upload/90_1264500777_ias-the-refugee-roulette-2010.pdf

I’d also note that France happens to be a major military sponsor of Cameroon.

Fred Nimbus

To answer my own question, I would say that it is probably a combination of a lax and inefficient immigration regime open to abuse by venal lawyers sustained by the taxpayer-funded legal aid scheme, a vociferous pro-immigration lobby, and an open channel for clandestine entry managed and operated by earlier ethnic-minority arrivals.

Or maybe he wanted to come to England because he knew some people here.
Like anyone might.

Fred Nimbus

To answer my own question, I would say that it is probably a combination of a lax and inefficient immigration regime open to abuse by venal lawyers sustained by the taxpayer-funded legal aid scheme, a vociferous pro-immigration lobby, and an open channel for clandestine entry managed and operated by earlier ethnic-minority arrivals.

Or maybe he wanted to come to England because he knew some people here.
Like anyone might.

Correction, sorry-58% of the decisions were were concluded within six months by the third quarter of the Solihull scheme being carried out. Big improvement on the average.

@41 Fred

“…but why select the UK in preference to France? Especially since he would have almost certainly had to pass through France on the way here, there being no direct flights from the UK.”

So your issue isn’t with the principle of him going somewhere..just the fact you didn’t want him coming here? Why.. ? From all the figures I’ve seen we accept less than many of our European neighbours, and have fewer asylum seekers per head than many other similar Western countries.

I’m beginning to see that RG’s view of your opinions may be right.. it seems to have more to do with little Englander nimby-ism than anything else.

Well, I can’t speculate as to the motives of people on the internet so I don’t want to come across as having a go at Fred in particular. Maybe the freemason lizard wisecracks were out of order.

Still, I’ve seen precious little evidence of legal aid being a motivating factor for anyone. It’s been squeezed year on year and is quite hard to get now (and of course if a lawyer’s in it for the money, perish the thought, they can get a lot more for less effort working in contract law for the private sector).

RG @47

There can’t be any doubt that individuals like Mr. Noumbiwa would not have been able to thwart the deportation process for so long without recourse to legal aid, can there?

I do take the point that access to legal aid has been truncated in recent years, but is it not the case that those reforms were stimulated by precisely the sort of systemic abuse that we discussing here? Media reports would certainly indicate that to have been the case.

Btw, I didn’t actually claim that access to legal aid was a motivating factor for asylum seekers, rather that it was one of the props that support a lax and inefficient immigration regime in general.

As for the relative attractiveness of migration law as a field in itself, it is interesting to note that the Immigration Law Practitioner’s Association boasts of having around 1,000 members, so takings can’t be all that thin to sustain that many. There is of course a whole other dimension of the immigration industry that we have yet touched upon – the sector which dispenses advice to prospective migrants. According to the latest annual report of the Office of the Immigration Services Commission, which regulates such activity, there are some 1723 separate organisations currently licensed to provide immigration advice, many of them taxpayer supported one way or another (legal aid, local councils, etc etc). The OISC itself is of course a publicly-funded quango, employing some 60-odd personnel on a £4.5 million budget.

All part of the benefits of diversity, I suppose.

I should have been much clearer in what I was saying actually looking at the wording above; I was referring to the safe third country rule.

However there are more laws at work at then just the UN Convention on Refugees.
If an asylum seeker passed through another country on the way to the UK, the Home Office may attempt to remove them to that country under the Dublin II Regulation, which is an EU law setting out the rules for deciding which EU country should decide an asylum application. The Dublin II Regulation is based on the principle that the first European Union country which the asylum seeker entered into should decide their asylum claim.

Some non-EU countries are also deemed to be safe in the sense that it is assumed they will decide asylum claims in the same way that the UK would.

There is also provision for this in the Asylum and Immigration (Treatment of Claimants, etc) Act 2004 “Claimant’s Credibility” under Section 8 (4) “This section also applies to failure by the claimant to take advantage of a reasonable opportunity to make an asylum claim or human rights claim while in a safe country.”

This proviso is not bound to EU countries.

So in both these instances it is vital to find out just how Mr Noumbiwa travelled to the UK; if he came here by way of trek across Europe, he is in breach; if he flew from another safe country, or transferred from a safe country that was a signatory of the UN Convention on Refugees then he is in breach; what is certain is that if he flew from Cameroon then he choose to fly over the airspace of at least half of dozen safe countries who were also signatories of the UN Convention on Refugees.

So maybe you can enlighten us as to how Mr Noumbiwa arrived in the UK please RG?

Cuts to legal aid go back to the Asylum and Immigration Act 1996 but as for abuse there was overcharging of legal aid funds back in 2003, with the Legal Sevices Commission recouping £8 million from dodgy law firms. To put it into persepctive, that was 5.8% of the total back then-not exactly edifying but not something to punish the remaining 95% for.

Neither is it something to blame their clients for because they were being put at risk by charlatan lawyers mishandling their cases.

Still, it set off another round of cuts in 2004 and another in 2007 that were practically designed to drive off the quality lawyers, which hardly makes things better. A lot of decent human rights law firms and non-profit gigs like the IAS are still around but they’re pretty overwhelmed.

Yet if we look what happens when claiments do get access to quality lawyers, as with Solihull, overall costs go down for the reasons I’ve said above. The cuts to legal aid do not save taxpayers money overall, so there’s likely other motives at work.

As for t.m.-yes, you should have been explicit as to what you meant because UN Convention legally supercedes Dublin II and the Asylum and Immigration Act 2004, though they do their best erode it.

Aside from the silliness of expecting your average refugee to know the finer points of EU and UK law they are also unworkable and costly and are there to make a publicity statement rather than have any effective legislative power. 2.8% of asylum claiments were transferred under it between 2003 and 2005 so it seems to me to be yet more expensive, useless, pandering legislation.

And ‘safe’ is a relative term when we’re dealing with European asylum systems.

As to why refugees come to one country and not another a lot of the time it’s pure chance, especially when they use a people smuggler. So everyone can be clear, you are arguing that there is no such thing as a legitiamate asylum seeker in the UK.

As an aside the reason why many people do use a people smuggler and put their lives at serious risk is because entering a country on false ID is illegal (i.e. you’d get arrested before you could officially enter the country and make your asylum claim). Anyone who had been forced to flee from persecution wouldn’t be carrying genuine ID because it would mean they would get picked up on the way OUT of their country, so it’s a catch-22.

As for people who do have some choice it can be for a few reasons-personal ties, the same language, an already existing expatriate community (or sometimes that there’s NO expatriate community), links with the home country (Cameroon’s a Commonwelath member) or even a reputation a country might have for justice and fairness. I don’t know Ansleme’s case beyond what’s out in the public domain, same as you, so I can’t comment.

It’s unlikely to be that they see Britain as good for easy benefits-take this Home Office report for example:

“The welfare support offered to asylum seekers after entry was rarely described or mentioned by agents. Where information about support for asylum seekers was provided, it was usually in a highly generalised form and did not mention specific entitlements or restrictions. Very little information was provided by agents on the level of welfare benefits, the type of housing provided for asylum seekers, or the employment opportunities and regulations for refugees. Respondents were told simply that they would be ‘looked after’ if they went to the
UK.

It may be that agents simply recommended the UK as a destination because that was easier for them to arrange rather than because it benefited the asylum seeker, although there is no research evidence of this.”

Page 25 of this:

http://rds.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/pdfs2/hors243.pdf

Given that the overwhelming countries of origin for asylum seekers are war zones or dictatorships, that the ones who make it to the UK tend to be educated and wealthy people in their homelands, that the UK is not exceptional in the number who come here and that when we did bring in a semi-sensible system the cost to the taxpayer came DOWN, there’s little left to argue that everyone who tries to come here for shelter is a thief or a threat.

Ignorance of the law is no defence, you know that; but if he knew enough to claim asylum then it would be fair to assume that he know the laws in the EU and the UK; if he didn’t he should have.

But the bottom line is how did he get here? Can you answer that?

It’s the bottom line in your head only, not international law. Go back and read what I said.

@ 50 RG

Great post, well expressed and well argued.

Great work RG, keep it up! Learning plenty from you.

You are quite wrong; It’s the bottom line in several laws one of them of UK law, the law of this land, go back and read what I said.

It is of the utmost importance how this man arrived here not only from a legal standpoint but from a moral one too. If this man is breaking the law and shopping for countries he wants to live in then this is nothing to do with genuine asylum and everything to do with circumnavigating immigration rules and procedures that everyone else has to comply with.

If you don’t know how this man came here then you have no idea of whether you are supporting an illegal immigrant and a law breaking bogus asylum seeker.

In fact if you don’t realty know the details of this case what are you basing your arguments for Mr Noumbiwa on? Certainly it is not the law.

And no amount of pathetic lap dogs like Galen or Hoffmann-Gill rather bizarrely drooling obsequiously at your feet over what has been a compete failure on your behalf to present a legal (or even a moral) argument for Mr Noumbiwa will change that.

@t.m

Please, for the love of god, give us the direct quote of the law(s) you imply Mr Noumbiwa has broken. You’re sounding like a stuck record and one can only assume that you have some arbitary opposition to all immigration. Which is fine (everyone’s allowed to be wrong), but at least be honest about your opinions.

Mr S Pill, I don’t understand why you are asking for what has already been provided in comment 48, for the love of God.

As for your assumptions, that is all they are. I am talking about enforcing the law where it has been breached and you are putting me in the wrong for wanting the law upheld.

What is your real agenda? At least be honest about it.

@t.m

My “real agenda” is not to send a fellow human being back to a place where he will be tortured. A bit radical, I know, but I think it has some credibility. You’re deliberately ignoring all of RG’s considered posts because of some notion of law’n'order that you can’t even articulate properly. First it was the UN Convention on Refugees, then the Dublin II Regulation, then the Immigration Act 2004… c’mon chap, buck up. If you have a reasonable point to make it shouldn’t be that difficult to prove it.
And on the “moral” grounds: what do you suggest? Send every victim of torture back into the arms of their abusers? Doesn’t sound very moral to me.

@55 t.m

“….And no amount of pathetic lap dogs like Galen or Hoffmann-Gill rather bizarrely drooling obsequiously at your feet”

Hmmnnn. I tend to find those who resort to personal abuse do so because they can’t support their arguments. I doubt any reasonable participant (even one who disagreed with my standpoint) would think I was RG’s lapdog, or that I felt the need to drool at his feet.

RG’s posts (unlike yours) seemed well considered, backed up with some evidence, and to have some consideration of the moral aspect of the case. As others above have noted you seem obsessed with the legal technicalities, you don’t know the specifics of the case, and you keep dodging perfectly reasonable questions about what your views on immigration are.

This can only lead to the conclusion that you have a knee jerk opposition to any asylum seekers as noted above.

Mrs S Pill,

The laws I have cited doesn’t allow the scenario you describe so that argument is superfluous; and it is further negated by my own reference to safe countries.

I haven’t ignored RG’s posts I have elaborated on them and asked for further detail.

As for the laws themselves, they are articulated in post 48 with the UK law down to section and paragraph but still you asked me to provide them, so I think it is you who needs to “buck up” really and my point has been made.

Galen10,

There is no personal abuse there at all, just a pointed observation, some will agree with my opinion, some will not.

And that is how it works with your opinion that my comments aren’t well considered, backed up with some evidence, or taking a moral factor into account; I disagree with your analysis as least one other here has; but I do find it remarkable that wanting to find out if laws have been breached here is considered as ‘obsessive’ by you. It does suggest a very agenda based approach and quite a selective view of which laws should be enforced based upon that agenda.

I haven’t ‘dodged’ any questions, I made my salient opinion known on the first comment, but it is most revealing that you think that this asylum process is actually immigration, when it is not even remotely supposed to be.

If it is as you claim, about immigration then these laws would most certainly have been breached as would the UN Convention on Refugees.

@ t.m. 60

Your protestations are increasingly unconvincing. You have NOT answered the queries in RG’s post @50 above. You keep harping back to re-iterations of the legal position as you see it.

In respect of Anselm’s case, I can’t find any detail about his route to the UK. It is possible he may be in breach of the process you detail, and possibly not.

However, even if he is are you suggesting that he be deported anyway?

Just a reminder as it seems it was missed first time round-the UN Decleration of the RIghts of Refugees is legally superior to both British and European law so long as the UK remains a signatory.

In strictly legal terms breach of Dublin II (which has a 2.3% enforcement rate) if found cannot in itself be used to deport someone to a country where a refugee’s “life or freedom would be threatened on account of his race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion.”

This ‘discussion’ is something of a smokescreen. If you want to make a substantive argument about the rights and wrongs of asylum in general or this case in particular nobody will stop you. International law, however, is against you (to repeat what people have said for the umpteenth time).

Galen10

For a start, there aren’t actually any queries directed at me at all in comment 50 (or indeed to anyone else) so I am really not sure why you are saying that there are and that I haven’t answered them.

I think that is just symptomatic of the fact that you have an overriding agenda here that clouds you to the realities of what has actually transpired here and of course to jump to your ever increasingly arbitrary judgements about me personally.

You keep saying that I am “obsessed” or “harping back” to the law but you fail to understand that we are a nation of law; everything we do and every process we have is built on the law, including the asylum process and so it is really incredible for you to claim that the law an annoying distraction; and those laws are not “as I see it” but how they actually are.

In fact you are the one avoiding answering questions in that you think that this asylum process is actually immigration, when it is not even remotely supposed to be. Asylum and immigration are supposed to be two very separate processes but you think that they are one and the same. Care to elaborate and care to explain what legal basis you base your belief on?

As to how Mr Noumbiwa came to be here, I have been asking the people that claim to be campaigning on his behalf but they refuse to answer. Why is that?

In fact RG does make one very good point in his comment at 50:

“Anyone who had been forced to flee from persecution wouldn’t be carrying genuine ID because it would mean they would get picked up on the way OUT of their country…”

And I agree with that 100%. So how exactly did Mr Noumbiwa arrive here? If he trekked through safe countries he is in breach, if he flew from a safe country then his is in breach, if he transferred from a safe country then he is in breach.

And if he flew from his own, how was he able to do so, given the very true remarks of our friend RG above? And why would he choose to fly over at least half a dozen safe countries to reach the UK if he was not interested merely in asylum but selecting a country he wished to migrate to without going through the proper channels?

That is my response to should “he be deported anyway”. The answer to these questions would determine that.

RG,

That is your opinion on the ‘superiority’ of a convention (not a law) over sovereign and supranational laws, and one not supported by you own cited facts that the law has been used successfully in many cases already. The low percentage represents low interest in enforcing it, not the legal basis to do so.

The Supranational law is primarily concerned with entrants first port of call in the EU (but does cater for some non-EU countries too) whereas the UK law is not confined so.

I would have appreciated an answer to my own observations at 55 above but maybe you missed them and will respond now I have pointed them out; if so could you elaborate on this statement of yours, of which I am in total agreement:

“Anyone who had been forced to flee from persecution wouldn’t be carrying genuine ID because it would mean they would get picked up on the way OUT of their country…”

See above for the legal reasons that Mr Noumbiwa would be in breach if he travelled from a safe country, and refer to your own reasoning above, and tell me how Mr Noumbiwa arrived in the UK, if your statement applied to him, or why you are campaigning blind if you don’t actually know the real details of this case?

@63 t.m.

I don’t have an agenda, as my posts above amply demonstrate, as I actively sought to find out more about an area that I didn’t know much about.

The personal judgements about you are due to yur evasions above; trying to pretend you are just stating the law is tendentious.

If I confused immigration with asylum it was a slip up, not a demonstration I don’t know the difference.

So..since you still won’t answer the direct question, you ARE actually saying from the reading of your response that assuming this case, or presumably any similar case, could be proven to show that he had arrived here in breach of the regulations, you would have him sent home?

Don’t hide behind what the law says, or “it’s the system, not me” arguments; given what you know of this case, would you have him returned by force when there was a danger he would suffer harm, on the basis that he had arrived illegaly?

You’ve moved the goalposts to fit your conclusion without a blink every time someone’s posted evidence that contradicts you. You don’t understand what Dublin II actually says, for example (it’s transfer within the EU and not out of it).

Either you’ve come up with a whole new paradigm of international law and the United Nations or…I won’t spell it out.

RG

It is you who moves the goal posts and ducks reasonable queries.

I know what Dublin II means as I posted a summary of it above and it also includes some non-EU countries too; I also know what the Asylum and Immigration (Treatment of Claimants, etc) Act 2004 means and I posted the most relevant section and paragraph above as well.

The theme here is that you, Galen etc are saying that Mr Noumbiwa is legally entitled to claim asylum but that people are not entitled to question whether that legal entitlement is fully complaint with the law. That is moving the goal posts, not what I am asking for: Consistent enforcement of the law.

I will ask you once more RG, could you elaborate on this statement of yours, of which I am in total agreement:

“Anyone who had been forced to flee from persecution wouldn’t be carrying genuine ID because it would mean they would get picked up on the way OUT of their country…”

Then read my last comment for the legal reasons that Mr Noumbiwa would be in breach if he travelled from a safe country, contemplate on your own reasoning above, and then tell me how Mr Noumbiwa arrived in the UK, if your statement applied to him, or why you are campaigning blind if you don’t actually know the real details of this case?

All very reasonable queries, I believe.

Galen10,

As I pointed out to you, there have been no evasions at all. Why can’t you grasp that?

There were no queries in comment 50 and if you insist there were then quote them.

Your confusion of immigration and asylum may well have been a slip, but even so you still sought my opinion on immigration to ascertain my position on asylum so the underlying premise is the same.

I answered your question on should he be deported quite thoroughly above and told you that it would be dependent on the answers to those question so again, I am really at a loss as to why you keep insisting things have been asked when they haven’t and answers haven’t been given when they have and the latest addition to your question has already been covered in my comments to Mrs S Pill at 60.

As I said to RG, he, you etc are essentially saying that Mr Noumbiwa is legally entitled to claim asylum but that people are not entitled to question whether that legal entitlement is fully complaint with the law. That that is somehow wrong or obsessive.

But you can’t have one without the other. You don’t get to choose which parts of the law should be applied.

@66 t.m

Don’t put words in people’s mouths… particularly when they aren’t backed up by what was posted above. You say:

“The theme here is that you, Galen etc are saying that Mr Noumbiwa is legally entitled to claim asylum but that people are not entitled to question whether that legal entitlement is fully complaint with the law.”

I’ve studiously remained silent about whether he is legally entitled WRT whether he breached regulations about not seeking asylum in the first safe country, because I don’t know all the facts. I am persuaded by RG’s arguments about why the regulations are not always enforceable.

I’m quite happy to see people question whether the entitlement is fully compliant with the law.

You STILL haven’t answered the question I posed tho.

@ t.m. 67

“Your confusion of immigration and asylum may well have been a slip, but even so you still sought my opinion on immigration to ascertain my position on asylum so the underlying premise is the same.”

The reason I and others were interested in your position on immigration is the suspicion you are someone who opposes immigration, and therefore had an agenda different from simply ascertaining whether this idividual arrived legally or not. Not an unreasonable line of questioning given the tone of your responses.

“There were no queries in comment 50 and if you insist there were then quote them.”

Oh, don’t play the raw prawn. RG made a number of “points” @50.. OK they weren’t framed as personal questions, but it was reasonable enough to think you might respond. Again, you failed to do so.

“….you etc are essentially saying that Mr Noumbiwa is legally entitled to claim asylum but that people are not entitled to question whether that legal entitlement is fully complaint with the law. That that is somehow wrong or obsessive.”

No. I’m quite capable of seeing that it is reasonable to question whether an asylum application is valid, and if not rejected. What IS wrong or obsessive is to continually dodge the question on whether YOU think it is wrong to deport an asylum seeker, if he is being deported solely on the basis that he may have come via another country in breach of the regulations.

Galen10

“Don’t put words in people’s mouths… I’ve studiously remained silent about whether he is legally entitled WRT whether he breached regulations about not seeking asylum in the first safe country, because I don’t know all the facts”

I haven’t done that all, you have made your position and its emotive rationale quite clear:

“…given what you know of this case, would you have him returned by force when there was a danger he would suffer harm, on the basis that he had arrived illegaly?”

You also fail to mention why, as the Judge ruled, simply moving to another part of Cameron would not solve the problem in the first place and that if he were deported back to Cameron on that basis he should be in no danger, but if he still were not happy he would be free to seek asylum in neighbouring Nigeria, also a signatory of the UN Convention on Refugees, if he were genuinely seeking asylum and not selecting countries he wished to migrate to.

“I’m quite happy to see people question whether the entitlement is fully compliant with the law.”

Well that doesn’t appear to be the case at all, as you claim that I am “obsessed” and “keep harping back” to the law when I make such queries and observations.

“You STILL haven’t answered the question I posed tho.”

I answered it quite comprehensively and told you that it is dependant on answers that no one seems able to give, even though they claim to be campaigning for this man on the basis that his treatment is unfair. In fact RG is the one avoiding my questions.

Here is my answer to you once again:

“In fact RG does make one very good point in his comment at 50:
“Anyone who had been forced to flee from persecution wouldn’t be carrying genuine ID because it would mean they would get picked up on the way OUT of their country…”

And I agree with that 100%. So how exactly did Mr Noumbiwa arrive here? If he trekked through safe countries he is in breach, if he flew from a safe country then his is in breach, if he transferred from a safe country then he is in breach.
And if he flew from his own, how was he able to do so, given the very true remarks of our friend RG above? And why would he choose to fly over at least half a dozen safe countries to reach the UK if he was not interested merely in asylum but selecting a country he wished to migrate to without going through the proper channels?”

That is my response to should “he be deported anyway”. The answer to these questions would determine that.”

“The reason I and others were interested in your position on immigration is the suspicion you are someone who opposes immigration”

And this is a debate about Asylum which is supposed to be completely distinct from immigration so my opinion on immigration is totally irreverent on the one hand,you’re your question is very revealing on the other: Once again you are conflating Asylum and immigration.

“…given the tone of your responses”

That I believe the law should be upheld? That ‘tone’ you mean?

“Oh, don’t play the raw prawn. RG made a number of “points” @50.. OK they weren’t framed as personal questions”

And yet you kept insisting that they were for some reason, up until I asked for quotes.

“…but it was reasonable enough to think you might respond. Again, you failed to do so.”

I did respond in the very next comment and every one thereafter.

Again it is you who insisting, contrary to reality that I have ducked queries or questions.

“What IS wrong or obsessive is to continually dodge the question on whether YOU think it is wrong to deport an asylum seeker, if he is being deported solely on the basis that he may have come via another country in breach of the regulations.”

I have answered that above, it is dependent on each case and the questions above.

In this case however the judge has made his ruling and neither you nor anyone else here has explained let alone proved why this ruling is wrong.

But out of curiosity, what do you think should happen to transgressors of the law? If nothing is done does that not only make a mockery of the law but effectively invite everyone else to breach the law? Why not change the law rather then ignore it?

If people use the law to claim asylum and expect the protection that comes with that law, why should they not also expect to be subjected to the sanctions or punishments that law also provides for breaching the law?

Lap dog?

Goodness me, some doesn’t like being wrong do they?

Care to point out exactly where I am “wrong” then with some modicum of substantive comment? I somehow doubt it.

You seem to have a rather odd habit of just parachuting in to add contentless one liners but no actual traction in this debate.

t.m.

Perhaps this is the point at which we invite the local members of the Campaign Against the Deportation of Failed Asylum-seekers to draw back the curtain and share details of the revolutionary teleportation device by means of which Mr. Loumbiwa arrived in Britain without in the meantime setting foot in a safe country.

Aficianados of the Dublin II Regulation, of whom there seems to be a fair few hereabouts, will be no doubt be fully aware that, for the purpose of the Regulation, passing through an airport transit lounge also constitutes ‘setting foot’.

Racists trolling threads like this is very boring and has been for a long time now.

Spambots like Daniel Hoffman-Goldstein can be pretty tiresome as well.

fake