Legal Bid fails to stop Nigerian family's deportation

marcsignal

Mena wrote:

In this particular case though, sending kids back to a place they have never even heard of (again, assuming you believe the stories being told) is harsh, perhaps too harsh.

I have to agree with a previous poster who said 'hard cases make bad law' but i'm pretty sure we will see more difficult & 'exceptional cases' like this one in the future.
This family will no sooner be back in Nigeria and there will be someone else in the paper to keep the solicitors busy.
You either have Immigration laws or you don't, if you're going to start watering them down, and making special exceptions, you may as well just scrap them altogether and let everyone stay.
This is happening now, only because nobody would touch the issue with a 40 foot pole 10 years ago, when we could have actually managed it properly. I just don't think we can Nanny the World, any better than the Americans can Police it.

dent

Nigeria needs to look after its own citizens. They where here illegally and should have being deported.

ArthurDent

dent wrote:

Nigeria needs to look after its own citizens. They where here illegally and should have being deported.

Not totally disagreeing with you about a country being responsibe for its citizens, but feel this is a bit to glib. I wonder would you feel the same if it was about the illegal Irish.
I think sending the kids to Nigeria is tough, but legal and don't have an easy answer to the "hard cases"

dent

ArthurDent wrote:

Not totally disagreeing with you about a country being responsibe for its citizens, but feel this is a bit to glib. I wonder would you feel the same if it was about the illegal Irish.
I think sending the kids to Nigeria is tough, but legal and don't have an easy answer to the "hard cases"

Those Irish lads in the US knew the risks they where taking when they headed over there. If they get deported that's tough luck. I have no problem with Bertie
pleading their case in the US though. I would also have no problem with the Nigerian ambassador pleading this familys case.

I don't feel its tough to be honest. I feel sorry for a lot of the children of African countries but that does not mean I'd advocate bringing them all to Ireland.

sovtek

Dublin1600 wrote:

Jackie you really should read the facts of this case before you start spewing shíte. The kids are not Irish, they weren't even born in Ireland, their parents are Nigerian and the children were born in Italy.

You might want to reign back on the invective there! They have been living in Ireland for five years. As a child they probably spoke English with an Irish accent. I know every child I've seen of that age that has lived in Ireland consistantly does.

Fair play to the Government for not giving in to the PC crowd. Once deportations have been given the go ahead by the courts the deportees should be arrested and placed in custody until the deportation commences.

No Jeers to the government and Lenihan especially. He high tailed it out of Ireland when he knew this deportation order was meant to go through. That's assuming that this family was actually here "illegally" in the first place, which no one has shown any evidence of so far.

sovtek

dent wrote:

I don't feel its tough to be honest.

You've obviously never been through the immigration process then. As an immigrant being honest can make life really suck for you.
Meanwhile people that have been here for years and been forthright and honest are getting played by the system and the government officials responsible for it.

sovtek

dent wrote:

Nigeria needs to look after its own citizens. They where here illegally and should have being deported.

Thats rich coming from someone of the Irish persuasion!

sovtek

marcsignal wrote:

You either have Immigration laws or you don't, if you're going to start watering them down, and making special exceptions, you may as well just scrap them altogether and let everyone stay.
This is happing now, only because nobody would touch the issue with a 40 foot pole 10 years ago, when we could have actually managed it properly. I just don't think we can Nanny the World, any better than the Americans can Police it.

I honestly dont think "you" could have handled it any better 10 years ago as now. The people running the place are just as incompetent, cheap and racist as they were then.
And immigration law is to law what military music is to music. There is no other area of law that is as arbitrary where one person, without checks and balances, can decide your fate.

sovtek

Mena wrote:

That being said the particular family in question did land in Italy first if I'm not mistaken and thus should have claimed asylum there.

As I understand it they did. Even if that's the case how is someone suppose to get on in a country where they don't know the language and have no ties to.

Being an immigrant myself I'm not keen to see people abuse the system as it tends to tar us all with the same brush. In this particular case though, sending kids back to a place they have never even heard of (again, assuming you believe the stories being told) is harsh, perhaps too harsh.

I'm not keen to see people abuse the system. That assumes the system is fair and working. In this case it is neither.

dent

sovtek wrote:

Thats rich coming from someone of the Irish persuasion!

Why?

dent

sovtek wrote:

You've obviously never been through the immigration process then. As an immigrant being honest can make life really suck for you.
Meanwhile people that have been here for years and been forthright and honest are getting played by the system and the government officials responsible for it.

You took my statement out of context, I'm sure it is tough being an immigrant, I'm sure it might suck. Does not change the fact that they where here illegally and should have being deported. Let their own country take responsibility for them.

sovtek

dent wrote:

Why?

Famine
Diaspora...etc etc

sovtek

dent wrote:

You took my statement out of context, I'm sure it is tough being an immigrant, I'm sure it might suck. Does not change the fact that they where here illegally and should have being deported. Let their own country take responsibility for them.

I have yet to see any evidence they were here illegally. My understanding is that their asylum claim was rejected.
Of course....screw em...it's nothing to do with us that their country can't take care of them. The name "Lagos" isn't from the Yorùbá-ian language.

Jip

Sovtek, you need to take those blinkers off. They failed in their asylum claim and a number of appeals, the kids were born in Italy where their parents had initially claimed asylum, the mother let her permit to be there lapse, nobodys fault but her own and she came to Ireland claming harrasment, which there was no evidence to support. In fact her previously perfect hearing seemed to diminsh when asked by Matt Cooper why she wouldn't go back to Italy. And also her husband is still living in Italy, if things are going to be so bad back in Nigeria why hasn't the husband joined them to protect and look after them.

Morlar

sovtek wrote:

it's nothing to do with us that their country can't take care of them.

This doesnt make their claim for asylum legitimate - nor does it make them our responsibility.

sovtek

Jip wrote:

Sovtek, you need to take those blinkers off. They failed in their asylum claim and a number of appeals, the kids were born in Italy where their parents had initially claimed asylum, the mother let her permit to be there lapse, nobodys fault but her own and she came to Ireland claming harrasment, which there was no evidence to support.

I'm not the one that needs the blinkers taken off. I've dealt with the immigration process and I know what it's like. I suppose you can't imagine getting bad information and differing information in a foreign country and a foreign culture from an ineffectual bureaucracy? If I'd had always followed those that are supposed to give you correct and proper information I would have possibly been in her situation.

In fact her previously perfect hearing seemed to diminsh when asked by Matt Cooper why she wouldn't go back to Italy.

She was given bad advice...something that many immigrants have to face.

And also her husband is still living in Italy, if things are going to be so bad back in Nigeria why hasn't the husband joined them to protect and look after them.

After the treatment she received...why would he?

sovtek

Morlar wrote:

This doesnt make their claim for asylum legitimate - nor does it make them our responsibility.

Nor does it make "your" system legitimate. In the latter case it makes you morally responsible.

Morlar

sovtek wrote:

Nor does it make "your" system legitimate. In the latter case it makes you morally responsible.

What absolute drivel.

If these people are our/your/my moral responsibility then we have to accept that all african children with mild autism/Attention deficit disorder are our responsibility to clothe, feed, house and provide special educational assistance to (once they set foot on Irish soil). If that was the case we would be making problems for ourselves not least in that we would be more of a target for illicit people traffickers which is in no ones long term interests - neither the native Irish people of people from africa seeking resident status here.

How can you say african children with autism/a.d.d are our responsibility but not children from (insert name of X country here) ? Wouldnt that be discriminatory to give rights to african kids but deny them to poor/impoverished children from other cultures ?

I think that in the current climate of residents against racism and other aggresive pc pressure /special interest groups making big headlines the govt's room for maneuver on this area was strictly limited. Any exceptions being made on humanitarian grounds in this case were potentially grounds for alleging discrimination in the next case to come along. So one exception becomes the rule and anyone who says otherwise will be labelled a racist - how can you discriminate against x child in 6 months or a year when great was given asylum etc ?

dent

sovtek wrote:

Famine
Diaspora...etc etc

So because we suffered from a famine we should now be responsible for the citizens of Nigeria?

sovtek wrote:

Nor does it make "your" system legitimate. In the latter case it makes you morally responsible.

Well it is a legitimate system. We have a right to create our own laws and system of immigration.

We could start another thread on who is morally responsible from the Nigerian government to white colonists.

sovtek

dent wrote:

So because we suffered from a famine we should now be responsible for the citizens of Nigeria?

No I thought it would be obvious that all those Irish that were taken in by other countries during that time should not have been by your logic.

Well it is a legitimate system. We have a right to create our own laws and system of immigration.

It is not legitimate when it seeks to undermine immigrants that have obeyed the law and now have a right to permanent forms of residency and citizenship...then cynically lengthen the time it takes to reach that status as well as make it harder to renew their current status. Then tax those same people for the privilege. Again it takes nothing more than the whim of one person to become "illegal" by immigration law.

We could start another thread on who is morally responsible from the Nigerian government to white colonists.

We could...but we could also link it to the reason why people are coming here.

Delboy05

lets face it...the woman and her children were here illegally. Their asylum claim was knocked down how many times? The Irish taxpayer paid for her accommodation, her familys education, food etc , not too mention her solicitor and barrister, the states side of all the legal cases, court officials time, gardai time etc etc. These 3 people have cost this state a fortune and they should never have been here in the first place.

After months and months of soft media coverage, Matt Cooper asked her a few reasonly tough questions last night about why she fled italy and how many times her husband had come to visit her here. All of a sudden, her phone line was 'bad' and she could'nt hear him. Of course RTE or the Irish Times will do their best to hide the dodgy aspects of her case and most other media outlets follow suit, so we don't get to see the utter lies and falsehoods in these peoples stories.
The asylum process is a joke and is costing this country a fortune. Nigerians should be turned back the first time they say 'asylum' - there is no direct links between there and here. And yet for the sake of appearing to be PC, we have to let them stay. And thus this country takes a huge financial hit both for those in the asylum process and those thant managed to beat it and remain here.
For the cost of educating 1 autistic nigerian boy in ireland, how many dozens could you educate in Nigeria - for the cost of hearing the case of 1 family of Congolese asylum seekers in Ireland, how many hundred could you provide aid to over there.....joke, complete joke

dent

sovtek wrote:

No I thought it would be obvious that all those Irish that were taken in by other countries during that time should not have been by your logic.

Well those counties wanted them so by my logic they would have being let in.

Also I think you will find that my ancestors did not leave.

sovtek wrote:

It is not legitimate when it seeks to undermine immigrants that have obeyed the law and now have a right to permanent forms of residency and citizenship...then cynically lengthen the time it takes to reach that status as well as make it harder to renew their current status. Then tax those same people for the privilege. Again it takes nothing more than the whim of one person to become "illegal" by immigration law.

Your personal grievance does not make our immigration system illegitimate.

sovtek wrote:

We could...but we could also link it to the reason why people are coming here.

Ok so why are Nigerians coming here and why should we be responsible for them as opposed to their own government?

It should be noted that in 2003 a survey found that Nigeria had the happiest citizens in the world. That's despite all their problems.

Jip

sovtek wrote:

After the treatment she received...why would he?

He's the bloody kids father, that's why ! That's a laugh coming from you. You're trying to tell us it's our responsibility for her and her family yet don't think it's her husbands, the kids father, responsibility to help them himself ?!?

The fact that she was given wrong information is not our fault either. Suppose I go to America expecting I'd be let stay there without a visa, greencard etc, I'm told at immigration that I do infact need one, can I then claim that someone told me I didn't and therefore should be allowed to stay ?

Jackie laughlin

Dublin1600,
You really shouldn't assume that a person with whom you disagree isn't fully aware of the facts. Of course I know that the kids weren't born in Ireland. However, they're here, they're at school here, they're part of our society now, one of them may have learned some Irish. If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, etc. They're Irish!

OK, maybe they should never have been let in here, maybe both their parents are chancers, etc. etc. The fact is that they were here for a considerable portion of their young lives and Ireland was home.

This fear that if an exception is made, floodgates will open and we'll be overrun by Nigerians is irrational.

The pityless application of law in this case reflects badly on us.

Morlar

Jackie laughlin wrote:

This fear that if an exception is made, floodgates will open and we'll be overrun by Nigerians is irrational.

I said if an exception is made then those with an 'no borders' agenda will use that exception as the basis for discarding the rule. How can you make an exception in one case and not in another > the argument goes that to do that would be discriminatory against the people for whom you subsequently do not make an exception for. How would you respond to that argument ? Not saying I agree with that logic but that is what the govt has to contend with regards immigration in Ireland thesedays.

Jackie laughlin wrote:

The pityless application of law in this case reflects badly on us.

I dont see anything pitiless about application of the law. *

*Not in italics to highlight spelling - more to point out that the word does not belong in that sentence.

marcsignal

sovtek wrote:

I honestly dont think "you" could have handled it any better 10 years ago as now. The people running the place are just as incompetent, cheap and racist as they were then.
And immigration law is to law what military music is to music. There is no other area of law that is as arbitrary where one person, without checks and balances, can decide your fate.

Em ? Well I wasnt' claiming "I" could handle the matter any better, now, or 10 years ago, but i presume you didn't mean Me personally ? I'm not qualified for the job for starters.

The Fact is, no Law has ever been written anywhere, at any time, to be tailor made to suit the individual(s), not civil, immigration, military, or any law you care to mention.

My point was that if the immigration issue was handled/managed with more pragmatism and less political correctness from the beginning (Approx 10 years ago), we wouldn't be in the mess we are now in.
It might also be worth noting that the backlog and delays processing claims may also be hampered by individuals and their (presumably free) legal representatives continuously appealing deportation orders when they are issued by the courts, effectively clogging up the system and buying applicants more time. Wasn't that one of the reasons this family were appealing the deportation decision in the first place ? that thay had been living here for so long.

To be honest, I really feel your assertion that the individuals who are processing claims are racist is wrong. They have a difficult job, and one I wouldn't do for any amount of money.

Dublin1600

Jackie laughlin wrote:

Dublin1600,
If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, etc. They're Irish!

OK look at it this way. I'm Irish, my wife is Irish, my kids are born are in Italy and we emigrate to Nigeria, after living there 5 years illegally, are my kids Nigerian?

At the end of the day, they were illegal immigrants, they were subjects of the courts of X number of years, the courts decided they should be deported after many reviews of their case. Hundreds of thousands of euro of taxpayers money was spend on the free legal of illegals. I'd be surprised if 5% of Nigerian asylum seekers are genuine asylum seekers. Nigerians prey on the gullibility of the Irish who believe every sob story they hear.

Colonel Sanders

Have read this thread with great interest after following the case in the media.

Surely the bottom line is that they weren't entitled to asylum in Ireland so they had to be deported end of story. I don't agree with all the laws of this country but must abide by them.

JacobM

The system, the way it is now, is grossly disproportionate and, well, basically retarded, and I think someone should do something about that.

marcsignal

JacobM wrote:

The system, the way it is now, is grossly disproportionate and, well, basically retarded, and I think someone should do something about that.

Yes you're absolutely right JacobM, and I can understand fully Sovtec's frustration. Everybody would like to see an efficient fast-track system in place, but there are 2 main factors hampering the whole show.

1) Continuous Appealing of Court Deportation Orders when they are issued.

2) Legal representatives motivated by Greed (in the form of big bowls of Tiger Prawns and fine Cianti), who indulge themselves in throwing a spanner in the works, to drag cases out for years in the courts, in the (often vain) hope that the time lapsed will grant their clients residency by default.

Lobby groups, and people like 'Rosanna Flynn' would also like to see a fast-track system in place, but only if the answer at the end is ALWAYS
"OK, no problemo :-) You can stay here in Ireland"

I believe I can safely assume that everyone posting here, including me, believes that Racism, by its true definition, is Disgusting and COMPLETELY WRONG, but we must fully seperate things that are truly Racist from Immigration Laws and Immigration Issues generally, in order to deal with this issue and manage it properly.