Time for a zero refugee policy? - *Read OP for mod warnings and threadbans - updated 11/5/24*

What is interesting is this development with the Rwanda/UK issue is that it's the first time the govt has mobilised a response towards restricting the number of asylum seekers coming into the country.

Is this a watershed moment?

I am not sure about that, but the govt do seem to have acknowledged that some restrictions are required. And once you acknowledge that, its difficult to go full open border again without appearing hypocritical or contradictory.

Yeah but the problem I have with this view is that any system which allows any form of international travel or migration will always be open to abuse. The very existence of it is the basis for the abuse — and so it will always be abused in some shape or form. Vote in a right wing government tomorrow and I'd put the house on the likelihood that people would still be on this forum bemoaning the broken promises when the easy fixes prove to be not so easy fixes.

There is just is never going to be an answer to this. Immigration will be discussed and decried for the rest of our lives and, long after we are dead and gone, the Ireland-born descendants of Ukrainian refugees and other immigrants will also be decrying the latest example of non-Ireland born people coming over here etc.

Very little details at the moment

Countries like France, Germany, Italy and Spain are receiving hundreds of thousands of asylum seekers (each) every year. It's simply not true that they are all heading to Ireland:

"In 2023, Germany received a quarter (25%) of asylum applications in the EU, followed by:

• France (16%)
• Spain (12%)
• Austria (11%)
• Italy (9%)

These five EU member states together received almost three quarters of all first-time asylum applications in the EU."

To keep things in perspective, Germany had 350,000 applications in 2023. We have had 5000 so far this year.

What about forwarding mandatory API (Advanced Passenger Information) to the destination airport/ferryport immigration desk? Losing your passport or destroying it is redundant then.

Every airline ticket I have bought requires me to insert my passport details so that information must be held somewhere. Any Data Protection issues can be amended by specific legislation surely.

Something tells me this can't be done for DP reasons, but why collect it in the first place?

So there's gonna be a border official working along with the young minimum wage under-pressure boarding agent who has to board the flight in 10 mins or so and securely box up a number of passports, securely carry them onto the aircraft and place them into a locked cabinet whereby on the other end of the flight more agents will take the box of passports, meet with an authorised official to transport the box and their owners separately to the passport control desk where the documents are further checked and anyone found to be an illegal is held at a facility in the airport to be placed on another flight and transported back to the departure country, e.g. the UK who will accept them back with no issues?

You sure you really thought this one through??

How many were sent back pre Rwanda?

Between 2020 and 2023?

I'll give you a clue, somewhere between 0 and minus 1.

But now all of a sudden its a huge issue for McEntee.

True, but what can be done. Take any hard action and you can risk capsizing their boats, or at the very least causing people to fall into the sea and potentially drown. Then word gets out and that comes to a stop due to legitimate outcry.

It really is a lose-lose situation, and the people smugglers, and other unsavoury characters know this all too well.

Even if we sent money to invest in the countries people are fleeing from that offers no guarantee of success, due to just how corrupt and unstable those countries are.

Deleted - replied to an ancient post in error!

They could, but if they dont receive any benefits here they are unlikley to want to come back.