Quote Originally Posted by mojo
I can hear the arguments that desperate people tend to have less respect for laws. I still believe the presumption of innocence is a human right, and that it is strictly immoral to deny someone rights based on the suspicion that they will commit a crime.

Crossing the border by dinghy is committing a crime.

I respect a nation's right (and responsibility) to control its borders. I'm not arguing otherwise. Just the whole, "the people who risked their lives in a dinghy to get here are all lazy loafers" argument doesn't feel very accurate to me.

It's not that they're lazy. But I'm struggling to think why else these people are risking their lives to flee France, other than economics. Nobody has answered this question sufficiently yet. It's not a language thing. Somalians speak French. Iranians speak Persian. Indians speak English and come here legally.

France is a safe country, at least as safe as the UK anyway. Nowhere is perfect, but France is no more lawless than the UK. What's the difference between the two? Why is it so important for them to come to England that they won't even try going through the proper channels? What's the difference between the UK and France if you're fleeing a war zone? If it's not economics, then what is it? It could be that the French are more racist than the British. But that doesn't fit the narrative that people like oskar and poop promote.