Whats the fuss about (Immigration and asylum)

Member Name: frankfemale

Product:	Immigration and asylum
Date:	31/07/09 (18 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Kindness to humanity

Disadvantages: none

It never ceases to amaze me the amount of fuss people make about immigration and asylum. This is clearly a huge topic and I have chosen to focus on the rough and unfair press and treatment received by asylum seekers and refugees as opposed to the points based system or migration from Europe, that are topics within themselves.
Unfortunately, the British Media has a habit, which borders on addiction, of 'scapegoating and villianising people. The Irish, Jewish, Polish and Ugandan, to name a few, have at one time or another been treated in this manner and arguably still are today, but that's another topic. Only if we could send the Media to rehab, their need for cold turkey in my opinion, is well and truly overdue.
What surprises me is that, people often buy into the media hype that often paints a distorted picture of asylum seekers and refugees, and do not even question whether they are wrong or right.
Apologies to those of you who know, but for those of you who do not, it is widely accepted that an 'Asylum Seekers' is someone who has fled their country because of fear of danger and have formally applied for stay in another country. It therefore, begs belief that people actually think that when an asylum seeker flees their country after watching their whole family killed, or after they have been tortured and had their house reduced to rubble that they are coming to the UK as an economic migrant to get a measly £64.50 a week. Common sense dictates, for me anyway, that the person is fleeing out of fear for their life and persecution, rather than to be a 'drain' on some distant foreign state.
The media would have you believe that the UK is swamped with asylum seekers and Refugees, when in reality the UK is home to less than 2% of the worlds Refugees and they rank 17th in industrialised countries in terms of asylum applications per head of population. 80% of the world's asylum seekers and Refugees are actually living in poor developing countries such as Africa and Asia. So what is all the fuss about?

Summary: we need to stop whining