On the overcrowding thing, as Stray says there are far more empty properties than homeless people in the UK. Homelessness wasn't a major problem in the Uk until 10-15 years ago when the Tories Damn The Poor policy kicked in. There is enough housing for us all, and plenty more.
Britain is tenth in Eurpoe for the number of asylum seekers taken compared to the size of the existing population.
The vouchers thing is a total rip off. Asylum seekers are given vouchers which are only spendable on certain items at supermarkets, and only by the person to whom the voucher has been issued.
They cannot buy cheap food at the market cos the vouchers are only taken by (expensive) supermarkets. The voucher system has been dreamt up and implemented by civil servants who all shop at supermarkets and don't realise that when you're on £50 a week you *have* to buy food elsewhere.
The supermarkets do not give change for the vouchers, so the vouchers are effectively worth less than their face value, and the supermarkets are profiting from it.
Limiting the kind of items they can be used for means that people cannot buy toys for their kids or cosmetics. I remember reading of Red Cross parcels sent in to liberated concentration camps in 1945, and how the lipsticks were the first thing many of the women went for, even before food, because it rehumanised them.
Only allowing the vouchers to be spent by the person who they're given to means that asylum seekers cannot club together to buy in bulk, and must buy small packets of food at supermarket prices.
One asylum seeker was arrested for buying some food for him and his friend with vouchers issued to them both. He was given a police Caution, which admits guilt. Because he commited an offence he faces deportation.
Britian's policy on asylum seekers is barbaric and racist. The 'detention centres' are prisons. Indeed, many are kept in actual prisons. These are people who have commited no offence and yet are improsoned indefinitely, a clear breach of their human rights.
The solicitors given to help them are largely crap and mercenary, and just collect the Legal Aid money and do fuck all. Thus they are denied a fair hearing, another breach of basic human rights.
The Immigration civil servants know this, and they just don't care. Institutionalised racism at its cruellest.
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