[absolutelastone]

Is an asylum seeker really legal if their claim is a stretch and they are in fact just an economic migrant? Seems like an arguable category that should be treated separately. Though I agree there appear to be plenty of people in Europe who want to restrict legal immigration too. Is this taboo there now too?

[rat87]

> Is an asylum seeker really legal

Yes. You answered your own question. A person who is her legally is here legally. If their claim is denied (and I'd argue in many cases the bias would be towards denying valid claims then the other way around) and they refused to leave then they'd be an unathorized immigrant without legal right to stay in the country. But before then they are explicitly there legally.

[absolutelastone]

Taking words out of context generally never forms the basis of a good argument. For example here you cropped out the commission of immigration fraud, which leads me to doubt you accurately answered my question. In the US at least, such behavior can lead to punishments well beyond denial of the application. Are you saying in Europe it is fair play? Either way of course the point relevant to the thread is whether people are justifiable in viewing such applicants as illegal vs legal.

[rat87]

Fraud is lying

Having your amnesty application rejected (whether the court judged fairly or too harshly) is not in any way or shape fraud. Law is complex and many refugees and asylum seekers don't fully understand the law. Even hoping it applies to you optimistically would not be fraud. Fraud is only when you purposely lie to try to gain the right to stay here. Such things happen but not nearly as often as anti immigrant people claim. Something that seems to happen more often is anti immigrant politicians lying and trying to break the law in order to restrict immigration such as by withdrawing TPS by claiming unsafe countries are now safe(so people can be deported)

[absolutelastone]

Indeed fraud certainly is lying. And sure they might also be rejected for other reasons like being a convicted criminal. In the US we also have "willful misrepresentation", which I will count with fraud informally. But my comment, again, specified economic migrants. They know they are economic migrants. The fraud is to claim otherwise on one's application in the name of "hoping optimistically" that this other story will suffice. It sure is hard to maintain focus on this point.

[rat87]

The vast majority of cases are not declined for fraud/wilful misrepresentation. They're declined because they don't meet standards for asylum (or at times because the judges are being pushed to deny regardless of what the law says or means) or because they didn't have proper representation or enough time to prepare and have to face a broken immigration system. Hell we don't even have enough interpreters. Many of those claiming asylum speak less common languages like Mayan languages

[absolutelastone]

Funny how you don't often hear this kind of argument made for estimating the prevalence of tax fraud. And there the risk vs reward calculation is much worse. I would trust more common sense arguments. People who respond to economic incentives are economically motivated.