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Another day, another Daily Mail front page that has to be seen to be believed.
This time round it's a headline reading "100,000 illegals stopped at the UK border" with text containing loaded language like "flood", "besieged borders", "sneak into" and "storm":
How many times do we have to say this? The use of "illegal immigrant" is a contradiction in terms for people arriving at the UK border.
Someone arriving here could be fleeing persecution, or be a refugee from a conflict zone, as well as trying to escape poverty. An "asylum seeker" has every legal right to be in the country - they're waiting on a decision.
The total "nearly 100,000" figure (which is actually 92,000) does not distinguish between those seeking asylum and those who moved for economic reasons.
And yet the Mail writes:
Many are fleeing humanitarian disasters but often they are economic migrants attracted by jobs, lavish benefits and free accommodation in the UK.
Ah yes, "Schrodinger's immigrant": simultaneously stealing jobs from hardworking Britons and scrounging off the benefits system.
Sorry to break it to you, Daily Mail, but migration can actually be a positive thing for the economy: a UCL study found that recent immigrants from the EU have made a net contribution of £20bn to the UK over the last ten years.
Foreign born people are much less likely to claim benefits or live in social housing since to qualify you need to have permanent residency in the UK - those on work visas, students and asylum seekers don't qualify. A report from the Equality and Human Rights Commission also found that 90 per cent of public housing goes to people born in the country.
More than one million people are now thought to have entered Europe in an attempt to flee bloodshed, persecution and poverty in 2015 alone.
But the Daily Mail is more worried about a baby penguin than the 100,000 people it claims are seeking a better life in Britain.
More: Activists are helping migrant refugees... at the expense of the Daily Mail
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