I believe the problem is that the premise is false. It works OK for a part of the population that feels comfortable with it. When you look closer at the root causes they are not immaterial and often boil down to people not wanting immigrants around them. If you are progressive you can just dismiss their outdated attitude - and this is what center- and left-wing politicians were doing for decades. Ignoring and ridiculing these folks caused the radical right to grow stronger in several European countries. Putin knows that and that's why he is sending more and more of them to Belarussian borders.
> It amazes me how people buy into the right-wing narrative about politicians having invited refugees to Europe, when in fact, the EU is trying hard to keep them from entering in the first place.
Have they tried, I don't know, mounted machine guns?
Might sound like a joke, but what other options do you have when hordes of young, able-bodied males are invading your country?
> And this is beneficial for Germany, as Ukrainians are also able to enter the job market because of this.
If this were beneficial for Germany and the EU, Ukrainians would have had the right to enter the EU and get a job before the war.
In reality, it’s just an attempt to mitigate another immigration disaster.
It will fail, because there is no immigration solution for plummeting birth rates. The people coming to the EU (not specifically Ukrainians, which are perhaps better than average) are already adults, often with incompatible or lacking education, often with a different, incompatible upbringing, consuming significant state resources without having contributed a cent. This can’t work in combination with a social state, it’s just maths.
> That's why you now see ghettos and zones where the police don't go in France, Sweden and even UK.
That's failed policy by the people that are already here, not the fault of the immigrants.
> I think Europe should be seriously reconsidering non-western immigration as it will simply clash
Yeah ... wait what? That's kinda ... what? Why? What's the problem with that?
So you don't seem to know, but it worked out very well with the middle eastern immigrants in Germany from 2015. Integration into the workforce worked better than expected, many pay taxes and stuff.
> I don't understand what's so hard simply shipping the immigrants back on a big ship once every 2-3 months.
Because as a result of the events from 1933-1945, everyone has the individual right to claim asylum in Europe. Despite the far-right working hard to abolish that, we won't.
Besides, for countries like Syria there's a deportation ban in place by the European court system.
>Or there is a sizable portion of the European population who don’t want mass immigration.
This isn't a "one or the other" kind of thing. Yes, there are people who oppose mass immigration, but Russia also has a habit of trying to destabilize European countries by supporting nationalist/anti-immigration groups.
> Now not so good tidbit. Just few months ago we had a lot of people lured into Belarus by Lukashenko trying to come to Europe. Poland treated them really really poorly.
Those people were from the middle east, pakistan, afghanistan and so on no? A big difference when it's your neighbor in need.
> Throwing out common Russian people from universities and jobs across Europe is just going to feed a siege mentality and its plainly speaking, racist.
>So the issue is that no other country in the world will take them? Even if we assume that’s true, that’s reason enough to be grateful.
...but you're ignoring the principle that people are flippantly telling them, "If you don't like, just leave!", which is what brought about this discussion in the first place.
It isn't a realistic option when such barriers exist.
>People are literally dying to break into the country for the opportunity that these folks are complaining is inadequate.
This logic doesn't work. People are literally dying to get into the EU and people from the EU emigrate, yeah? If everyone believed in the exceptionalism of their own home country, then no one would leave!
Also, they're probably not complaining about the opportunity as much as other factors, like society (en masse [e.g.: American society, Russian society, Chinese society, etc.]).
>>It doesn't matter to you, but I am sure it matters a whole lot to the people of Poland (but fuck them, I guess?).
Well, I am Polish, and "a whole lot of people in Poland" want things that I absolutely disagree with(prohibition of gay marriage, abortion, they want the church to meddle with politics etc etc). So while I wouldn't say "fuck them", I would say that I disagree with their opinion strongly.
>>Then send them to Germany or Sweden. They love the refugees!
There's no need to go from one extreme to another. Basically the options are:
1) Send them back where they came from
2) Try to house them where they arrive
3) Try to distribute them around the EU evenly so that the burden on each country is minimal
Option 1 is probably what most people would want, but that doesn't make it feasible. Even if we assume that we know exactly where they are from, which is not always true, we could probably send back people to countries which are not torn by war. But that still leaves you with people who are genuienly fleeing war, and if you are advocating sending them back there, then well....I think we can finish the discussion here.
Second option is terrible, because neither Italy nor Greece have the capacity to handle this many immigrants. The best they(or anyone) could do is built a huge camp for them, but as you can imagine that would be a distaster very quickly, if done at that scale.
Option number 3 evokes a lot of negative emotions, but unless someone comes up with a better solution, it seems like the best way to go.
>>I would argue that expecting a middle eastern to integrate into a northern European society is a farce.
I would argue that if the children of those immigrants are not fitting in then you have a problem. And that problem usually has to do with marginalization. In heavily immigrant areas do the people see themselves reflected in public insitutions? In teaching staff, bus drivers, police? America and Canada have historically been much better at this part than Europe.
> European leaders have been importing millions(!) of people from incredibly violent, theocratic, illiterate, and regressive regions
We have a large Turkish community in Germany and it turns out that the new people from e.g. Syria are less violent, theocratic and regressive than the 3rd generation Turkish immigrants we already had.
> I'm not even European
Which means you have no idea whats going on. People here care more about their favorite soccer team than immigrants. Right wing party popularity is falling again after having a short peak. The real problems in Europe are caused by stupid "austerity" politics, not by refugees.
>> But perhaps building a wall or letting them to die is not a good solution for it.
Well I don't think "anyone" in Europe wants to send these migrants to the bottom of the sea.
A solution currently worked on is to pay other countries closer culturally, socially and even geographically (i.e Turkey) to host these people.
The lack of border security gives a sense of unease especially if you expect people from a war torn country or a country where crime is high so I fully support securing the borders.
However the deshumanisation of migrants and treating them as criminals (or worse) is totally wrong and has no place in a civilised country. You can have both border security and immigration. Just be honest who is allowed in and who is not, put in place agreed quotas and that's it. At least everyone knows(including the migrants) what your stance is.
> Now there is a sudden sympathy for refugees - and we ALL know the true reason for it: They are white Christians.
That explanation does not make sense. We are talking about Europe, after all, where xenophobia routinely targets white European Christians, because their language / culture / nationality / brand of Christianity is different.
Ukrainian refugees receive different treatment, because they are fleeing a mutual enemy. The enemy of my enemy is my friend, or something like that. It's not a matter of right and wrong or some abstract principles but that of self-interest. People in East Europe generally consider the current Russian regime a threat, and they are willing to help those facing the threat.
whose failure? Why are Europeans the default racists? The US is not even integrated and is going through large scale migration right now that has never happened before so the success of US integration is still too early to say. What does integration look like because the US has ethnic enclaves, everyone knows that.
It's absolutely right that the US promoted demographic change to Europe who followed along but the migrants lack the skills who arrive and I don't think this even solves the problem. It may exacerbate the demographic trap for various reasons.
> Many European countries have generous welfare programs, and have open borders with other EU countries with far less generous ones. It works.
Actually it has caused a lot of resentment in the richer countries and it was one of the contributing factors to Brexit, as well as the rise of new far right parties in France and Germany.
It's also notable how Europeans reacted to non-European migrants who attempt to enter the EU while fleeing the war in Syria.
I wouldn't say the EU has migration very well figured out.
@odshoifsdhfs: Well, I hate to quibble, but it's actually 'Belarusian' (just one 's', you see). I've lived in Western Europe (UK) nearly all my life and I'm afraid I disagree with you fundamentally: '95%' of the people in 'the West' are quite indifferent to the broader region of Eastern Europe, but never in my life have I encountered the kinds of chauvinistic attitudes even approaching those I encountered from Russians. To give you an example: 'govori po-chelovecheski' (in Russian - literally 'speak like a human being') -- can you believe this s**t? Also 'US/Western Europeans' aren't living in tinpot dictatorships with aspirations to annex territories from their neighbours -- a slight, but important difference, which to my mind excuses any ignorance of the region and its politics.
> Oh really? Fences are fascist now? And deportations?
I believe you lack some context here. There are a lot of migrants and refugees coming to Europe through the Balkans. Whether to let them in or leave them waiting in improvised camps in countries that are themselves very poor is a very hot political topic in the region and in most of Europe.
The problem is how those people are treated by the police in some places and how everyone, the government, the locals and the neighboring countries are complicit in this. They're constantly being beaten up, their belongings destroyed for no reason and so on. There exists a movement of right wing politicians, journalists and so on, that openly call for killing migrants that approach the border of my country. That's supposed to be a crime, but absolutely nothing happens to them.
I can understand the fear of foreign people and their culture. But the hatred and the fact that political parties actively participate and support that hatred sure sounds like fascism to me.
> The correct solution is to send illegal migrants right back to Africa. However, only the far right parties dare say that - hence, the increasing support they are getting, despite their other positions.
In case you're unaware, the reason Europe has its current asylum standards largely because of what happened between 1933-1945. So would your proposed solution be:
1. Deny asylum to anyone and everyone, even those fleeing genocide ("Sorry that happened to you, we don't have room here!"), or
2. Implement a color chart a la Family Guy [1], so only the "right people" can come in?
> "If you look for a well-defined and rational response, I don't think there's one."
The lack of a well-defined and rational response, beyond vague feelings, is what causes this discussion to eventually reduce down to claims of pure racism.
We're denying that there's racism and xenophobia involved, whilst simultaneously being unable to explain why we're seeing those differences.
I'm not accusing you of anything, I'm merely observing. I hope you too can see why this ambiguity is problematic.
> "There has been hundreds of thousands of non-european people inmigrating to Europe for years, but somehow we're hypocrites now."
And there are many millions more that - given the same support and openness given to the Ukrainian people now - would leave the war-torn, collapsed countries they were born in and look for refuge in better societies in Europe. But those people aren't getting the same level of support. Why do we treat those groups differently then?
I believe the problem is that the premise is false. It works OK for a part of the population that feels comfortable with it. When you look closer at the root causes they are not immaterial and often boil down to people not wanting immigrants around them. If you are progressive you can just dismiss their outdated attitude - and this is what center- and left-wing politicians were doing for decades. Ignoring and ridiculing these folks caused the radical right to grow stronger in several European countries. Putin knows that and that's why he is sending more and more of them to Belarussian borders.
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