European refugee crisis thread

[Purple]

I think a lot of people like Cosmicalstorm and Purple are overestimating the effects though. The refugees will not cause Europe to give up its wealth, they are far too few to do that. IMO this will be a strain on the budgets, but unless tens of millions enter Germany, it will not cause the average German a noticeable loss in wealth.

Do you think they won't? I foresee that in the coming years absolutely everyone you are not willing to reject will try and enter. And the more people come and are allowed in the more will think that they too will be allowed in. I would not at all be surprised if the whole of North Africa tried to get into Germany within the next few decades.

[Broomstick]

I think a lot of people like Cosmicalstorm and Purple are overestimating the effects though. The refugees will not cause Europe to give up its wealth, they are far too few to do that. IMO this will be a strain on the budgets, but unless tens of millions enter Germany, it will not cause the average German a noticeable loss in wealth.

I hope that history will prove me an alarmist fuck, that would be nice. This was just another crisis that Europe endured. Would love it.

I would have felt more reassured were it not for the other calamities (climate change, oill price, ME conflict, automatization, Euro fuckuppery).

My grandmother and my parents, who collectively spanned the rather eventful 20th Century and into the 21st Century, listened to me spout doom-and-gloom as a 20-something and pointed out that the present isn't unusual, it's just history happening at the normal pace.

It still holds true.

There is always a crisis, a war, a natural disaster, a calamity, and so forth in the world. Always. If it wasn't this it would be something else gaining our attention. Which isn't to claim it's NOT a crisis, just that chaos is a normal state of the world.

Do you think they won't? I foresee that in the coming years absolutely everyone you are not willing to reject will try and enter. And the more people come and are allowed in the more will think that they too will be allowed in. I would not at all be surprised if the whole of North Africa tried to get into Germany within the next few decades.

No, the entirety of MENA will not attempt to enter Europe. Aside from at least some of them deciding they'd rather be in the Americas or somewhere else, at a certain point, when the population drops sufficiently, things will settle down in that part of the world. Not to mention the folks who'd rather die than leave.

[Simon_Jester]

Just how old do you think these migrant 'children' are? Alarming pictures of refugees - including 'the fastest 14-year-old in Sweden' - that shed light on a growing scandal amid Europe's asylum crisis

Ahmad Farid claimed to be 16 but appears to have hair on his chin
Saad Alsaud is reported to have been the fastest 14-year-old in Sweden
Youssaf Khaliif Nuur claims he is 15, but he is 6ft tall and is said to shave
Sweden has been overwhelmed with ‘unaccompanied minors’ in what critics suspect is a huge fraud


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... z3ydRp3UOk
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

The ten year follow up for the ones who arrived in 2005 is something I glanced at a few weeks ago, can't find the link now. But their integration was atrocious, and that was for a year when there were only a couple of hundred most of whom were placed in well equipped facilities.

Now, I'm not claiming that Sweden doesn't have an actual problem here. However...

I teach high school mathematics. I've seen quite a number of sixteen year olds with hair on their chins, and some who were in fact six feet tall. Puberty is a strange thing. And some boys are going to be two meters tall when they grow up; as a rule they are six feet tall at fifteen years old.

(One meter is 10/3 feet, or as close as makes no difference, in case anyone didn't know)

Again, I'm not saying Sweden doesn't have a problem here. Or didn't have a problem here. I'd be reassured if I weren't hearing it from somebody who was screaming "THE RUSSIANS ARE COMING!" a year ago, frankly, but I accept that Sweden has a serious immigrant problem.

Thing is... the immigrants who come to Sweden are the ones who have filtered through all of Europe to get there. That probably filters out a lot of people who are just desperately looking for some place to live that isn't a war zone; the ones who come to Sweden strike me as unusually likely to be what Edi called "fortune seekers." And Sweden's welfare system is not equipped to handle fortune seekers along with the many people in genuine need.

[Purple]

No, the entirety of MENA will not attempt to enter Europe. Aside from at least some of them deciding they'd rather be in the Americas or somewhere else, at a certain point, when the population drops sufficiently, things will settle down in that part of the world. Not to mention the folks who'd rather die than leave.

Well yes. It was a hyperbole. But I do think it serves to underline my point that Europe will receive as many migrants as it is willing to accept.

[Thanas]

I think a lot of people like Cosmicalstorm and Purple are overestimating the effects though. The refugees will not cause Europe to give up its wealth, they are far too few to do that. IMO this will be a strain on the budgets, but unless tens of millions enter Germany, it will not cause the average German a noticeable loss in wealth.

Do you think they won't? I foresee that in the coming years absolutely everyone you are not willing to reject will try and enter. And the more people come and are allowed in the more will think that they too will be allowed in. I would not at all be surprised if the whole of North Africa tried to get into Germany within the next few decades.

Let's see some numbers. There are currently 1.1 million refugees in Germany. There are already 2.79 million people out of work who are entirely supported by the state. In the past, we had numbers of 5 million in 2005. So even if the refugee number doubles, it would just be approaching 2005 levels of people the state has to support. And the economy of Germany is a lot stronger.

Now, if we do not curb people getting their families we will be in trouble. But I don't think we will suffer huge problems even if we have to feed and clothe 7 million in total, because we already proved that we can do so with 5 million. And I think Merkel will put the thumbscrews on at the next EU meeting and therefore the load will be lessened.

No, the huge challenge will be to succesfully integrate them. If we fail at that, then there will be problems. But as of right now, any talk of "ZOMG COLLAPSE MASSIVE DECREASE IN WEALTH" is nonsense.

[Edi]

Thing is... the immigrants who come to Sweden are the ones who have filtered through all of Europe to get there. That probably filters out a lot of people who are just desperately looking for some place to live that isn't a war zone; the ones who come to Sweden strike me as unusually likely to be what Edi called "fortune seekers." And Sweden's welfare system is not equipped to handle fortune seekers along with the many people in genuine need.

We've had 32k refugees come to Finland last year. Over 3000 of them actually voluntarily withdrew their asylum applications and went back home (family members sick, it's too cold, Finland wasn't hospitable enough, they had been fed a pack of lies by the human smugglers they paid over 10k euros to get here etc). Finland is the absolutely fucking farthest point from the Syrian conflict geographically that is still a part of the EU. Then we have had a steadily increasing number of Syrians and others coming from Russia and "seeking asylum" after they have lived for years in Russia without any problems. Russia is a safe enough country so all of these should just automatically be denied entry unless they have a visa, whether they apply for asylum or not.

If you have a flat out 10% of the migrants who are clearly coming just to test the waters and give up when they aren't immediately given the moon from the sky, you can safely bet that there are more who are more persistent and not so easily discouraged. Sweden is even easier to get to in terms of distance and they have had 160k migrants enter last year. There is a substantial number of economic gold diggers among them who have no business being anywhere within the EU.

[Simon_Jester]

Sweden might not be easier to get to from Russia, though it is easier to get to from, say, Germany.

That said, I am inclined to agree with the basic premise that fortune-seeking immigrants should be denied visas unless they go through the normal immigrations process. They are not bona fide refugees.

People who have come to Greece or Turkey fleeing conflict in Syria, on the other hand, are bona fide refugees... but that doesn't mean they should be free to wander all of Europe for the country that gives them the best welfare arrangements. As several of us have agreed on, the infrastructure for dealing with refugees in Europe needs to be made more robust and effective, and needs to be able to say "no" to opportunists and country-shoppers.

A bona fide refugee is a guest in the host country; they have a right to be sheltered from harm, but their rights are limited to what the host country can reasonably give them in an orderly manner.

[madd0ct0r]

If you have a flat out 10% of the migrants who are clearly coming just to test the waters and give up when they aren't immediately given the moon from the sky, you can safely bet that there are more who are more persistent and not so easily discouraged. Sweden is even easier to get to in terms of distance and they have had 160k migrants enter last year. There is a substantial number of economic gold diggers among them who have no business being anywhere within the EU.

Words from someone who has clearly never moved country. Hell, I've known people who couldn't adapt to the mainland UK after moving here from fething Northern Ireland and went back to live in a warzone there. Adaptation and integration is hard, it takes a huge amount of energy over a long time and unless you manage to find enough compatriots to self-form a ghetto you cannot opt out of the energy drain.

Are there chancers and moochers in the mix? absolutelty. Are there people promised the moon on a stick and find reality to have a high enough cost their preapred to move back, absolutely. Are they the same people? no.

[K. A. Pital]

Let's see some numbers. There are currently 1.1 million refugees in Germany. There are already 2.79 million people out of work who are entirely supported by the state. In the past, we had numbers of 5 million in 2005. So even if the refugee number doubles, it would just be approaching 2005 levels of people the state has to support. And the economy of Germany is a lot stronger.

Is it? I mean... Maybe it is, but so far I see a shift towards temp jobs and self-employment, which to some means a stronger economy... but not to me.

People who have come to Greece or Turkey fleeing conflict in Syria, on the other hand, are bona fide refugees... but that doesn't mean they should be free to wander all of Europe for the country that gives them the best welfare arrangements.

But what are your grounds to deny them freedom of movement?

Hell, I've known people who couldn't adapt to the mainland UK after moving here from fething Northern Ireland and went back to live in a warzone there. Adaptation and integration is hard, it takes a huge amount of energy over a long time and unless you manage to find enough compatriots to self-form a ghetto you cannot opt out of the energy drain.

You are right... But you are missing one factor: the wealth gap. No matter how hard the integration, if the wealth gap is immense (and it is immense; let me just say that the income of a typical person in the "industrial developing" nations often equals 10-20% that of the developed industrial nations - the Third World I don't even want to explain now), the person will have a very strong incentive to remain. And if the place he came from is a warzone, I think only quite few risk-takers would go back.

[Simon_Jester]

But what are your grounds to deny them freedom of movement?

Tragedy of the commons. Not all European countries are prepared to provide equal accomodations to refugees; some are more favorable than others due to internal politics or greater wealth. At the moment there is no mechanism for pooling the continent's resources to deal with the refugees evenly, either.

It is therefore a practical necessity that the duty of housing refugees be apportioned in a rational way. You need to avoid, for example, Finland having its welfare system be totally swamped and crushed by refugees while France is totally unaffected by them.

If this is NOT done, then the refugees will predictably flock to whichever countries are most accommodating. Which will result in a tragedy of the commons destroying the refugee accomodations in those countries. Either the most popular host countries will run out of money and room to accommodate refugees, or the host countries will change their policies and start pushing refugees back out in self-defense.

When passengers on a sinking ship run to the lifeboats, it is not acceptable to have 100 people crowd onto the lifeboat with the tastiest rations, while other lifeboats stand empty. The "right to choose" which lifeboat I board is irrelevant. Because if this "choice" is exercised on a large scale, everyone in the overloaded lifeboat will drown and die, even while other underutilized lifeboats stand empty.

Instead, boarding of the lifeboats has to proceed in an orderly manner, with passengers being apportioned in a way that ensures that everyone has safety and a fair chance of survival.

If we do not want the status of Middle Eastern refugees in Europe to become a humanitarian crisis in its own right, then there has to be a strong, organized, orderly response to the inflow of refugees. And whatever laws and regulations are put in place to make sure the inflow is handled in an orderly manner, those laws and regulations must be followed by the refugees.

When some of the refugees start ignoring regulations and laws, even for understandable reasons, they risk destroying the very structure that all the refugees are depending on.

[K. A. Pital]

Tragedy of the commons.

Good luck... That's not a legal ground.

If we do not want the status of Middle Eastern refugees in Europe to become a humanitarian crisis in its own right, then there has to be a strong, organized, orderly response to the inflow of refugees.

I think (1) it is already a crisis (2) the politicians have been talking too much about how there "has to be" an orderly response and a well-planned mechanism to integrate them, but so far it just looks like chaos and reactive action. With much delight on the xenophobic right.

[Thanas]

Let's see some numbers. There are currently 1.1 million refugees in Germany. There are already 2.79 million people out of work who are entirely supported by the state. In the past, we had numbers of 5 million in 2005. So even if the refugee number doubles, it would just be approaching 2005 levels of people the state has to support. And the economy of Germany is a lot stronger.

Is it? I mean... Maybe it is, but so far I see a shift towards temp jobs and self-employment, which to some means a stronger economy... but not to me.

I am not interested in opening this completely tangentially debate on unemployment (for the record I think temp jobs are evil) but I don't think you can really claim that the state has less financial leeway and less resources than it did in 2005, given the state of the budgets.

[Broomstick]

One of the thing Europe can do is immediately grant refugees* authority to work in their new countries. If you want people to feel they have a stake in society then having an actual job will go a long way towards that. Absent a job, being able to at least look for work without fear of legal penalty will be of great help.

Otherwise, you're just warehousing people.

* Presumably those of legitimate refugee status, however you wish to define that.

[Simon_Jester]

Tragedy of the commons.

Good luck... That's not a legal ground.

If I were advancing the argument before a court, I would select different ways of saying the same thing.

The "tragedy of the commons" is the underlying mechanism by which free movement of refugees throughout Europe can destroy Europe's ability to accommodate refugees. Since you are intelligent, I expected that all I would need to do is explain why there is a problem.

Now, to translate this into something we could defend before a court responsible for judging whether the state is justified in infringing on a person's rights...

I would argue that in order to supply other rights the refugees have (physical safety, shelter, and so on), the refugees have to be processed by a functional organization. A functional organization is of necessity one that has the power to regulate the refugee traffic.

For this reason, and in order to avoid placing unreasonable burdens on the citizenry of any one host country, the creation of such an organization is a necessary restriction on the right of the refugees to travel.

I would also point out that while the refugees have a right under international law to travel, they do not have a right under international law to settle wherever they please. There is no generally accepted international law which dictates that citizens of one country are free to resettle in whichever other country they choose. If you want to stay in a country, you need a visa- you need permission.

Refugees bypass the visa process in part because the urgent threat at home justifies them in leaving the home country even without approval from the country they're moving to. As a result, we can reasonably argue that refugees have a right to flee their country of origin and resettle somewhere. But that doesn't mean they get to shop around through several secure countries to pick the 'best' one, not when that 'best' country is in danger of being overwhelmed by the number of refugees it's already taken in.

Once the refugee population has been relocated to a place that is not safe and is meeting their basic physical needs, their need for a new place to stay has been met. Once that need is met, their right to freedom of resettlement is fulfilled and they have no claim to 'free visas' from a second or third country they might wish to enter.

If we do not want the status of Middle Eastern refugees in Europe to become a humanitarian crisis in its own right, then there has to be a strong, organized, orderly response to the inflow of refugees.

I think

(1) it is already a crisis...

(2) the politicians have been talking too much about how there "has to be" an orderly response and a well-planned mechanism to integrate them, but so far it just looks like chaos and reactive action. With much delight on the xenophobic right.

YOU ARE ENTIRELY CORRECT.

Thinking back, I should have said "If we DID not want the status of Middle Eastern refugees in Europe to become a humanitarian crisis in its own right, then there HAD to be a strong, organized, orderly response to the inflow..." et cetera.

Thing is, dealing with this problem responsibly and actively three years ago would have been a very good idea. Dealing with it now would at least be better than refusing to deal with it.

And it must be dealt with, in order for the refugees' overall rights to be fulfilled.

The current situation is chaos. When the situation is chaos, you cannot have justice, or secure rights. There has to be a basic level of public orderliness before justice can exist, or before anyone can be confident of having their rights be honored.

[Grumman]

People who have come to Greece or Turkey fleeing conflict in Syria, on the other hand, are bona fide refugees...

Even that is not universally true. The names that come to mind as examples (Sophie Kasiki and Tareena Shakil) were Europeans to start with and so did not need to seek refugee status, but if they had I would not consider them bona fide refugees. Or for a more distant example, in the end even Adolf Eichmann fled under a Red Cross humanitarian passport.

[Simon_Jester]

If a person lived in Syria, and are fleeing it because of the war there, then they are "refugees" in every reasonable sense of the word.

A person who voluntarily sought out the conflict and oppression in Syria and then changed their mind and fled (e.g. Kasiki and Shakil) may not be a refugee- but they are totally irrelevant to our discussion, since there are so few of them.

Eichmann pulled strings to get that Red Cross passport; he could not reasonably claim refugee status.

But really, all these individual examples are beside the point compared to the literal millions of Syrians and Iraqis who really are honestly truly refugees in the literal sense of the word.

What matters is that these refugees are given safe, organized refuge in countries capable of accomodating them.

[Sir Sirius]

One of the thing Europe can do is immediately grant refugees* authority to work in their new countries. If you want people to feel they have a stake in society then having an actual job will go a long way towards that. Absent a job, being able to at least look for work without fear of legal penalty will be of great help.

Otherwise, you're just warehousing people.

* Presumably those of legitimate refugee status, however you wish to define that.

As far as I know every European country allows everyone who has received asylum to work immediately. The problem is that Middle-Eastern or African migrants chances of actually finding work in a timely fashion are miserable and the employment numbers for recent arrivals remain very low. And most of those that do find employment work low wage jobs or work only part time. LaCroix already covered the most important reason for this, but early on language skills are another important factor.

[Broomstick]

Low wage or part time work is better than no work - it gives the person a stake in the society.

And you just gave an excellent argument for language classes.

[Crown]

Crown, we've taken in over 32,000 refugees and we set up a working checkpoint system in under a week. We've offered help to Greece when asked, only to encounter refusal to cooperate and general foot-dragging on that issue. Even if all the Frontex personnel have not arrived, there is no reason why Greeks could not do the work according to the model provided. If that doesn't suit you, it's not my problem.

Wow, a whopping 32,000. You're real heroes!

That's not even half of what Greece was taking in per month before Merkel's 'every one is welcome' meme went viral. However do you cope?

But you dodged my question; are you willing to characterise Germany as 'not giving a fuck about securing Europe's borders' as you are Italy and Greece since it too hasn't processed all the immigrants arrived there? Or is this something you only wish to tar the Southern European countries with?

One of the thing Europe can do is immediately grant refugees* authority to work in their new countries. If you want people to feel they have a stake in society then having an actual job will go a long way towards that. Absent a job, being able to at least look for work without fear of legal penalty will be of great help.

That would just create an even greater pull factor that would crush the Southern countries even more than now. If you haven't noticed the pious North are now engaging in a race to the bottom to deter any further migrations, and to be blunt the prospect of work has done little to integrate the Turkish 'guest workers' that have been in Germany for decades (source). It is far more complex than this.


EDIT :: My bad on the reply to Broomstick I misread her position as being 'give' refugees work right away rather than 'allow' refugees the ability to work, so the fist half of my response is a bit schizo. I'll leave it as written, but mea culpa.

[Broomstick]

No, I get it - obviously someone in Greece is going to have a much difference perspective and feelings on the mess as someone more distantly located, and the whole matter is much more emotionally charged.

I'm just saying, in the US, while refugees are given assistance, they are also granted immediate permission to work and are expected to get work of some sort, at some level, within 3-6 months. Of course, providing assistance such as language classes and coaching on seeking work in the US helps a lot, as well as having an economy with some job opportunities. Even so, the US would be hard put to deal with a proportional number of immigrants such as Greece is dealing with, and our economy is stronger than Greece's. As I said some time ago, even with an optimal system there are just so damn many people trying to pour into Europe right now it would still be disruptive.

Under the US system, while refugees can return to their country of origin if they wish to the assumption is that they are here for the long-term, whether they become citizens or not. Most refugees seem to want to go home, but the reality is that until the latter half of the 20th Century they usually didn't, and even these days getting back "home" is not quick or easy. I see a lot of assuming on the part of random Europeans on the internet that either these current folks are going to leave soon, or can be induced to leave soon. Not sure that's the optimal viewpoint to take.

[Ritterin Sophia]

So apparently a neo-Nazi mob began attacking migrants in Stockholm yesterday.

STOCKHOLM — Dozens of masked men believed to belong to neo-Nazi gangs carried out a number of assaults on migrants in Stockholm overnight amid rising tension over immigration, Swedish police said Saturday.

Police had beefed up their presence in the city center, deploying anti-riot and helicopter units after learning that extremists were planning “aggression on unaccompanied migrant minors” in the city late on Friday.

“I was passing by and saw a masked group dressed in black… start hitting foreigners. I saw three people molested,” the Aftonbladet daily quoted one witness as saying.

Police spokesman Towe Hagg said by midday police had not received any complaints of assault but one 46-year-old man was arrested after striking a plain clothed officer.

Three further people were briefly detained for public order offenses and one more faces charges for carrying a knife.

As many as 100 people, their faces covered, had descended in the early evening on the Sergels Torg pedestrian square, a popular meeting point for young people, including unaccompanied migrants.

Aftonbladet quoted witnesses as saying the masked group targeted “people of foreign appearance” and handed out leaflets urging the infliction of “deserved punishment on children of the North African street.”

[​IMG]
Illustrative: Middle Eastern migrants, who came from Germany by ferry and train Sunday night, and are walking from Rodby in southern Denmark towards Sweden on Monday Sept. 7, 2015. (AP/POLFOTO, Per Rasmussen)

Internet site Nordfront, an online forum for the neo-Nazi SMR movement, said its “sources” had revealed that around “100 hooligans” from the AIK and Djurgarden football clubs had gathered Friday in order to “sort out the criminals coming in from North Africa.”

After initially taking a generous stance on migration — the country of 9.8 million is among the European Union states with the highest proportion of refugees per capita — Sweden has in recent days said it expects to expel tens of thousands of people over several years as it struggles to cope with the influx.

The number of new migrants entering the country has plunged since Stockholm introduced systematic photo ID checks on travellers on January 4.

The toughening of policy comes against a backdrop of rising concern over conditions in the country’s overcrowded asylum facilities, and officials called for greater security after an employee at a refugee center for unaccompanied youths was fatally stabbed earlier this week.

The 22-year-old Swedish refugee shelter worker was killed Monday by a teenage male asylum seeker in the western Swedish coastal town of Molndal, near Gothenburg, authorities said.

According to the Daily Mail, the youth allegedly stabbed Alexandra Mezher on Monday morning at a shelter for unaccompanied teenage migrant minors. She succumbed to her injuries in hospital.

The incident marks the latest in a string of high-profile attacks, including sexual assaults, that authorities in Stockholm and elsewhere in the country have ascribed to asylum-seeking young men from Middle Eastern countries.

[madd0ct0r]

Not all white people. Not all citizens. Ext. Ext.

[Thanas]

Under the US system, while refugees can return to their country of origin if they wish to the assumption is that they are here for the long-term, whether they become citizens or not.

OTOH, it is virtually impossible to become a refugee in the USA. It is very well and true for the US system to be good in theory, but if it is nearly impossible to be recognized as a refugee in the USA in the first place....

[Edi]

Crown, we've taken in over 32,000 refugees and we set up a working checkpoint system in under a week. We've offered help to Greece when asked, only to encounter refusal to cooperate and general foot-dragging on that issue. Even if all the Frontex personnel have not arrived, there is no reason why Greeks could not do the work according to the model provided. If that doesn't suit you, it's not my problem.

Wow, a whopping 32,000. You're real heroes!

That's not even half of what Greece was taking in per month before Merkel's 'every one is welcome' meme went viral. However do you cope?

But you dodged my question; are you willing to characterise Germany as 'not giving a fuck about securing Europe's borders' as you are Italy and Greece since it too hasn't processed all the immigrants arrived there? Or is this something you only wish to tar the Southern European countries with?

So far as I know, Germany is doing its best trying to process the incoming migrants as best it can. Could they do a better job than they are doing now? Probably. They've got roughly a million migrants already there and from what I've read, they could also use a boost to their processing system. Some changes in legislation as well, and more money and resources.

I'm aware of the Greek situation being intolerable, but seriously, there have been offers of help for you to set up processing centers and systems much like we did and there have been Finnish personnel down south in Greece, on Lesbos for example. And the word from the entry points is that a lot of efforts at setting up and building a better systems and processes for the issue have been met with resistance and recalcitrance from the Greek authorities. So I have zero reason not to slam them harshly.

If you set that shit up correctly, it will by itself reduce the number of comers. The daily numbers coming to Finland dropped by half within two weeks when we set up immediate, no exceptions initial processing. With the current chaotic situation, there will be no shortage of comers because they know there is nothing to deter them from going forward. As soon as you put up any sort of deterrent with teeth, it will cut the number of fortune seekers. That's one of the benefits of the migrants using social media and following the news, information, tips and rumors about the asylum processes, ease of entry etc of different countries.

I'm all for investing a whole hell of a lot more than current amount of money and resources to setting up a robust system to control the borders at Greece. I have zero objection to paying taxes toward that end. Same for Italy's, which is the other large scale point of entry. The earlier the point of reduction, the better it is going to work all down the chain as well as upwards, because the numbers will be more manageable no matter where down the line a particular migrant stops.

Do you have any suggestions on how to mitigate the problem? Because 'fix' is not a word that we can use at this point, it's going to require a lot more from a lot more nations before we can even consider using it.

[Broomstick]

Under the US system, while refugees can return to their country of origin if they wish to the assumption is that they are here for the long-term, whether they become citizens or not.

OTOH, it is virtually impossible to become a refugee in the USA. It is very well and true for the US system to be good in theory, but if it is nearly impossible to be recognized as a refugee in the USA in the first place....

Over the past 10 years the US has admitted between 55,000 and 75,000 refugees per year. Not impossible, although I think we both agree that the US has the capability, in many ways, to admit more than that. We have admitted more than that at times. For someone from the MENA the process also typically takes about 2 years before the person steps on an airplane for a flight to the actual US.

So no, not a perfect system.

I'm not at all convinced that the US could take in a number of refugees proportionate to what Europe is experiencing without significant problems and disruptions. On just one point - about 2/3 of refugee men find work of some sort within 6 months, but that's in part because our unemployment rate (if I recall correctly) is lower than many European countries. If you dumped a couple million new people in the US on a given year I doubt there would be such a high percentage employed that quickly.

Just sayin' - one reason the US refugees seem to do better and be less ghettoized than in some other places is because they are put into the mainstream work world fairly quickly. Certainly some remain in poverty for a variety of reasons but there is less perception of being locked out of societal success.