A Record 107,500 Migrants Entered the E.U. Last Month

[Recursion]

http://time.com/4002634/107500-migrants-european-union-july/

July saw an influx of 107,500 migrants into the E.U., straining thinly-stretched resources even further, reports Frontex, the bloc’s border agency.

The figures have increased significantly since June, when the border agency registered around 70,000 migrants crossing into Europe. Nearly 340,000 migrants have arrived in Europe since January — a huge jump compared to the 280,000 migrants who arrived in all of 2014.

...

Aid workers with the International Rescue Committee (IRC) warn of an increasingly precarious situation due to the unprecedented number of arrivals and the lack of resources to help them, “The situation is already volatile and we have started seeing increased tensions with the local authorities and between different refugees groups,” Kirk Day, the field director of IRC’s ground operation in Lesbos, said in a statement.

As numbers continue to rise, Day hopes that views towards the migrants will grow more sympathetic. “European donors and international institutions need to stop focusing on where these refugees are, and instead remember where they are from — and, what they are fleeing,” Day said.

The EU is kind of at a crossroads moment here...

[DFW]

1. We are bursting at the seams for sure

Most of these people end up in Germany, and even in my small town, several public buildings have been shut down and converted to "temporary" housing for migrants from Eastern Europe, Africa and Asia. Things are getting crowded, resources are being spread thin, and the moment tensions between the have-nots and the haves become violent, there will be a predictable and unavoidable ugly backlash from the people who live in the towns.

Over 40 years ago, my wife was chased and harassed against her will by visiting "students" from countries whose cultures accepted that women were the property of their men, and that women who dressed a certain way--i.e. typical of modern German women--were seen as sluts or whores. She avoided getting raped, but a few times only because she is 5'10" and pretty strong, and beat off attacks from supposedly educated men. Now, young German women have to contend with an influx of tens of thousands of young men every month who have nothing to do, nowhere to go, no language skills to communicate with, and no skills needed in the German workforce.

German towns have nowhere near the capacity to house all that are coming (or that are already there), nor the social services to integrate all that the German Federal government is making them absorb. They are being simply overwhelmed. Extreme rightist groups are predictably licking their chops at the bonus issue being handed to them--the one that will lift them out of their so-far very deserved obscurity. This will not end well.

[Recursion]

2. I think Huey Long said that if the US had a population like Germany

we would be the most socialist country in the world. We may be starting to see the reverse of that maxim here.

[DFW]

4. Was he referring to population density?

Or level of education? Or homogeneity?

Also, Long was killed in 1935, when Germany was going through some serious changes internally (they didn't turn out so well, either). He might have had a completely different take on today's Federal Republic as opposed to the Third Reich in place when he was the Kingfish.

[Recursion]

8. Homogeneity

It also may not have been Long, now that I think of it.

[DFW]

11. The time frame is important

Germany went through some heavy changes in the last 100 years. It would be interesting to know at what point that statement was made. Marx was thinking of his home country of Germany when he wrote the Manifesto. An underdeveloped place like rural Russia was the last place in Europe he would have expected for a communist revolution to take place, as he envisioned it to materialize in an already industrialized society.

[Recursion]

13. I also don't know if it was "Germany" specifically or just "Europe"

I'm pretty sure it's from the 1930s though.

Whoever said it, the point I think is valid: white Americans don't like voting for social spending on minorities.

[DFW]

14. Probably not all of Europe

It's still a pretty diverse place. Finland is nothing like Bulgaria, which is nothing like Switzerland, which is nothing like Greece, which is nothing like Ireland, which is nothing like Hungary, etc. etc. You get the idea.

I agree with your point up to a certain degree. Ignorant and/or selfish white Americans, especially (in my experience) rural ones, are in general reluctant to vote for social spending on minorities. I think there is, however, a significant minority that is enlightened enough to have figured out that sharing is more gratifying (and makes far more sense) than hoarding and excluding, waiting until the have-nots are so numerous, and have nothing left to lose, that they come storming the gated communities with guns and crowbars instead of outstretched hands (the revolution will not be televised). Don't count out the enlightened ones completely, though. No struggle was ever facilitated by telling your allies to get lost.

[Romulox]

20. LOL. You're not sure of the veracity of your quote about Europeans...

but you know it reflects poorly on "white Americans"!

Truly, this is scholarship!

[davidpdx]

16. I've heard that Sweden is taking large amounts of refugees as well

I have a Swedish Facebook friend and he is a lawyer. It is always interesting to hear his perspective of what is going on.

He's a real nice guy, in his 60's, and loves death metal music. Very odd combination.

[DFW]

18. Sweden has more room comparitively

However, they have a small population, and therefore a small tax base to pay for a huge influx of refugees. Plus, they now have a worrisome growth in xenophobic neo-Nazi rightists, which inevitably grow from small fringe groups into scary movements when provided with issues that drive people into their arms. When a government decides to accept a large number of refugees from other cultures, and then tells its local communities, "here, take these people and deal with it," ugly conflict is pre-programmed.

[davidpdx]

24. Yeah I didn't realize they only have less than 10 million

I was joking with him that their country is 4 1/2 times bigger than South Korea and there are 5 times as many people here.

I'm sure they don't take it well when they have a huge amount of refugees arrive. He was complaining that Sweden seems to get the bulk of the refugees, but it sounds like from what you were saying Germany gets a lot as well.

As I think I may have mentioned, my mom lived in Sweden for 2 1/2 years and I visited for two weeks about 14 years ago. It's a nice country, but I didn't find them very friendly in general (which is kind of sad since I have quite a bit of Swedish ancestry).

[seveneyes]

3. and, what they are fleeing

They are fleeing the inability to defend their own home from those who threaten them.

[DFW]

6. Not only that

They are often fleeing potential starvation, hopeless unending poverty and/or debt, religious persecution (of the fatal kind), or slavery. Many of them hardly had homes to begin with. Like many of the refugees from South and Central America who risk their lives to enter the USA, many of these people come out of pure desperation, not because the prospect of living as spurned second-class humans in Europe appeals to them. But when the frustration and the boredom set in, conflict is pre-programmed.

[moondust]

5. Germany expecting 750,000 asylum applications this year.

According to Al Jazeera TV just now.

[DFW]

7. Wouldn't surprise me

That's practically a 1% increase in the population of the whole country right there, and Germany already can't house the ones already there. Germany is already very densely populated and geographically small. There is nowhere to put 750,000 new arrivals.

[moondust]

10. Is the former East very densely populated?

[DFW]

12. Depends on where

Sachsen-Anhalt, Brandenburg and Sachsen, yes. Thüringen less so, and Mecklenburg-Vorpommern still has a decent amount of forest, though contaminated areas are still an issue (the Soviet military and the "socialist" industrialization left behind a nasty legacy), and it is relative--Germany is tiny compared to us. The longest stretches in Germany can still be driven by car leaving after breakfast and arriving at an ocean or another country's border before midnight.

[closeupready]

27. I seem to recall that Germany's population was actually shrinking.

A 1% increase can help offset shrinking tax revenues to support their welfare state.

[muriel_volestrangler]

36. Yes, but 1% in a year is a lot more than it's shrinking by

Admittedly, if many are Syrian refugees, they may return to Syria after a few years.

Current figures are:
Birth rate: 8.47 births/1,000 population (2015 est.)
Death rate: 11.42 deaths/1,000 population (2015 est.)
So that would be -2.95 per 1,000, or -0.3%. The CIA Factbook estimated the net migrant rate would be +0.12% for 2015.

Refugees aren't very easy to integrate into an economy - they may not speak the language well (or by the time they do, may be looking at returning to their former country anyway). Since there's free movement inside the EU, Germany is not short of migrant labour, skilled or unskilled, anyway.

[Recursion]

9. Wow. That's 85 every hour of the year. (nt)

[muriel_volestrangler]

34. "a block of flats every day" for one city/state

Last month alone, 5,700 people applied for asylum in the northern city of Hamburg and 7,065 in the south-western state of Baden-Wuerttemberg.

"I would have to build a block of flats every day to accommodate them", Stuttgart Integration Minister Bilkay Oeney told Handelsblatt.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-33972632

[ellisonz]

15. We are seeing massive movements of humanity once again...

...you cannot blame these people for wanting a better life. The challenge is to both help these people and stop the flow through a balance of diplomacy and power.

[The2ndWheel]

17. This is one of the reasons why our environmental situation is so complex

The more people there are, the more resources they need. How do you decrease the number of people every year? Increase their access to resources. What happens when you increase the amount of resources available? It gives us the ability to add more people if we want to. Who gets to say who can have children, and how many they can have? Nobody.

Just as an example, Philip Rivers, starting QB of the San Diego Chargers. He has who the hell knows how many millions of dollars. Apparently he has 7 kids, and working on an 8th. So in terms of replacement rates, the 3 other couples out there that either chose not to or can't have children, the Rivers family just made up the difference.

Not to mention that every institution we've built requires more people. How does government function? With more tax dollars. How does business function? With more customers.

[geek tragedy]

19. The United States is lucky--we have the two best neighbors on the planet.

The Pacific and Atlantic Oceans.

[Romulox]

21. We have tens of millions of economic refugees, as well. nt

[geek tragedy]

22. We have immigrants, virtually all of whom have been integrated into our society

and economy.

[Romulox]

23. We have tens of millions of desperately poor people, many of whom are exploited

by our economy, if that's what you mean by "integrated into our society".

None of which contradicts my initial point: the USA hosts tens of millions of economic refugees.

[geek tragedy]

25. only if you ignore the definition of 'refugee' nt

[Romulox]

26. "economic refugee". It's a compound word.

An economic refugee is a person whose economic prospects have been devastated and seeks to escape oppressive poverty either here in the United States or across the globe.

http://www.economicrefugee.net/what-does-economic-refugee-mean/

[geek tragedy]

28. you read it on the internet, so it must be true

the term as used in legal circles is "economic migrant" and they're considered a separate category from refugees.

People moving for economic reasons is hardly a novel or extraordinary event.

[Romulox]

30. It's a widely accepted concept. I suggest you do some reading. nt

[geek tragedy]

31. yes, it's used on the internet by people who lack legal training nt

[Romulox]

32. You're embarrassing yourself now. nt

[geek tragedy]

33. Game, set, match.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/3516112.stm

Refugees and migrants: Defining the difference

By Ruud Lubbers
UN High Commissioner for Refugees


But refugees and migrants are fundamentally different, and for that reason are treated very differently under modern international law.

Migrants, especially economic migrants, choose to move in order to improve the future prospects of themselves and their families. Refugees have to move if they are to save their lives or preserve their freedom.

It is this difference in motivation that led to their different status in law.

Refugees fleeing war or persecution are in the most vulnerable situation imaginable.

They have no protection from their own state - indeed it is usually their own state that is threatening to persecute them.

If other states do not let them in, and do not help them once they are in, then - to put it starkly - they may be condemning them to death, or an intolerable life in the shadows, without sustenance and without rights.

Mistrust and hatred

Even people forced from their homes by floods, earthquakes and other natural disasters are not in the same position.

Their government is sympathetic towards them. It is not driving them away, and they still have rights.

They are not refugees. There is no such thing as an "environmental refugee" or an "economic refugee".

[leveymg]

29. The US admits well over a million immigrants each year, the EU's GDP and population is bigger.

The Europeans can afford it, they just don't want to do it. Don't destabilize and regime change the Mideast-North Africa next time. You won't get so many refugees.

[Comrade Grumpy]

40. Yep. n/t

[pampango]

35. The EU's population is over 500 million, 50% more than the US & they have a lower rate of immigratio

I think they can survive this although the far-right has been making plenty of headway in the last few years with their anti-immigrant appeals.

As numbers continue to rise, Day hopes that views towards the migrants will grow more sympathetic. “European donors and international institutions need to stop focusing on where these refugees are, and instead remember where they are from — and, what they are fleeing,” Day said.

Indeed liberal governments throughout Europe are accepting large numbers of migrants. Conservative governments are much less receptive.

Europe is wealthy. They can handle an immigration rate lower than the US' (1 million a year about 0.3% of population) and way less than Canada's (250,000 a year about 1% of population) which is triple the immigration rate in the US. At 107,500 a month, Europe's annual total would be about 1.25 million or about 0.25% of its 500 million population.

Facts and figures will not slow down the far-right's anti-immigrant drive - here or in Europe - but that add to the discussion.

[geek tragedy]

37. the problem is that Europe has shown little ability to integrate those who do arrive nt

[muriel_volestrangler]

39. This is the 'unplanned' figure on top of organised migration

In the month of July, the number of migrants detected at EU’s borders more than tripled to 107 500

http://frontex.europa.eu/news/number-of-migrants-in-one-month-above-100-000-for-first-time-I9MlIo

Migration through normal routes is at a similar rate to the USA - 1.37 million in 2013: http://ec.europa.eu/dgs/home-affairs/e-library/docs/infographics/immigration/migration-in-eu-infographic_en.pdf

[LeftishBrit]

38. Worth noting that over 80 per cent of refugees are accommodated in developing countries.

There is a Trump-ish tendency among some of the media to suggest that refugees are 'swarming' to Europe in general, and the UK in particular, and have an unremittingly negative effect on us.

In fact, the EU takes far fewer than many countries that can afford it much less; and the UK takes far fewer than many EU countries. Germany and Italy take the most.

It is not easy for people to be accepted as asylum seekers in the EU. Only one in four asylum applications are successful.

There really is almost unrestricted immigration between countries within the EU; most of such immigration is for economic reasons. But asylum seekers are not the same thing as economic migrants. And immigration from outside the EU is strongly restricted.

There is indeed an increasing number of refugees, because several countries are tragically in a complete mess at the moment. The largest number are from Syria and Iraq, but most of these end up in border countries and not in the EU. There are also many from Sudan, Somalia and Eritrea.