Refugees in General

[RomaVicta 29784]

I'm undecided about what rules do or should be set down for masses of refugees leaving a war zone, famine, or some other disaster to flood the borders of neighboring lands.

If you halt them, they form semi-permanent refugee camps where they are a mini nation of the poorest kind. If you let them cross, the numbers and responsibility for the refugees could bankrupt the country that hosts them, and there still might be a refugee camp.

The US may take in 100,000 or more asylum seekers per month at times. We seem to absorb them fairly well. In my experience, they've been decent, hard-working people.

Can Europe or the US actually be overwhelmed by refugees? Is there really an existential concern in allowing persons in dire situations with nowhere to go to enter an industrialized country? I really don't know the answer to that.

Either there really is an existential problem (but look at all the people who blend in from the US southern border, or the problem might just be xenophobia. Or racism. Or can the fear of losing your current culture  to foreign influence be less ignominious than xenophobia or racism? 

I think I'm reacting to the emotional appeals about the Syrians at the Turkish border. What should Turkey do? What should we who abandoned our allies there do? What should Europe do? Should anybody do anything?

I'll take whatever mercy posts I can get from this, but I really am troubled by these questions.

[gmr548 16511]

43 minutes ago, RomaVicta said:

Can Europe or the US actually be overwhelmed by refugees?

No. Not at anything resembling the current pace. The US doesn't take in anywhere near 100k per month. The administration's cap for FY 2020 is 30k and was 45k for 2019. The last time the US took over 100k refugees annually was nearly 30 years ago.

Let's use your figure, which would represent a dramatic expansion, for argument's sake. An influx of 100k per month in the US = 1.2mm per year. In a nation of over 325mm, that represents population growth of like 0.3 percent. It's the equivalent of 3,600 people moving to Austin in a given year. We need to add to the working age population to help with social security and medicare. They're an economic net positive, even the Trump administration has studies saying as much. To suggest refugees could overwhelm this country is laughable.

I'ma little more sympathetic to Europe because they end up faced with much larger groups and aren't holding them at arms-length with an ocean. The US has no excuse.

[Zavala 1384]

 

[David Dennison 18656]

Keep heating up the planet and we'll find out.

[RomaVicta 29784]

4 hours ago, gmr548 said:

They're an economic net positive, even the Trump administration has studies saying as much. To suggest refugees could overwhelm this country is laughable.

Thanks for your response.

I think I know the answer, but I'll ask the question: Why is that suggestion made in the form of an assertion so often by Trump and other anti-immigration leaders?