Its an attempt to avoid the long term consequences of population contraction. Most heads of state and policy pushers seek to, at minimum, ensure their country keeps its current level of global influence & power. Generally this holds true whether one is right or left, but some ideological views result in different policies.

A population contraction breaks most existing economic models. You can't borrow money for infrastructure improvements. Tax revenues shrink. Housing prices go down.

The more cynical observer may suspect that its an attempt to break some of the social welfare systems and replace them with more capitalistic alternatives. I'm not sure that is a goal. Perhaps to some it is. In the mid term most certainly you will have to spread about the same amount of resources to a larger number of end users. Two or three generations forward, there should be more resources and economic wealth to make up for this.

An even more cynical observer may believe that the US is trying to destabilize the Middle East because this could have a negative influence on the great powers which threaten global American dominance -- Russia, China, and Europe. There may not be any logistical way for Europe to throttle the influx of refugees. Rather than setting policy Europe is just trying to manage it the best they can. The fall of dictatorships in the Middle East and rise of religious fundamentalism may have been totally inevitable.

The above is all speculation. However, do I believe Western nations accept refugees solely out of kindness and an unwavering moral standing? Probably not.

Funny that you mention that.

A lot of economist and policy makers in asia when america decided to invade Afghanistan and Iraq pointed out this would eventually happen. It would be destabilizing to the Asian/Eurasian continent.

A stable Asia is terrible news for american hegemony. Central Asia is the most mineral rich place on the world, and it has been known for quite a while.

By current projections - 38% of humans will be from africa and 44% from asia in 2100.

I will be dead by then - but its terrible news if you believe in american exceptionalism.

Allowing refugees is a feel good band aid. Yes it does directly benefit those who gain asylum but it does nothing to help the majority left behind.

The real solution is to make positive changes in their homelands, bg force if necessary. This dilly dallying helps no one except radicals bent on violence and the corrupt regimes and Russia's meddling. Europe needs to do something. Sometimes you do need violence to make things better, world war two has left a deep scar on Europe which has made it overly cautious and allergic to necessarily addressing unjust violence.

> world war two has left a deep scar on Europe which has made it overly cautious and allergic to necessarily addressing unjust violence.

I'd say it's probably far more likely due to more recent episodes of liberal interventionism; which has sometimes resulted in relative success (depending on your point of view) e.g Sierra Leone, Bosnia/Herzegovina and Kosovo/Yugoslavia in the early nineties.

More often than not, intervention has resulted in a negative, or otherwise generally messy outcome with unforeseen consequences, e.g Iraq, Afghanistan, <str>Syria</str> Libya.. The poor execution of military intervention by western powers of the latter is arguably at least in part to blame for the current refugee crisis.

And the refugees would MUCH MUCH prefer to be in their own homeland with their family/friends/culture.

Why am I downvoted? They were forced out from their home due to the conflicts. They are not out on a vacation trip.

Well, the term refugees is being used too much in this question. There are many refugees, but there are also many economic migrants amongst them.

Receiving the war refugees is certainly different from receiving the economic migrants and we shouldn't mix both things as we are doing lately.

economic migrants dont explain the spike we currently see

Applied force in their homelands - often at our (the West's) hands - is exactly what is driving many of these migrants.

You're talking about past action. I mean at this moment. Assad and daesh are the ones which need to be addressed.

I'm reminded of that children's story, "The Girl Who Swallowed A Fly."

So what do you suggest, funding ISIS or...? I like how, since al-Assad is "evil", the ISIS is "better"

>I just can't put my head around on why we should help the refugees before we help our own people.

They are all humans, one the same as the other. The geographic location of birth should be irrelevant to whether I want to help someone (realistically, my gut can't help but empathize and feel closer to people born in my country, but the head should surely take over and kick that superficial notion to the curb).

You're setting an impossible precondition.

Nobody is ever going to give the homeless people sufficient aid; not only does it create peculiar incentives / traps at the margin, but it also isn't necessarily what homeless people would choose with their own free will. Not everyone willingly chooses to live in an institutional bureaucratic system when a freer life is still a possibility.

Refugees should be allowed to work. Finding homes for them and subsidising them without letting them work is a dreadful approach which will create even more problems.

The outcome of this will be from our children and grandchildren.

Most European children will not be able to afford housing as good as their parents and will not have the job stability their parents enjoyed. Their parents pensions will be larger than their wages.

Eventually a tipping point will be reached. History tells us what will follow.

In France this situation happened already for the last 10 years. People in their 40s now have a life standard than their parents. And the young generation struggles to find a job that will allow them to live on their own.

There were hungry and homeless people when Jews and other minorities tried to flee the Nazis. Yet it is still shameful that more was not done to let those people into safer countries. The situation is not so dissimilar now.

How about the homeless are helped AND we take in the millions of refugees that won't even bump the population of Europe by even 1%.

Or help the refugees now, and when they stop coming in such large numbers, continue using the same personnel and infrastructure for domestic poverty.

If you're dealing with a person who owns no property and has no local ties, it hardly matters whether they walked from 500 miles away or have been sleeping in the alleyway behind you for the last year.

Right. There are probably lots of ways we could approach this but we have to accept these people cannot go home in the near term possibly ever. I come from a wealth country I want us to put our wealth to good humanitarian use at home and abroad.

I try to expand the meaning of "our own" in my mind. And for me in this crisis it might be easier than for you, because my great-grandpa was a migrant worker from Ukraine, and my grandpa is from Palestine, and settled down in Europe after he was on studies here and I have extended family in Jordan. And I am wondering what will happen when ISIL starts knocking on the small kingdoms doorsteps and when part of my family decides to take an extended partially involuntary European vacation ...

And I am a guy that has helped in a soup kitchen a few times and support the new decision of my city council to give public housing homeless families.

Personally, I'm not sure what "my own people" would be: over the years I've noticed that the idea of one's own people has a tendency to be non-reciprocal. Every Angus is a true Scottsman until he's not.

We should help them because they are in need of help. It doesn't imply we have to support them indefinitely. We should help the homeless people, too, but the issue is not lack of money here.

You have no choice, that's why. Some will indulge in military dictatorship style authoritarian fantasy solutions, some will opportunistically collect political dividends by selling this fantasies. Less developed European countries will even try their hands at some of this solutions. As ugly as it is this reality is there and is not going away, you have no choice but deal with it. Same with homelessness/extreme poverty btw, if it's that big where you live.

In which country in Europe are people hungry and dying left alone on the streets?

Well, why don't you house some homeless people at your place then? This is a non argument, that tries to derail the discussion.

Err... cause I'm also in a bad economic condition? The crisis had real impact in here for anyone except the rich, in case you don't know.

Your question doesn't even make sense. I'm asking why we are helping (we, our government, our taxes) the refugees/migrants before we help our own homeless people.