They are generally not fleeing from immediate danger, and they select their target countries of migration based on perceived chances of making a living (by work or by social security) and having a community where one could live (usually one's own countrymen). The perception of where one can make a living is received from often fanciful messages in social media that are of course frequently quite wrong.
On the way, they pass through countries that are safe enough for them to stay. Countries that are safe for anyone to take holiday. Millions of people from EU have holiday in Turkey and Greece each year, for instance. Migrants come through these countries. They are certainly not being killed in Turkey, for instance, but they want more than that.
This doesn't mean that the migrants are bad people. They are looking for a better life, just like any of us would do. They come from many, many countries that are run badly. I can't blame them for wanting to emigrate. And the availability of Internet and improved economical resources and improved connections have made migration more feasible than ever, particularly with the European taxpayer paying the bill at the receiving end through the asylum process.
But the asylum mechanism meant for protecting persecuted individuals is largely being misused in this process. The public perception of the whole thing being a scam is strengthened by well-meaning but unwise poses and statements of politicians that later make them look ridiculous.
For example, thousands of people from Iraq came to my country last autumn. We were told that they were here because otherwise they would be killed. They complained about the food served to them and they complained that they were given too little money by the government. Now a significant portion of them has decided to go back to Iraq. Obviously, they weren't about to be killed back then, nor are they now voluntarily returning to their deaths. They just found that climate is not nice, and there are no jobs for untrained people. So the taxpayer hands out money for them to fly back.
That's what I call ineffective, and this kind of things gets voters mad. Calling these voters "right wing" or "Nazis" is not going to help. They well merely think: "I'm a reasonable person and they call me right wing; I guess the right wing is reasonable people then".
You have any sources for that? I'm trying to imaging someone fleeing by risking their lives and paying with all their savings and then return because they didn't like the weather. This sounds like right wing propaganda to me. And whether people consider themself as reasonable or not doesn't matter. It matters whether they are.
Deutschlandfunk (public broadcasting): http://www.deutschlandfunk.de/rueckkehr-in-den-irak-fluechtl...
Tagesschau (public broadcasting, left-leaning): https://www.tagesschau.de/ausland/rueckkehr-irak-101.html
Zeit (most widely read German weekly newspaper, centrist-left): http://www.zeit.de/politik/deutschland/2016-03/fluechtlingsk...
Explicitly no right-wing media, far from it in fact.
This is why there is an increasing push to add more money to surrounding areas so they can provide better help locally.
It is pretty odd to me to assume that someone who has given up everything and spent all their money to leave, and thus has demonstrated a willingness to go to extremes to get away from their original situation, will cross a border and suddenly decide "hey, no point in seeing if we can get it better if we go a bit farther".
In other words, while I'm sure there are purely economic migrants who haven't suffered all that much hardship who try to take advantage of the refugee stream, it is possible to both be a genuine refugee fleeing for your life and also quite reasonably want to find the best possible place to live once you've managed to get away from the worst risk.
Not least because it is also about dealing with horribly poor information about where they might have the best chances at being allowed to stay.
If we want people to stay closer, then it needs to feel to people arriving in e.g. Turkey, like staying in refugee camps there is a reasonable choice.
It's just that then they are no longer in immediate threat of death or persecution (if they ever were) and thus not covered by the refugee conventions.
To counter this, the people smugglers teach (sell) stories to be told to the authorities in receiving countries.
Again, if I were among the migrants, I might very well do the same. Move on, try to adapt, do whatever is needed to be allowed to go on. I've talked to many migrants (mostly young men or boys) and they've almost all been reasonable kids with interesting though sad stories. But they were not being threatened for their lives by the nasty Swedes behind Torneå river whence they came from.
One boy who I invited for a cup of tea after a football training, for instance, was 17. He was born in Afghanistan but moved with his family to Iran at the age of 4. He lived there for almost 10 years, as a second class person (non-citizen, no right to go to school, no proper health care, despised by the locals). Then they moved on to Turkey, then to Greece (which was not nice at all, people were kept in detention), then through Balkans to Austria where he spent a year. Then migration through Germany, Denmark, Sweden. Now he's moved on again, looking for his place in the world.
Not an easy life,but it's hard to say what we really could do to the whole of Afghan diaspora who lives like this. Welcoming everyone isn't going to work, even if I want to be friendly and reasonable to anyone I meet.
I think we mostly agree. Though they would still (assuming they were at one point in immediate threat of death or persecution) be covered by the refugee conventions. It's just that they have no immediate right of asylum or refugee status in countries they subsequently travel to.
This is an important distinction. Someone coming out of Syria that then goes through multiple countries, is a refugee. They don't cease to be a refugee if they travel on to, say, Germany. But the refugee treaties regulates which states are legally obliged to consider an asylum application and which may choose to just tell them "no, you have to go back and apply somewhere else".
The problem, is that these treaties does not take into account human nature, nor do they take into account the tremendous burden they impose on the immediate neighbours of countries like Syria. And so they will not work, and it is not realistic to assume they will work without huge investments in actually making it undesirable to continue on by giving people a reasonable shot at something better closer.
A refugees who flees war only need to go to the closest safe area and they are away from the imidiate danger that make them refugees.
Those with most money are those who can afford moving the furthest away.
In most cases it's actually the men who travel all the way to ex Scandinavia and leave their wife and kids behind. They do this because they know they can get them reunited later on.
The people who really have no money are stuck in the nearest refugee camp. I certainly don't hold it against those with the means to try and make a better future for themselves far away from their homelands but that does not mean you just accept everyone.
Then you just end up like Sweden and frankly not even the Swedes are happy about that right now.
The point is not that we should encourage them to go on, but that dismissing those who go on as not really refugees fail to acknowledge human nature.
If you've taken crazy risks to flee, it makes no sense to stop at the very first point where you're no longer at immediate risk of death if you e.g. believe you have a better chance to be allowed to stay in a different country, or if you believe you have better chances at a normal life if you go on. Whether or not those beliefs are right.
I did not suggest we should "just accept everyone". Just that the idea that continuing on is an indication of whether or not someone is genuinely a refugee is flawed.
Of course it is not just the weather, or climate to be exact, but it's a fact that many of the people really had no idea of what the winter is in Northern Europe. Some people adapt, some don't. Particularly if one happened to come to the very North in the winter, the sun rises at 10 am or later and goes down at 2pm or before, and it is cold. Not at all easy to adapt. Some do, many don't.
But along with it there is the realization that unlike promised, there are no jobs that one could take, and all of the receiving population is not as friendly as in the social media clips that feature Angela Merkel or other EU leaders saying "welcome refugees". The food is really different as well, and this is difficult for some people.
So quite a number have decided to go back. These are not rejected asylum applications, these are withdrawn applications. People kiss the ground when they get back to Baghdad.
http://yle.fi/uutiset/finland_flies_103_former_asylum_seeker...
And yes, I do think it is quite a shame that so many people have spent their savings on chasing a dream that was not true. It's also a shame that people smugglers have made fortunes with this. I think they are worse than drug lords, in fact. They are individuals who shamelessly make false promises of an Eldorado and take $5000 or $1000 for a hazardous trip, and actually give advice that gets people killed.
For instance, people in rubber boats en route to Greece or Italy are advised to puncture their boat when they spot the EU sea rescue boats. This is so that they cannot be turned back (as if the rescuers would do that) and they have to be picked up immediately.
So, you bet everything on the card that the rescue boat picks you up. But this instruction does not take into account that the rescue boat may already be full. The boat won't take more than its capacity, so this greedy advice -- which makes sure no one comes right back to tell his tale -- ends up with people floating in the water without their boats. The rescue may take time, people drown or die of hypothermia.
But some people surely make a lot of money out of this. People smugglers, as well as "respectable" corporations that set up, maintain and service the shelters (paid by tax money, run by people with political connections, maintained at the minimum standards.)
As for the Syrians, they'd had to cross something like 6-7 borders before they even reach Poland. It would make just such much sense to ship them to US or Canada or Argentina.
EDIT (probably a clearer way to make my point): Once the Syrians flee from the war zone to for example Turkey, their life is no longer in danger. So, them going from Turkey to Poland is not about saving lives, and cannot be posed as a moral argument.
And regarding Malaria, we should help as well. But that's imply not the point. You making it about this is typical derailing we see from all the right wing populists.
Multiculturalism can work ok in rich and safe bubbles (such as some areas of Berlin), but my guess is that it will break miserably when put under a true test, such as a war. As Poland happens to share a border with an aggressive empire, it's a scenario we need take into account.
Given that Poland happens to share a border with an aggressive empire (well, if you count the Kaliningrad enclave as sharing a border), I question the wisdom of opting out. If you're afraid of a war, I'd be more concerned about making friends than alienating them.
As for the cultural differences, my intuition is that this forum is not that diverse - not in fundamental ways. For example, how many people here condone religious dictatorships or sex with 9 year olds? And these are the kind of people who can settle in my multicultural neighbourhood, if I start letting them into the country.
The refugees we talk about are hardly people who hang out on HN.
Multiculturalism works when there is time to adopt new cultures into your own. Sudden influx is going to create obvious conflicts when the cultures are that different.
And I say that as someone who is pro multiculturalism. But I am not ignorant to the consequences if done too fast.
Any sorry for the sarcasm but "not wanting" and "leaving them to die" is a difference. Of course nobody wants to spend resources on refugees. But if someone prefers letting them die because integration is hard, then this is "right-wing".