>Most people coming to Europe are economic migrantw, not from countries affected by war

Exactly this. The reasonable thing to do would've been to differentiate refugees from others and proceed to help the refugees because there's no question about that.

Edit: Wait, I take it by the downvotes that you think people should not be screened and that everyone who shows up at the borders is a distressed refugee fleeing war? I am a Third World citizen and I know for a fact that no one thinks of Europe as a dreamland so yeah, you're good, refugees are all you've been/will be getting. /s

>> Most people coming to Europe are economic migrantw [sic]

Source for that statement?

> The reasonable thing to do would've been to differentiate refugees from others

This is exactly what we are doing, but this requires actual checks, not just a look at a person's face.

Anecdote, so place as much weight on this as you wish.

I was working in a Starbucks in North London and sat next to a businessman. He started advising his wife/fiancee's distant family members on the phone who had travelled to Greece.

He gave them detailed instructions to (1) destroy their passports and forms of ID, (2) claim to be Syrian refugees fleeing from a war-zone and spend a couple of days rehearsing their stories.

He also gave them useful advice about the pros and cons of different country's refugee processing systems.

There are obviously many migrants genuinely fleeing war-zones (and it is understandable that many others wish to escape oppression/ poor economic situations) but self reported origins + reasons should be taken with a pinch of salt. Many applicants know that claiming to be from war-torn Syria guarantees a successful asylum application due to the Geneva Convention, whilst admitting being an Afghan economic migrant complicates things.

My partner's father is an immigration lawyer and does similar for people entering from his country of origin. Although many are from regions genuinely affected by war, still more were admitted as refugees because they told a good story.

It is reasonable to assume that if you enter Germany/Sweden it is not because you are fearing for your life in Austria/Denmark.

Austrian and Danish people may freely enter Germany under the Schengen Agreement.

If you are referring to refugees who enter through those two countries, you are ignoring that these countries are also not initial ports of entry into the Schengen Area.

But I generally refuse to follow that line of argumentation: Having the initial ports of entry bear the responsibility for all new refugees is only a fair thing when you are not one of them. Neither Greece nor Italy have the capacity and as long as we are playing hardball international politics in the countries refugees come from, we have to take responsibility for the results of our actions.

Ah - so the only countries that should be expected to take refugees should be those immediately sharing a border with them, right?

Of course not. But when you have "refugees" demanding to be allocated in a safe country and not another safe country then you can't help but question their status as a refugee (i.e. someone seeking safety).

http://news.sky.com/story/1557225/refugee-its-germany-or-not...

You say "refugees" but I only saw one such refugee mentioned in your link. I certainly didn't see enough to know if it was 0.1% of the refugees or 10% or some other number.

Now, suppose you are a refugee, a mechanical engineer fluent in Arabic and professionally competent in English.

Would you have a preference for a country like Sweden or Germany where you are more likely to get a job with your skills? Or would you equally accept being told to move to some other "safe country" where there is high unemployment, little demand for mechanical engineering jobs, and few English speakers?

How do you express that preference without your refugee status being questioned?

According to first vice-president of the European Commission, citing some internal report from the Frontex (EU border agency), 60% are economic migrants.

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/europe/most-fleeing-to...

I would love to see the actual numbers and how Frontex arrived at them - Frontex' job is NOT to decide on or even investigate in asylum applications at all. They have to refer applicants to relevant national authorities; one becomes an applicant by merely stating the wish to apply for asylum [1].

I furthermore have a severe problem with categorically saying that Moroccans "have no reason whatsoever to ask for refugee status" - the country is not as bad as it once was, but political activists are still far from safe [2].

[1] http://frontex.europa.eu/assets/Publications/Training/Practi...

[2] http://www.amnestyusa.org/our-work/countries/middle-east-and...

It's been 6 months. Have these "new, unpublished, figures" since been published, or otherwise shown to be correct?

In that news article, Timmermans also argued that border closures are not the right solution.

Edit: If https://euobserver.com/migration/132048 is correct, then the 40% refers to the people specifically from Syria. Most of the remaining 60% are from Iraq or Afghanistan. As that link says:

> almost 90 percent the people who arrived by sea in the EU in December came from countries gripped by war or emerged from a wider regional conflict.

Ah, I see. So you differentiate between the deserving poor and the undeserving poor?

Tell me, how do you tell them apart? Do they wear badges?

> Most people coming to Europe are economic migrantw, not from countries affected by war.

Where do you get this information.

If you talk about asylum seekers (The majority of the current inbound traffic), you can look up the numbers yourself they are published as datasets by the UNHCR [1]

Looking at the top 5 origin states of asylum seekers for 2015 and 2016 reveals:

Syrian Arab Rep. 30.5% Afghanistan 18.1% Iraq 11.9% Serbia and Kosovo 3.5% Pakistan 2.9%

So more then 60% of the 2.7M asylum seekers are from Syria, Afganistan or Iraq all of which are currently in a state of conflict.

[1] http://popstats.unhcr.org/en/asylum_seekers_monthly

"More than half of those fleeing to Europe from the Middle East and Africa are economic migrants and not asylum seekers fleeing the horrors of war in Iraq or Syria, according to first vice-president of the European Commission, Frans Timmermans.

Quoting what he said were new, unpublished, figures from the EU border agency, Frontex, Mr Timmermans said: “More than half of the people now coming to Europe come from countries where you can assume they have no reason whatsoever to ask for refugee status … more than half, 60 percent.”

Those 60 percent were predominantly from north Africa, mainly Moroccans or Tunisians who were leaving their own countries for “economic reasons” and attempting to travel to Europe through Turkey, the former Netherlands foreign minister told the Dutch national broadcaster, NOS."

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/europe/most-fleeing-to...

Yes, but do consider that "economic reasons" can include "militias keep burning my crops, it is too unstable to make a living".

You can draw the line wherever you like, just remember that one day someone may draw a line that affects you, and you may not like it.

Me, I'm some kind of idiot that believes in being good to your fellow man.

No, unless you think that every south american who crosses into the US some is somehow deserving of a refugee status.

The refugee status is a very specific legal term and it comes with allot of requirements both on the person seeking refuge (different from seeking asylum, asylum seekers are not the same thing as refugees) and the country taking them in, a refugee is responsible to contact the authorities and register in the first safe country which is signatory to the 1951 Refugee Convention, and the "safe" part is a critical issue here, this is about not being shot and have to duck bombs not about financial opportunity and quality of life.

The migrants coming into Europe are not refugees as they've crossed multiple countries which while unpleasant are not currently in conflict, countries which are signatory to the UN convention and in which the UN operates refugee centers. Once they skip those countries and continue moving to greener grounds legally they are defined as migrants not refugees.

Now asylum seekers are a completely different legal group, they are individuals that are not considered as refugees and they can seek asylum in any country the wish however the rules regarding asylum vary considerably and they are not uniformly protected by the 1951 convention on refugees.

Refugees are people escaping natural or man made disasters that while do not target them individually, no longer allow them to reside safely in their original homes, asylum seekers are running from very specific human made threats due often to their political, social, racial or religious background.

It's not that simple.

Fleeing to a nearby country is one thing.

Being able to move all the way to Germany, Denmark or Sweden isn't exactly being fleeing war anymore.

The irony is that it's those with most money who can afford to move the furthest away from the refugee camps and many of those who do are men, leaving their family behind hoping to be able to get them to the country they end up in.

https://www.rt.com/news/330284-economic-migrants-eu-refugees...

I am saying that because they are very specific in what country they apply for asylum. Only tiny fraction of people who pass through Greece applied for asylum here. Not even Hungaria and Austria(!) are good enough. Most people want to Germany, Sweden or similar country.

And somehow Turkey is not considered safe country. But Ukraine with actual war is just fine and EU does not take refugees from there.

This data is incomplete. For Germany it says that they had 440.000 asylum applications in 2015 even though Merkel herself said that they took in over a million in 2015.

Apparently it was 1.1 million registered refugees for Germany alone in 2015. Of these only 476.649 submitted a formal asylum request. Edit: And you can bet that there's a large number of migrants that didn't even register, the minister of interior in Germany even said that there's an issue with a large number of refugees of whom no one knows who they are, where they are and what they are doing here.

Who knows what the rest of them is doing here if they do not even bother to submit an asylum request.

So please don't tell me how 60% of asylum seekers are real refugees, the majority doesn't even try because they are probably smart enough to know that there's no chance that they'll be accepted.

Source: http://www.faz.net/aktuell/politik/fluechtlingskrise/deutsch... (German, sorry - but this is one of the largest pro government online media)

I admit that these numbers do not include people who did not apply for asylum.

But in your own source theres a chart showing the distribution of all 1.0919M registered entries.

39.2% Syrian 14.1% Afganistan 11.1% Irak

I'd say even though not all of the 1.1M register as asylum seekers (or have not yet registered). Their distribution is quite similar to that of the people who registered.

Most applicants from Afghanistan are not granted asylum at the moment. The problem is that Afghanistan isn't willing to take them back.

Also it isn't like everyone from Iraq is given asylum.

Oh and btw - NGOs in Europe are actively teaching prospective asylum seekers to say they are from Syria. Most of them do not even speak Arabic.

Edit: reply to comment below:

Please see this comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/reply?id=11928413

"More than half of those fleeing to Europe from the Middle East and Africa are economic migrants and not asylum seekers fleeing the horrors of war in Iraq or Syria, according to first vice-president of the European Commission, Frans Timmermans.

In the Frontex Western Balkans Annual Risk Analysis 2016 Frontex investigated Nationality swapping and they found:

"In 2015, 173 042 migrants who claimed Syrian nationality were screened; of which 85.8% were assumed by screeners to be Syrian nationals. As regards the rest, 8.6% were assumed to be Iraqi; 2.5% Palestinian, 1% Moroccan, and 2.1% were assumed to be of other nationality."

So yes, 14.2% of the people who claimed to be from Syria really originated somewhere else. But, if we again sum up those who come from a country who is currently in a state of conflict (I included Palestine), we gain 97%.

Edit: Also, you should note that people are screened again during the process of applying for asylum. So I guess the number of wrongly assigned nationalities is neglectable.

So, you think, if dropped into, say, Uzbekistan, you would immediately understand their language and bureaucratic processes? Because that seems to be your expectation of migrants.

By any chance, do you support pegida? Or are they too left wing?

I don't even understand what point you are trying to make (aside from telling me that you hate me) as it is totally unrelated to my previous comment.

Do you have anything substantial to add? Again, 1.1 million refugees registered, only 467.xxx of them submitted an asylum request and on top of that there's a large number of refugees that are not even registered.

Therefore the 60% figure cannot be correct for anyone who is able to calculate properly.

Edit: Sorry can't create a comment to reply, that's why I'll reply here again to madaxe_again:

There is no need for you to appeal to my emotions, I'm interested in facts here. And yes, the default should be and always is "I don't believe you" because you have to prove that you are really a refugee whose life is under threat in his home country.

Right wing and nationalistic parties are on the rise in Europe precisely because the current governments are waving these kinds of statistics around that clearly give a false impression of the situation instead of telling the truth.

They wilfully ignore our own laws and not just enforce an open border policy but even invite everyone who'd like to come like Merkel did in 2015 with the rationale that it is not possible to stop this migration, while Hungary and Macedonia were perfectly capable to do it by constructing a fence and controlling the border.

And then they also had the gut to tell us that these migrants are comparable or in case of Syrians even better educated than our population and that's why we'll prosper from these migrants. After a year statistics then showed that the majority couldn't even read. This must be a sick joke, who comes up with this stuff?

I don't like getting lied to. As long as this lying doesn't stop the right wing will continue to rise and at some point the EU will collapse.

My point is that they may not know how or whether to submit an asylum request. Do you know the process?

I don't hate you, I just pity you for having a selfish worldview - I hope you don't one day find yourself in need of help only to find your alter ego going "nope, I don't believe you."

Thank you for posting this. I am baffled at how some people just ignore reality and post (and believe in?) lies, even here on HN where most of us work with data.

It's amazing that fact checking and critical thinking is so low in this internet age where information is freely available for everyone.

It's funny that you mention crtitical thinking when working with data. this data reports country of origin. Now make that critical thiught work please, and tell me why these refugees insist on goingfrom the safe Turkey to Germany?

Sure, here's two articles [1, 2] that describe the situation. Most of the refugees do stay in Turkey (including 1.9M Syrians acc. [1]).

[1] https://www.hrw.org/news/2015/09/29/why-dont-syrians-stay-tu...

[2] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/nov/20/amnesty-report...

>It is very inefficient to bring people to Germany and other western countries in order to help them. We could help one person in Germany, or another 10 people in Turkey for the same money.

So let's start doing that, then close the borders

Sending money is not a viable long term solution. You must let them move to where they can make money themselves.

You are probably right, people are dying in their thousands to cross the med because they want some more cash ...

Why do you think they're crossing the med instead of staying in Turkey?

Turkey doesnt give out refugee status and has little protection for refugees, including being able to return them to where they are fleeing from, it is completely overloaded with a lack of resources.

While Europe makes it disgustingly hard for refugees to enter the human rights and eu law provided make it a much more realistic place to be stable / settled if you can get in.

Turkey is giving them a true refugee status rather than allowing them to arbitrarily seek asylum, Turkey is actually completely abiding by the UN convention on refugees while the EU are playing by their own rules.

Maybe rather than forcing people to cross the sea, we could send money directly in the first place.

It's not "some cash" - it's free lifetime income, healthcare, housing, guaranteed additional income for family members, proper schooling for children etc.

It's not greedy to try to obtain these with some risk and a $5k investment, but just wanting these is not a good enough reason for EU taxpayers to pay for millions of migrants - especially when there are many more needy who cannot afford to travel to Europe.

So they want a life like they had at home, before the war started.

Makes sense to me. I mean, I would prefer that over living in a refugee camp for 15 years and being treated as a second-class citizen, with no future. "To live" is more than just existing.

You'll note that the Syrian refugees are also going to places which don't list all the befits you described, like Brazil. Then again, there aren't many opportunities for them as they don't speak Portuguese.

If you had to flee your country, would you want to go somewhere where you couldn't speak with the locals, or get a job?

Do refugees speak better German and Swedish then Portuguese?

The important question is can refugees communicate better in Germany and Sweden than in Brazil?

One option is German or Swedish. It's very unlikely that a refugee will know either language.

A large percentage of Germans and Swedes know English. If a refugee also knows English, that's one language possibility.

Also, French is another widely spoken second language in Syria, though less common than English. (Remember, Syria was a French Mandate.)

There is an existing minority population in both those countries which speaks Arabic. If a refugee also knows Arabic, that's another possibility.

On the other hand, in Brazil, fewer people know English (5% says https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_English-s... , compared to 64% for Germany and 86% for Sweden).

And far fewer Brazilians know Arabic, or refugees know Portuguese. (I don't know the mutual overlap in French.)

In any case, you can see it's much more likely that a refugee from Syria can communicate in either Germany or Sweden than in Brazil, even without knowing German or Swedish.

You can make this argument foc any country in the world that has decent English level among population. Given the fact that Sweden has a lot of Arabic speakers, do you think that they should get even more or that maybe effort should be distributed more evenly?

Yes, I can. English is the modern lingua franca.

That's why I think your question was poorly posed, and why I think it's obvious why a refugee, when given any sort of choice or allowed to express a preference, would have a bias towards German or Sweden over Brazil.

Do you not agree?

As for Sweden, I think we should accept more refugees and refugees should be accepted more evenly across the EU.

There's plenty of room. We accepted 160,000 asylum seekers last year, for a country with fewer than 10M people. The EU is 508M people, or 50 bigger than Sweden. 160K*50 = 8 million, while there are only 5M displaced Syrians outside of Syria. Many of those don't want to flee to the EU, while on the other hand there are about an equal number of displaced people from Iraq and Afghanistan.

So, what's the point of your question again?

>Do you not agree?

Yes and no. It's a rational choice for a refuge but not for language reasons, let's be honest here.

>As for Sweden, I think we should accept more refugees and refugees should be accepted more evenly across the EU.

I agree that there is more place in Europe however Sweden seems to be out of capacity now. Last year new people where put into tents. There are no jobs, SFI is overcrowded (and always was kinda bad). Food for thought. I'm leaving Sweden after my SO finishes her PhD in a few months but boy that country has changed. I hope its for the better for old and new Swedes. Rapid immigration and big changes in fabric of society seem to have generated big party of right-wing crypto-nazis which is damn scary.

> It's not "some cash" - it's free lifetime income, healthcare, housing, guaranteed additional income for family members, proper schooling for children etc.

None of those (aside healthcare) are the rights of someone given asylum, while you are waiting for support you 'may' be given housing and financial support. There is no "free lifetime income"

> None of those (aside healthcare) are the rights of someone given asylum, while you are waiting for support you 'may' be given housing and financial support. There is no "free lifetime income"

You clearly have no idea what you are talking about. In Austria, where I live, as well as in Germany, asylum gets you access to the country's welfare system, which equates at least €827 monthly for single people (https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bedarfsorientierte_Mindestsich...) and includes healthcare and additional benefits like I wrote. Once granted asylum, people are allowed to work, but due to extremely poor education and language barriers, most cannot or will not find jobs and end up in the welfare system forever. Typically, they are granted citizenship after 6 years (https://www.help.gv.at/Portal.Node/hlpd/public/content/26/Se...).

My main issue with this is not the fact that these are given to people with asylum (even though they get preferential treatment compared to EU citizens from other countries, who need to work for 12 months before having access to the welfare system), but that asylum was granted to far too many people who didn't deserve it. War refugees are "displaced people" and would normally receive temporary asylum-like status and return to their countries after the war. Civil war is not a reason for being granted asylum according to the Geneva Convention. Besides that, 2/3 of the refugees coming to Austria are not from war zones.

You say that like money is not a motivator powerful enough for people to risk their life.