Legal clarity and strict limits are not mutually exclusive. Nor do many European politicians pepper their speeches with "nation of immigrants" and "diversity is our strength", and when a mere million refugees came from the Middle East (to be fair, that is on top of all the non-European migrants already in Europe), that was a "crisis", and caused a significant rightward shift in EU politics.

For comparison, the US takes in almost 2 million legal immigrants per year (on a population of 333 million vs. EUs 446 million), plus however many illegal ones, and there is nothing like a "sanctuary city" in Europe.

> Nor do many European politicians pepper their speeches with "nation of immigrants" and "diversity is our strength"

It will be a chilly snowy day in the hellhole I hail from when I give credence to the platitudes a politician uses to pepper their speech.

I know why I picked the EU and not the US as a destination, at least.

Taking in a refugees is quite different to taking in a migrant who passes all your immigrations tests. Refugees need more social services, housing, healthcare etc.

Also, that number of refugees was on top of normal migration, making comparisons difficult.

The EU takes around 2 million immigrants from outside the EU per year as far as I can tell. I don’t know hot many move with the EU, it’s a lot.

https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php...