Lampadusa and EU "refugee" policy.

[Rainman05]

Is Lampedusa a wake-up call for Europe? | Europe | DW.DE | 04.10.2013

You can go read that if you want, I won't post any of it here. The internet is basically flooded with articles about the Lampadusa problem and the death of those refugees who tried to get there which are now more than 100 in total.

Ok.

So first off, the word refugee is a misguiding word especially when paired, as do most people do, with the words: Asylum seeker.
Now to be an asylum seeker, you need to go through some formal channels. you can't be an asylum seeker if you go in a country illegally. So if you're trying to cross the border and go somewhere all sneaky like, you're not an asylum seeker, you're an illegal immigrant.

So there are these organizations that claim that Europe should just accept all "asylum seekers" that come in and provide for them and that people who say that Europe is full up are basically liars (btw, I'll use Europe here interchangebly with the EU, even though they're not the same thing but interpret them as the same thing). Well Europe has about 500-520mil people and the size of europe is smaller than say... the USA and/or Canada. Saying that we're full up is not a lying statement, it's a mathematical statement.

Should Europe accept asylum seekers? Yes. Asylum seekers that come through formal channels. And the way asylum policy should be is that you take them in, you work with them, if they need education, provide it to them, and when the conflict in their country is over, or at least dramatically decreased, send them back there to put the skills they learned in Europe to rebuild their country. A refugee or an asylum seeker is not a permanent guest. It's a person who goes somewhere because the situation back home is basically ****ed. Political refugees are a different note but 99.9% of all "refugees" are not political refugees. Political refugees would be people like Assange... but it wasn't the EU who offered Assange a refuge now was it. So Europe is a bit of a hypocrite in this regard.

The people who drowned weren't asylum seekers. They weren't even refugees. they were illegal immigrants... or attempted to be. And there are thousands upon thousands of such people every week that come in to Europe through Spain, Greece or Italy's islands or in Malta. They come in either on their own.... but most through criminal organizations that will use the people they bring over as either members in their criminal groups or worse, abuse them... or let the state handle them. Like Malta is now... it's fostering thousands of illegal immigrants at a huge expense to their budget because the EU told them to. Maybe next year, we'll have to bailout Malta because of the rising costs.

So all I'm saying is that it's not logical and people who are pushing for a more open policy are contributing to the rise in criminal organizations and to the rise of budgets costs for assistance and refugee placement. We see countries all over the EU trying to minimize costs here and there... and the EU is basically telling Spain, Italy Malta and greece to increase costs for this. Am I the only one who sees the stupidity? I mean I can't be the only one. Look at it from this way.

There are tens of thousands or maybe even hundred of thousands of iraqis that were asylum seekers due to the war in Iraq. The situation is now stable. The war is over. they should go back. But they don't .Because they are basically permanent guests. It's absurd. The asylum program works just for the bringing in part... doesn't work for the sending out part. It's half-broken. And because it's half broken, future asylum seekers will not be able to get asylum in Europe. Because we're full up. Because there is no god damn space and because there is no god damn money because the people who were supposed to go home didn't.

 

[joG]

Is Lampedusa a wake-up call for Europe? | Europe | DW.DE | 04.10.2013

You can go read that if you want, I won't post any of it here. The internet is basically flooded with articles about the Lampadusa problem and the death of those refugees who tried to get there which are now more than 100 in total.

Ok.

So first off, the word refugee is a misguiding word especially when paired, as do most people do, with the words: Asylum seeker.
Now to be an asylum seeker, you need to go through some formal channels. you can't be an asylum seeker if you go in a country illegally. So if you're trying to cross the border and go somewhere all sneaky like, you're not an asylum seeker, you're an illegal immigrant.

So there are these organizations that claim that Europe should just accept all "asylum seekers" that come in and provide for them and that people who say that Europe is full up are basically liars (btw, I'll use Europe here interchangebly with the EU, even though they're not the same thing but interpret them as the same thing). Well Europe has about 500-520mil people and the size of europe is smaller than say... the USA and/or Canada. Saying that we're full up is not a lying statement, it's a mathematical statement.

Should Europe accept asylum seekers? Yes. Asylum seekers that come through formal channels. And the way asylum policy should be is that you take them in, you work with them, if they need education, provide it to them, and when the conflict in their country is over, or at least dramatically decreased, send them back there to put the skills they learned in Europe to rebuild their country. A refugee or an asylum seeker is not a permanent guest. It's a person who goes somewhere because the situation back home is basically ****ed. Political refugees are a different note but 99.9% of all "refugees" are not political refugees. Political refugees would be people like Assange... but it wasn't the EU who offered Assange a refuge now was it. So Europe is a bit of a hypocrite in this regard.

The people who drowned weren't asylum seekers. They weren't even refugees. they were illegal immigrants... or attempted to be. And there are thousands upon thousands of such people every week that come in to Europe through Spain, Greece or Italy's islands or in Malta. They come in either on their own.... but most through criminal organizations that will use the people they bring over as either members in their criminal groups or worse, abuse them... or let the state handle them. Like Malta is now... it's fostering thousands of illegal immigrants at a huge expense to their budget because the EU told them to. Maybe next year, we'll have to bailout Malta because of the rising costs.

So all I'm saying is that it's not logical and people who are pushing for a more open policy are contributing to the rise in criminal organizations and to the rise of budgets costs for assistance and refugee placement. We see countries all over the EU trying to minimize costs here and there... and the EU is basically telling Spain, Italy Malta and greece to increase costs for this. Am I the only one who sees the stupidity? I mean I can't be the only one. Look at it from this way.

There are tens of thousands or maybe even hundred of thousands of iraqis that were asylum seekers due to the war in Iraq. The situation is now stable. The war is over. they should go back. But they don't .Because they are basically permanent guests. It's absurd. The asylum program works just for the bringing in part... doesn't work for the sending out part. It's half-broken. And because it's half broken, future asylum seekers will not be able to get asylum in Europe. Because we're full up. Because there is no god damn space and because there is no god damn money because the people who were supposed to go home didn't.

It will surprise me, if the EU changes its procedures. Certainly the Germans are increasingly upset about economic refugees and what I see in Holland or France seems much the same. Besides, there have been Thousands drowning in their attempt to cross the Mediterranean every year for many, many years and nobody cares. The people that get to Europe are put in camps that make Gitmo look like a luxury resort.

But what do you propose? I just read a report that in Greece about 50 percent of the population has no resort to medical treatment and if one of them gets cancer he dies without medication or even painkiller.

 

[PeteEU]

There are many issues here.

There is no real comprehensive EU policy on this area due to among others the UK, France and in part Germany not wanting it so because all they have to worry about is their airports because of the rules that they have agreed too. The rule is simple.. people like this are to be handled by the country where they made their initial entry and this is causing tons of problems because most of the entry is made in 4 countries.. Spain, Italy, Greece and Malta. Southern Europe has for a decade plus been screaming for some sort of consensus on the issue but very little has actually gotten through.. although some have. The EU made a deal.. well actually Italy did with the EU blessing.. with Gadaffi and that made the flow go down big time, but we all know how that ended.

The key is to discourage people in even attempting the journey. The French have had some success with a policy of basically propaganda in places like Senegal where people who attempted the journey and got caught have been sent back as a kind of representative to tell the populations that Europe is not paved with gold streets and honey basically. And it has worked somewhat. Problem is it costs money, but saying that, it costs far less money than the problems these people cause in Europe.

Another way is to make deals with the countries in North Africa where they set off.. mostly Libya and Morocco and of course also Turkey. If they actively prevent them attempting the journey then that would go along way to stopping the tide.. problem is we kinda kicked Gadaffi out so Libya is a lawless country and hence a gaping hole. Now what we could do is simply send in the navy.. problem is the EU has no navy. And then there is of course Turkey.. who hate Greece so dont really want to cooperate...

And then there is the problem is identification. Many of these people actually destroy their identification so there is no way to find out where they come from.. what to do with them...

Basically it is not an easy situation to say the least.

One thing we can do is set up a cross border police force that handles people trafficking exclusively, but here we would get into the usual whinny anti-EU comments about lost sovereignty and all that bull****. The problem is often that the people benefiting from the smuggling are sitting in the London or Berlin palace but the crimes are being committed in Spain, Italy, Malta and Greece and there is no real easy legal mechanism to get at these people. People smuggling is a massive problem, almost worst than drug smuggling and we commit very few resources (relative) to it vs the resources we commit to fighting drug smuggling.

Personally I think we in Europe have some of the same problems as the Americans... illegal immigrants are cheap labour because they can be exploited, so government protects the flow for the benefit of businesses.