However that still leaves the question of where they should go?

In my opinion I think they would perhaps have an easier time remaining in a region more hospitable to their culture. Perhaps going towards India or further south into Africa. As much as it makes me sound bad, some of their culture and upbringing is incompatible with western culture and ideas.

Not saying they couldn't live in a western country or eventually assimilate a bit, but it would likely be easier for them to live in a location which also shares there culture.

Mass migration to Europe could create another crisis down the road, which benefits no one.

How exactly is India or Nigeria "more hospitable to their culture"? Is that the 'culture of poverty'? The culture of being Muslim?

All Syrians are not all the same any more than all Americans are the same or all British are the same. Will there be some "bad" Syrians among any group of refugees? Sure. That is true of any group. Check out the poll numbers for the Donald. Those aren't Syrian refugees supporting him.


Large numbers of Vietnamese refugees were able to 'assimilate' into western culture. They came from a war-torn, Oriental culture. Syrians cannot do the same?

We can start by deporting those Islamist protestors that were holding up those "kill those that defame Islam" signs a few years ago. Freedom of speech is great. Advocating the murder of people that don't share your religious beliefs is not. GTFO.
Second, make deals with the countries these people are coming from. The West will accept so many refugees in exchange for certain changes in those countries, which will benefit the people there. That will lessen the migrants coming over. Some is better than none.

The chaos and instability at home is why they are leaving, there is no one in positions to make deals regarding refugees.

What should be done, particularly in the case of Syria, is working with nearby countries to get them to take in refugees. Saudi Arabia is predominantly Sunni like Syria and certainly has the stability and resources to do more to help. Other wealthier gulf nations should also pitch in more.

Expecting Europe to absorb refugees without limit or end is unreasonable, especially when others closer to the problem do little or nothing.

I'm thinking, for example, of the Iraqis who fled to Syria to avoid the war, and who now have to flee Syria because of yet another US-inspired war.

If you want to help these people and other refugees, check out this site: http://www.unhcr.org/cgi-bin/texis/vtx/home

The women are not wearing hijab. They should be able to assimilate AND enrich the culture any European country.

And f*ck the right-winger in charge of Hungary and elsewhere who say othewise.

Your post is just a variation on the "European countries are a Christian culture".

More than 4 million refugees have fled Syria since the war there began in 2011. According to the UN’s refugee agency, almost 1.8 million have gone to Turkey, more than 600,000 to Jordan and 1 million to Lebanon – a country whose population is just 4 million.

On Monday, Angela Merkel said Germany expected to take at least 800,000 asylum seekers this year. The figure is likely to go up, and could hit 1 million, Berlin says. In 2014 the European nation that accepted the largest number of refugees in proportion to its population was Sweden. Hungary, Malta, Switzerland and 13 other countries accepted more asylum applications than the UK, according to Eurostat.

Between June 2014 and June 2015, the UK took 166 Syrian refugees. They were resettled from camps in Jordan and other neighbouring countries under a new government scheme. The “vulnerable persons” relocation initiative began in March 2014. Under it, the UK has taken 216 people. In June David Cameron said the scheme would be “modestly expanded”.

The political conversation in Germany has been markedly different. This week Merkel used the language of shared European ideals and said the continent as a whole had to deal with the problem. “If Europe fails on the question of refugees, its close connection with universal civil rights will be destroyed,” she warned. In July the German chancellor tried to comfort a teenage Palestinian asylum seeker who burst into tears in front of her during a televised debate.

For the left, accepting refugees is about solidarity with those fleeing persecution and war.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/sep/02/refugees-welcome-uk-germany-compare-migration

The far-right, anti-immigrant UKIP is breathing down Cameron's neck. He has little room to maneuver. Cameron is conservative. Sweden, Iceland and Germany are not and have taken in proportionately many more refugees.

to have workers due to low population growth, so I read.

What should these refugees do ? should they remain where they are and just stick it out

As more people flee.

Europe is already massively overpopulated, Europe is one of the most densely populated places on earth. How are they supposed to fit hundreds of thousands to millions of more people.

Population density (per square mile)

Lebanon 1,261
Germany 585
France 306
Turkey 262
Jordan 196
Sweden 56

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_and_dependent_territories_by_population_density

Should not the wealth of a country be considered too, so that poor countries are not expected to take care of large numbers of refugees?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_and_dependent_territories_by_population_density#/media/File:World_population_density_map.PNG

Look at the map and then tell me Europe should be the part of the world accepting the world's refugees. Europe is already overpopulated and the environment is beyond breaking point.

And it isn't just that number it is those people and their children. Immigrants have a far higher birth rate. If Europe accepts hundreds of thousands today it will be millions in a decade.

It is a ridiculous vicious cycle to have population growth in the developing world pumped wholesale into the developed world. Not only does it do nothing to slow the massive unsustainable growth of people in the developing world, it also forces the already most overpopulated parts of our planet to become more so.

immigrants and their 'far higher birth rate'? If the left joins the far-right (becoming a version of "conservative-lite&quot in opposing immigration and refugees, do we abandon the liberals who appreciate and promote diversity and immigration? There are plenty of liberals in every country who support accepting refugees. In many cases, their governments are conservative and do not listen to them.

I suppose Trump is correct to protect us from the "far higher birth rate" of Hispanic immigrants, as well.

Go look it up, the birth rate for immigrants is almost 3 times higher than the native population of Europe. A million immigrants today is 3 million a decade from now. Europe can't sustain that kind of growth. It can't even provide enough jobs right now, unemployment is at worrying levels and budgets are broken. Do you really think millions of mostly unskilled labor (or skilled in ways not in demand in European economies) will help? To ignore this to "do the right thing" is going to result in massive civil strife years from now when these people don't have jobs and the economy can't sustain benefits for them anymore. You can't just pull millions of jobs out of the air when you can't even employ your own youth.

It won't work, not on an economic level and not on an environmental level and not on a cultural level (different language, different values, no history of a nation that can successfully integrate immigrants like the US).

The United states is in a COMPLETELY different environmental and economic situation than Europe. Trying to conflate the two is foolish. In the United States being "American" is more of a cultural and national identity, that took centuries to change and to expect Europe to embrace that overnight just isn't going to happen.

How are you going to provide benefits when those nation's budgets are already nearly broken and they are running high deficits?

How are you going to fit people into a society and culture that is both overpopulated and entirely foreign to them?

Until you can answer these questions, what you're purposing isn't practical. The path to hell is paved with good intentions and this whole experiment is going to end badly.

If you can't solve all the problems associated with refugees, we should stick to conservative policies promoted by the right. Leave the refugees (or send them back to) camps in Jordan and Lebanon.) Better to conserve with what we have than to try to be liberal. It's just too expensive to be liberal. Europe does not have the money. Compared to whom?

Have I got it right?

I'll grant that the far-right anti-immigration (largely anti-Muslim) stance has become increasingly popular with voters. Do we win them back by adopting a "me too" anti-immigrant stance (kind of a "RW-lite&quot or by defending, explaining and improving existing liberal programs?

Isn't liberal, it is foolish.

I asked how it would happen, you said you had no idea how it would, but that we should just do it anyways.

Want to expand social services? Europe is already borderline broke and is slashing them, this is despite having a much higher tax burden than us.

Give them jobs? Not enough jobs to go around, go look at youth unemployment stats in Europe, it is shockingly high.

Think they'll be able to compete immediately anyways for those jobs? Most them don't even speak the language and what technical skills they had probably aren't relevant in a developed economy.

So tell me, what on earth is your solution? How is Europe supposed to adapt to this?

Make them stay in Syria and 'tough it out'? Leave them in squalid camps in Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey? Are those countries better suited and financially able to handle the refugees?

What is liberal is making an effort to take care of people who are suffering. If we wait for conservatives to do anything about the suffering of Syrian refugees we will be waiting a long, long time. If liberals don't do it, it won't happen. What do you propose that liberals do?

If you want to take the position that "My own country (Germany, France, the UK, the US) has enough problems. We cannot afford to help refugees. You are not our problem. You are somebody else's problem." You are welcome to your opinion.

How does that differ from the attitudes of UKIP and the National Front? I don't have all the answers but yours seems to be: Keep them out of my back yard.

What on earth are they supposed to do with them? What is the end game you see 5 years from now when you have a Germany filled with millions of immigrants who are unemployed and barely speak the language. You still haven't answered this question. How is that going to end well for anyone?

Germany doesn't have enough jobs for their own youths. How are they going to employ millions of people with no relevant skills? The cost of living in Germany is enormous and the benefits money simply doesn't exist to take care of them.

What should be happening is the world taking constructive and immediate steps to end the conflict so these people can return home. Hoping to resettle millions of people into countries that are overpopulated and with broken economies will end disastrously.

to know them. I agree that would be the best way to solve the problem.

Absent an end to the conflict and a happy return home for the refugees, you seem to have no solution for the plight of the refugees. Just: Keep them away from Germany.

Your endless repetition of "a Germany filled with millions of immigrants who are unemployed and barely speak the language" sounds like a far-right propaganda campaign. One can use that kind of language to describe every refugee from every war throughout history. Demonizing them in that way sounds like a Trump-style, far-right tactic to protect US from THEM. Perhaps the Donald can help build a wall to protect poor ol' Europe from "millions of immigrants who are unemployed and barely speak the language".

Your compassion is underwhelming. Between a Europe of 500 million people and a North America of 400 million, finding a way to help refugees that amount to less than 1/2 of 1 percent of that does not seem like an insurmountable liberal task. If we choose not to help them, we should not kid ourselves that there was nothing we could do. It will be because we were too conservative and self-interest trumped compassion for those in need.

1. Germany already has millions of unemployed people, the youth unemployment rate is 7% it is much higher in other nations
2. It is highly unlikely that the migrants have either employable talent or strong German or English language skills.
3. The German cost of living is among the highest in the world. Providing for refugees in Germany is significantly more expensive than just about any other nation on earth.

Being realistic about the obvious likely result of this is not the same as not being compassionate.

And in terms of solution to the conflict, we either need to commit to bringing down Assad totally or come to terms with his government. Right now we are playing a ridiculous halfway game that is prolonging the conflict. We are opposing Assad in a half hearted way, which just allows the rebels to barely hold on. We need to break this trend by either openly supporting regime change and arming the rebels or recognizing that regime change isn't going to happen, both these are painful decisions, but one desperately needs to be made.

Like so many others on this topic, he/she has no concept of the problems that
you have been describing as he/she is pontificating from a country that has
NO social security, next to no benefits and absolutely shitloads of space per person.

They respond to any real-world question on this subject with a bland "but if you say
no you are being a racist and/or conservative" because they have no understanding
of the situation that the "rich" European nations are having to cope with.

Thank you Kurska for your patience in trying to break through that barrier of
righteous ignorance.

MAY want to consider WHY those (what you call) right wing immigration stances are gaining popularity. The poster is asking you practical questions, questions you want to ignore or scoff at. That's no way to show you're arguing your position in good faith. As liberals, of course we want every refugee taken in, housed and taken care of - who is going to pay for it? The unemployment rate in Europe dwarfs that of the US. Calling people conservatives for asking you to face reality is a bullshit ploy.

Filling in some of the gaps using your same table of population per square mile ...

+ Netherlands 1055
+ Belgium 953
+ United Kingdom 679
Germany 585
+ Italy 523
France 306
+ Syria 298 (Just supplied for reference)
+ Hungary 275
Turkey 262 (Also a source of migrants to the countries higher in this table)
+ Serbia 238 (Also a source of migrants to the countries higher in this table)
+ Egypt 231
+ Romania 218 (Also a source of migrants to the countries higher in this table)
+ Greece 218 (Also a source of migrants to the countries higher in this table)
+ Croatia 197 (Also a source of migrants to the countries higher in this table)
Jordan 196
+ Bulgaria 171 (Also a source of migrants to the countries higher in this table)
+ Lithuania 117 (Also a source of migrants to the countries higher in this table)
+ Latvia 80 (Also a source of migrants to the countries higher in this table)
Sweden 56
+ Saudi Arabia 36
+ Libya 9


Anyone who thinks that the top 6 countries in the above can (or even should)
continue to accept migrants without question simply hasn't got a clue about
the dynamics of cultures.


And for the hypocrites over the pond who think that Europeans needs to pay for the
problems that their country were primary movers in creating:

+ United States 84

When *YOU* see your own social services being cut, see your children & neighbours
unable to get jobs, watch schools go downhill because of the influx of non-native
language speakers, and have to watch health & social worker support get overrun
for the sake of giving the funds to immigrants, when that happens, I guarantee
that you wouldn't be so self-righteously purist about "the humanitarian response"
to migrants.

Oh sorry ... you don't have that stuff unless you are already rich ... OK ...

You think that you are getting right-wing rhetoric from the Trumps of
this world when you are so insulated for the pain? You ain't seen nothing yet.

How about YOU get yourself a free to all health service, unemployment & disabled
benefits of a non-trivial level and an education system worthy of the name
and THEN open your doors to endless immigrants until your population density
reaches European levels?

Until then, maybe have a nice cup of STFU until you can get a clue.

petitioned Obama to do just that. I am confident he will do just that.

14 senators (all Democrats) call on US to take more Syrian refugees; republicans oppose it.

Syrian refugee crisis: senators call on US to take in thousands more
Despite the US being a leader in humanitarian aid, the number of Syrian refugees it is set to admit pales in comparison to the 800,000 Germany will take in

Fourteen Senate Democrats, led by Dick Durbin and Amy Klobuchar, raised the issue with Obama in a letter. Comparing the crisis to the international failure to protect Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi Germany, the senators called on Obama to accept at least half the refugees referred by the UN.

“It is a moral, legal, and national security imperative for the United States to lead by example in addressing the world’s worst refugee crisis of our time.”

On the other side of the aisle, a handful of Republicans led by representative Mike McCaul, have vocally urged the opposite, saying that so many refugees raise “serious national security concerns” and that “the Syrian conflict is a special case” that should temper the US’s historic hospitality toward people fleeing prosecution.

“Screening these refugees is not a task to be taken lightly,” they wrote in a letter to the administration. “We cannot allow the refugee process to become a backdoor for jihadists.”

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/sep/03/aid-groups-senators-us-take-in-65000-syrian-refugees

Just like in Europe our conservatives oppose taking in refugees. Our liberals support it.


If you just added that these refugees were "rapists and drug dealers" you could write for the Trump campaign.

Trump seems at times to be basing his campaign rhetoric on ideas of the right wing, anti-immigration parties in Europe. Your post makes me think that Mr. Trump is on to a winning formula.

>> When *YOU* see your own social services being cut, see your children & neighbours
>> unable to get jobs, watch schools go downhill because of the influx of non-native
>> language speakers, and have to watch health & social worker support get overrun
>> for the sake of giving the funds to immigrants ...
>
> If you just added that these refugees were "rapists and drug dealers" you could
> write for the Trump campaign.

I know that the points I stated exist because I have experienced it first-hand or
second-hand (i.e., spoken to the person who experienced it) - i.e., those are facts
even though the extent of each event are obviously open to debate between the
usual extremes of "ALL x cause y" and "NO x cause y".

Your casual throwaway about "rapists and drug dealers" is (fortunately) nothing that
I, my family or my friends have encountered and so I leave such hyperbolic rhetoric
to uninvolved commentators like you & Trump.

Just don't keep on with your incorrect pretence that "anyone against immigrants is
right wing/conservative/racist". There is a justifiable backlash building and sensible
liberals need to accept it & react to calm it down rather than putting their hands over
their eyes and pretending it isn't happening.

Country 2012 2013

Mexico 146,406 135,028
China 81,784 71,798
India 66,434 68,458
Philippines 57,327 54,446
Dom Rep 41,566 41,311
Cuba 32,820 32,219
Vietnam 28,304 27,101
S Korea 20,846 23,166
Colombia 20,931 21,131
Haiti 22,818 20,351
___________________________
Total 1,031,631 990,553

I can't help but think we have the room right here in the USA. Yes, I can already hear the conservatives screaming about "illegal immigrants" (I don't think they really know the difference between immigrants and refugees) and Donald Trump pounding his "deport em all!" drum. Still... we have some sparsely populated states, like Maine, where I live. We've got plenty of room for more people, especially people who just want to have normal lives. The Farmers here could show them how to sustain it - and we have so much empty land, that I suspect we could find room for a great many. My Grandfather left behind 110 acres of farmland when he passed. I don't think my family would mind using a lot of that to help house and support refugees.

I think the right would stop that from happening. Hell, our ignorant little twits in congress and the Senate are already unable to even provide a reasonable path to citizenship. Still... we could help here. I wouldn't mind my tax dollars going into THAT kind of effort.

As for Europe... one thing to consider, particularly for densely populated areas.... is that the world is already nearing a tipping point regarding what it's resources can sustain. I read somewhere that eight billion was the point at which we would be well screwed. Not an inescapable problem though, I don't think. We should be searching outside of our own planet, building stations in space, doing everything we can to find sustenance beyond Earth. Yes, I know it's very complex, but, last I heard, the US didn't even have an official space program anymore - just private entities controlling almost everything.

It's a problem for greater, more scientific minds than mine... but I can't imagine that there's no way to do this. If we invest the resources, the time, the effort, there must be a way to actually reach and colonize other planets, perhaps even the moon.

Sustainable energy will help - wind and solar... limited resources though, like food, oil, fresh water... will become an even greater issue.

Of course, none of this helps the refugees in the meantime. I wish I had more than I do, if I had my own land, my own money, my own boat or plane or something, I'd go get some of them and bring them back here. I couldn't teach them how to farm, but I could find people who could. Or I could help them find work doing whatever they wanted. What's happening here is beyond shameful, it's something that the whole world should be involved in desperately trying to resolve.

Instead, the media is filled with fucking Donald Trump.

it uses the EU only for its own advantages, but
otherwise does everything to stop its real
purpose. I wished they would just get out of it.

they should open their estates to all the displaced people who have been impacted by their illegal and immoral wars.

have offered to take ZERO Syrian refugees. Their hearts bleed for their fellow Arabs, until it's time to do something.

Wolf

Are all these refugees trying to get to Europe because that's where they want to go or is it because these other (wealthy) ME countries with similar cultures won't take them? Are they trying to escape the desert sand and heat or something? More opportunities in Europe? Freedom seekers? Too much violence in the ME? I don't get it.

they are not just leaving turmoil of war but away from extremists.

Prime minister vows UK will take thousands of people currently in UN refugee camps on the Syrian border

David Cameron has bowed to growing international and domestic demands that Britain take in more refugees fleeing the Syrian civil war by indicating that the UK would accept thousands more refugees.

Final details of the numbers, funding and planned location of the refugees, were being urgently sorted out in Whitehall, with local councils insisting the programme had to be fully funded by central government.

People selected to come to the UK are likely to be drawn from the UNHCR camps on the border of Syria and not from Calais or other locations near the country. But the final number of refugees allowed in to the UK will amount to fewer than tens of thousands, well short of the numbers likely to be taken by Germany.

Cameron said: “There isn’t a solution to this problem that is simply about taking people. We need a comprehensive solution; a new government in Libya. We need to deal with the problems in Syria. I would say the people responsible for these terrible scenes we see, the people most responsible, are president Assad in Syria and the butchers of Isil and the criminal gangs that are running this terrible trade in people. And we have to be as tough on them at the same time.”

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/sep/03/cameron-bows-to-pressure-to-allow-more-syrian-refugees-into-britain

Peace in the Middle East? Gee why hasn't anyone thought of THAT before.

Hey guys, his guy in England says we should all get along.
Well if course what were we thinking? We'll stop right now

http://eveningharold.com/2015/09/08/refugees-to-be-shipped-to-uk-in-david-camerons-forehead/

So far those three countries have contributed to the instability that caused the problem and ignore the flood of refugees.

I think they are afraid that if they take in too many people from Muslim countries that those people will try to change the European cultures once the numbers get high enough. Europe is very secular and they look at the middle east and how opposite many of these cultures are and they get a bit freaked out.

We cannot fix the middle east. We don't understand all the different cultures. We have made things worse. Perhaps if Europe and North America helped fund refugee settlements in other middle east and african countries it would work out better for everyone.

I don't know...it's such a complex issue.