The European Union And The Refugee Crisis

In the attempts to “manage the immigrant crisis” several strategic mistakes have been made, which have shaken the functioning of migration policy in the European community. Particular controversy was stirred up by a plan for the relocation of 120,000 refugees suggested in September 2015. Some months later (April/May 2016), the European Commission came up with the idea of fines for those countries which would not receive the relocated refugees. The fine for one unaccepted foreigner was supposed to be €250,000. The attempt to impose a quota of immigrants on member countries together with high fines contributed to further divisions inside the EU.

In this Article, the authors discuss how the right to political asylum has been established and reestablished throughout history and its role in society now. They discuss how refugee law ties with the right to political asylum as more Syrians are trying to enter the Europe and gain asylum. The authors bring up the issue of the political divide in trying to handle the refugee crisis. They bring up the different issues that are causing controversy in being able to make a consistent policy to be able to have control over the migrant crisis. The authors also discuss the efforts that have been made to try to have control over the crisis.

Refugees! Refugees! Refugees! This the only word we are hearing nowadays. The word ‘refugee’ echoes in society and particularly in the media nowadays, yet, many are ignorant of what it truly means. Whenever we hear the word ‘refugee’, our knee-jerk reaction is that we think of immigrants. A refugee, according to the Geneva Convention, is someone who is unable or unwilling to return to their country of origin owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group, or political opinion1. People have fled their home country from the fear of unjustified persecution, but we do not call them innocent people; rather our deluded society deride

Others believe that we cause it ourselves by not allowing illegal aliens to freely join a country, and the liberties that are endowed with citizenship. Yet while both are true, natural disasters are the leading cause in the past 5 years of refugee displacement. A perspective on the leading issue of refugees from the Republic of Turkey Prime Ministry Disaster & Emergency Management Authority “European policies have also failed to produce stability on Europe’s southern periphery, and in the case of Libya, where the collapse of sovereignty has facilitated the trafficking in refugees and economic migrants, Europe is chiefly responsible”. Although many of the problems emanate from the U.S. intrusions in the middle east, the reason for the refugee’s not being able to find safe homes, is due to the negligence of the European authorities. Even though they say that NATO is finding a way to welcome the refugees into camps, and find homes. Though while most refugees themselves try to find their own new homes for a permanent solution, they are bogged down by oppressive governments and societies that shun them as homeowners. Ages of death and destruction have racked this earth. Millions of homes destroyed, while more than half of the world turns a blind eye to

Recognizing the EU’S efforts in attempting to curb the crisis, however, their failure to manage the crisis has led to the border situations getting worse, leaving the refugees and asylum seekers even more vulnerable to exploitation and abuse,

Conflicts, such as starvation, war, and disease, have taken over large portions of Africa and the Middle East. As a result, refugees have started to migrate towards the European Union(EU) and other first world countries. The EU and the United States(US) face a migration crisis from the Middle East and Africa. The problem is so many people try to claim asylum in the EU that some nations are refusing to take them in. Some nations like Poland have had huge arguments in the EU, and President Trump has decreased the amount of refugees the US will take in this year. The refugee crisis has caused a lot of problems. For this reason, the US and EU nations should turn these refugees away.

The United Nations High Commission on Refugees estimates that almost three million people were categorized as refugees at the end of 2014, which is equivalent to almost three percent of the world’s population1. The 1951 Refugee Convention provides that a refugee is a person, who, “owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted...is outside the country of his nationality, and is unable to, or … is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country”.2 There is a mounting pressure for the world, particularly European and Middle Eastern countries, which are being inundated with refugees, to find a solution to the refugee crisis. In this search, the question has arisen of whether a country should prioritize the humanitarian needs

The talk about the refugee crisis had three speakers and a short Question and Answer at the end. The first speaker briefly explained the status of the European refugee crisis and addressed the issue that U.S. policy has an effect (directly or indirectly) on the European refugee crisis. Currently, there are 1.5 million Syrian refugees in Lebanon and 2.5 million in Turkey. The conditions in Lebanon and Turkey are often not permanent solutions for refugees because it is too expensive for low-income refugees to live there. Low-income refugees usually can’t improve their economic status and become middle class in these situations because they can’t get work permits, permanent residency, or education. The refugees then leave in search of jobs and

The video “Understanding the Refugee Crisis in Europe, Syria, and around the World,” was published on September 8th, 2015 on to YouTube by John Green. John Green is one half of the international phenomenon known as Vlog Brothers. They started on January 1st, 2007, as two brothers sending each other a video blog about their week every Tuesday, and has since gained 2,665,330 followers. John Green is also an award winning author of several best selling novels, which have since been made into movies, such as Paper Towns, and The Fault in our Stars.

Over the course of less than five years, the Syrian civil war has caused the displacement of over 10 million people of this nation. The rise of ISIS in conjunction with a corrupt government has left millions of men, women, and children without a country to call their home, and the branding of refugee status. Within the international system, sovereign nations have a responsibility to provide for these persons under the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (Cherem 2015). While this expectation for more well off nations to provide for those in need across the world may be the moral answer, it is certainly no small task. With an increasingly dangerous and destabilized global system, in which terrorist attacks such as the recent incidents in Paris and Brussels are becoming commonplace, there is hesitancy amongst many western nations to harbor these at-risk populations. Regardless of the risks that states incur when hosting refugees, many nations do have a moral obligation to provide for the innocent Syrians that have lost their homes. European nations with adequate resources available to support their populations that are politically and economically stable do not have the moral authority to block refugees from entering their state. However, if the mass admittance of refugees into a state would likely cause the nation’s collapse, that state should not be morally obligated to accept more refugees that it can realistically sponsor.

Mass influxes of vulnerable migrants seeking refuge have found themselves landing in European countries, encountering friendly faces and hostility along the way. More than a million migrants crossed borders into European countries in 2015, a substantial increase from the 280,000 that made the same journey only a year before. According to BBC reports, more than 135,000 arrived in the first two months of 2016 alone. Fleeing from the violent conflicts of Syria and Afghanistan, these refugees are searching for a second chance at leading a better, safer life for themselves and for their families. The ongoing political unrest in Libya and Egypt has encroached upon basic human liberties, spurring even more people to relocate to Europe. While nations throughout Europe sympathize with the refugees forced to leave their homes behind, some countries are no longer able to cope with the streams of migrants that wash up on the shores of its borders. States such as Germany have set an example for the rest of the union, opening its borders and services to these migrants. Others, notably Hungary, have constructed physical barriers along their frontiers in an endeavor to block more refugees from coming in. The disparate attitudes of both Germany and Hungary reveal the growing divide of the European Union with the potential to shatter the admired solidarity of the European nations.

The video “Understanding the Refugee Crisis in Europe, Syria, and around the World,” was published on September 8th, 2015 on to Youtube by John Green. John Green is one half of the international phenomenon known as Vlog Brothers. They started on January 1st, 2007, as two brothers sending each other a video blog about their week every Tuesday, and has since gained 2,665,330 followers. John Green is also an award winning author of several best selling novels, which have since been made into movies, such as Paper Towns, and The Fault in our Stars.

Since 2011, Syria has been engaged in a Civil War with protestors against the government and members of the extremist group ISIS, and approximately 7.6 million people have been displaced from their homes (usnews.com 2015). As the conflict destroys more homes and livelihoods each year, an increasing number of civilians have been forced to leave Syria and try to find safety elsewhere. Already a contentious issue, the Syrian refugee crisis has awakened tensions, both economic and social as debate erupts over what to do with the refugees.In response to the crisis, while some countries like Germany have pledged to help the refugees, (New Statesman 2015 1) only 2,340 have been admitted. Clearly, more needs to be done in order to help the refugees. Although there are economic and population concerns to be considered, the humanitarian conflict that faces the refugees and solutions already available are reason enough for Europe to increase the numbers of Syrian refugees allowed in.

The failure of the EU to respond to the refugee crisis with a durable and sustainable burden-sharing mechanism has led states to adopt increasingly restrictive asylum policies ultimately aimed at the deterrence of asylum applicants, rather than their protection. The results have been a race to the bottom in protection standards for asylum seekers and refugees. National asylum policies assume that Member States have an interest to contribute to refugee protection and burden-sharing mechanisms. EU cooperation at the supranational level is therefore required to ensure a balance of efforts between Member States in their asylum policies. Furthermore, the national implementation of the Dublin system is dependent on domestic political will. The Dublin Regulation discourages Southern Member States from improving their standards on reception and procedures for asylum seekers due to their geographical location and lack of mandatory burden-sharing mechanisms, and thus threatens the aim of CEAS. The Dublin system privileges EU countries in the North, which is the desired destination of many refugees, at the expense of the South, where refugees first arrive and are forced to remain until their application is processed, which is a timely process in itself. Geographic location and length of borders place a disproportionate burden of refugees on the EU’s border states. The issues that the Dublin Regulation poses has prompted the reintroduction of internal border control and checks, as seen

One final area of study will be how the EU’s legislation on asylum seekers and refugee law, such as the Dublin (I-III) Regulation, and the various variables within those topics, to examine what the flow of such populations into the EU is. My current theory is that the more tolerant policies are of asylum seekers and refugees, the more likely that those countries experience terrorism-based events. Furthermore, from those same countries, we can examine the reaction to those new populations, such as the 2009 Swiss minaret referendum (despite Switzerland not being part of the EU, it is a participant of the Schengen Area), or France’s famous “face covering” ban as antecedent variables.