europe migrant crisis Kostis Ntantamis/ZumaPress

The Price of European Indifference

Europe’s migration debate has taken a disturbing turn, propelled by a multitude of myths, manipulations, and blatant lies. The consequences will be devastating, not only for the people desperately trying to escape oppression, terror, and massacre, but also for Europe itself.

BAGHDAD – Europe’s migration debate has taken a disturbing turn.

It began with the creation of the catch-all concept (a legal freak) of a “migrant,” which obscures the difference, central to the law, between economic and political migration, between people escaping poverty and those driven from their homes by war. Unlike economic migrants, those fleeing oppression, terror, and massacre have an inalienable right to asylum, which entails an unconditional obligation by the international community to provide shelter.

Even when the distinction is acknowledged, it is often as part of another sleight of hand, an attempt to convince credulous minds that the men, women, and children who paid thousands of dollars to travel on one of the rickety boats washing up on the islands of Lampedusa or Kos are economic migrants. The reality, however, is that 80% of these people are refugees, attempting to escape despotism, terror, and religious extremism in countries like Syria, Eritrea, and Afghanistan. That is why international law requires that the cases of asylum-seekers are examined not in bulk, but one by one.

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