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The Global Immigration Crisis News 

The Global Immigration Crisis

For the past half-century, a mass-influx of immigrants have been moving in on the west- and these are not coming from South America. This has been brought to the attention of governments worldwide with the new Syrian refugee crisis, which began with the rise of the Syrian rebel faction seeking to overthrow the currently empowered Assad regime- in 2011, that has seen millions of people attempting to flee their war-torn country of Syria, besieged by rebels on one side and the notorious terror group IS (formerly known as ISIS) on the other. This has been brought further into the international spotlight as these immigrants die on the journey to their final destination due to the poor transportation condition provided by the smugglers, on which the overwhelming majority of them are depending on to get them to European countries, such as Hungary, where they will attempt to make it further into Europe and sometimes other continents to reach their final destination. Most people new to the topic will most likely have learned of their plight through the three year old boy, Aylan Kurdi, who drowned trying to reach the Greek Island of Kos and was found in Turkey near the Bodrum resort. He and his brother, who met a similar fate, came from the Syrian town of Kobani, which at the time was the site of fierce fighting between the IS army and the Kurdish forces. His story went viral hours later under the hashtag #KiyiyaVuranInsanlik (humanity washed ashore).

Western governments have been in constant conflict over what they should do and how many refugees they should take amidst the Syrian humanitarian crisis. Some countries, such as Germany, expect to take in somewhere around 800,000 refugees by the end of this year, whereas others, such as Hungary, are closing their borders entirely due to the massive numbers of immigrants making their way illegally into their country. There is a massive proponent for and against the relocation of these refugees into any Western country, each side having their reasons for accepting and rejecting the refugees which seek haven in their countries. Prime Minister Stefan Loefven is a major supporter of the countries which are accepting the refugees and is chiding the rest of Europe to take in more refugees, in order to keep up with the crisis, saying, “We’re in the middle of an international refugee crisis” and that “We also have a European crisis, but I would say that Europe’s crisis isn’t a refugee crisis, it’s a responsibility crisis”. He is on the same page as other supporters of countries like his, who also say that it is the responsibility of Europe to help these people in need. Sweden, under Loefven, is looking at increasing the amount of refugees which they will accept from 20,000-100,000, a 500% increase, in order to keep up with the ever-increasing amount of refugees seeking haven in European countries. These people are also claiming that they must save these people, of whom “women and children make up three quarters” according to the UNHCR (United Nations Refugee Agency), from their war-stricken countries.

There are, however, those who stand steadfast in their view that their countries should stand against the influx of immigrants and that Middle-Eastern countries should be doing more to help their neighbors. Some are saying that countries such as Sweden are ill-equipped to increase the amount of refugees that they take in, which are already expected to cost them 17 billion Kronor ($2 Billion in American dollars and 19 billion Kronor in 2016. Moreover, this crisis has already cost them 13 billion Kronor in 2014. Others are saying that neighboring countries like Turkey and Iraq, which neighbor Syria, should be doing more to help them. Turkey has taken in more than a million refugees since the beginning of the crisis, but has refused to give even one of them refugee status, and has them living in what some describe as horrible conditions in Turkish refugee camps, where most of them are living day-to-day on low-paying odd-jobs. One such refugee, Youssef, a 25 year old engineer trying to reach Greece through Turkey, told AFP that, “We demanded freedom during our revolution. And when we came here [Turkey]  we tried to live a normal life, but we worked like slaves. So we are trying to go to Europe to live like normal people”.  Still more, an increasing number of people are stating that the west should not be taking in more refugees as the majority of these people can’t even prove that they are refugees in the first place. The EU has actually estimated that three quarters of these refugees are young men and Eurostat, a European statistics agency, has estimated that most of these “Syrian refugees”- 79% – are not from Syria at all. This is important to this side of the argument as these Western countries have only agreed to take in Syrian refugees, running from the Syrian civil war and from IS.

Regardless of whether or not the West should be taking in these people, there is a genuine crisis happening in Syria and even Canada has been doing its part, but believing in a more careful approach towards taking in. Canada has taken in 1000 refugees this year so far, 857 of whom were dependent on private sponsors, such as churches and their families, to get them here.  Immigration Minister Chris Alexander has announced that Canada would be taking in an additional 10,000 Syrians and 3,000 Iraqis over the next three years under a plan laid out by the Conservative Government with Harper telling reporters, “It’s sometimes easy to forget that these are all individual lives. We are touched by this” when approached by reporters from the Toronto Star this month.

Written By: Stephen Haney-Hernandez

Originally Published: September 2015

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