Germany is facing difficulties in taking in more migrants, President Frank-Walter Steinmeier said on Wednesday.
“Germany, like Italy, is at the limit of its capacity,” Steinmeier said in an interview with Italian Newspaper Corriere della Sera, pointing out that Germany had received a third of all EU asylum requests in the first half of 2023.
The president acknowledged that both Italy and Germany had “heavy loads to bear” and called for a “fair distribution” of migratory burdens within Europe.
It is apparent that the asylum system is broken. Europe and North America need immigrants, but we need them to arrive in an organized, thoughtful manner that helps migrants integrate, get jobs, find affordable housing, and learn the local language. It takes lots of infrastructure to accommodate millions of extra people, which is why unrestrained migration just doesn’t work, for anyone. The problems of mass migration then become a flashpoint for the far right to take advantage of the population’s discontent.
But, instead of making legal immigration easy and productive, we pay companies like Frontex, who violate human rights, to keep everyone out. Human trafficking is only a business because we make it next to impossible for refugees to immigrate legally.
Illegal is the wrong adjective for asylum seekers, because the right of asylum explicitly states, that you do not have to do anything before arriving in the EU. There is no way of seeking asylum illegally.
Refugees which only exist because “first world countries” fouled up their homelands through political and industrial fuckery and made them unliveable.
You’re conflating asylum with immigration.
Almost all migrants call for asylum, and it’s then on the country to process it and evaluate if it is true. In that time, typically the asylum seeker will be able to stay. There is afaik no reason not to request asylum. So the two are very much linked in practice.
The migrant conundrum is only going to get worse as more and more places in the world become harder to live in. Climate change disasters bankrupt governments, record heatwaves crash worker productivity and raise societal tension, flooding destroys large swathes of previously usable housing, and social unrest follows, along with corruption and political volatility across the board.
And those people have to go somewhere.
Meanwhile, places that actually have resources and haven’t been hobbled yet by natural disasters and cultural upheaval - like Germany - just want to turn their backs, as if they don’t have anything to do with the problem and therefore have no responsibility for dealing with it.
Conservatives will never go for that
Maybe Europe shouldn’t have fucked up Africa and the US shouldn’t have fucked uo South America. You have to admit that there’s a certain karma to the situation, although unfortunately the poor and the migrants, as usual, get the worst of it.
Nah I don’t have to admit that there is any supernatural karma to the situation. I imagine that is you trying to rationalize a world that shows all evidence to be indifferent to human suffering.
Bad things happen to good people, bad people, and everyone in-between. Good things operate the same way. By acknowledging this we can be kind to people suffering because we know that it is at its core an unjust existence.
Asylum seekers are not migrants. Migrants can be turned away with no moral fault. Asylum seekers, on the other hand, seek asylum from danger. Turning them away means leaving them exposed to that danger. If we do so, while we’re doing more than fine financially, then that is a violation of basic morals and human decency.
While I agree with you, we also must recognize that there are limits to what can be done to help asylum seekers without breaking things and no longer being able to help anyone.
True but what metrics are being used to determine this?
True, its really catch 22
An asylum seeker should be equally happy about having a safe harbor in Germany or Portugal. They don’t all need to go to the same country.
I did not argue against that. I am absolutely in favor of discussing which countries should chip in how much.
** Looks towards Eastern Europe.
How many asylum seakers have you offered to share your housing with?
I’m paying taxes. Why do I need to house them in my home in particular?
Because taxes go to pay for a lot of other things, particularly for its citizens
Alright? Increase taxes on those who have more money than they could ever spend and then help those who need a tiny fraction of that to fucking survive. I really don’t see why you think there’s no solutions here.
Are all of your countries other problems solved? Increasing taxes on the rich somehow always turns into increasing taxes for everyone else. If you can pull it off, more power to you
There is an easy solution for this: Tax property instead of income.
They do this already in addition to US Federal income tax. Florida, as one example, has no state income tax, but has tangible personal property tax, real property tax, and sales tax.
Are all of your countries other problems solved?
Is there a requirement that a person can only solve a problem if they personally have zero other problems in their life?
somehow always turns into increasing taxes for everyone else.
Citation needed. Good luck with that because the exact opposite result is the norm.
What a stupid argument to make.
I don’t have to let another person (asylum seeking or not) into my personal private space to argue for them to have humane conditions.
What do you even want to say?
Oh look, the enlightened contrarian.
4 the past 5 years in my home. Two moms and two babies on two separate occasions. This of course doesn’t include my donations and volunteering at centers.
I am not sure you are aware of this but a private home is not a country.
It must be nice to be able to financially afford a home, let alone one large enough to house others. Not to mention donations and free time to volunteer. Always nice to see people well off that are still grounded.
Holy moving goalposts batman!
Here we go again. Fortunate Son blasts in the background
