EU European migrant crisis - rolling deja vu edition

[Marduk]

Hundreds of Migrants Stranded in Mediterranean in Standoff Over Aid Ships (Published 2019)

Two rescue vessels carrying more than 500 migrants were in limbo on Monday, without a safe port willing to let them dock.

www.nytimes.com

In new migrant standoff, Italy's Salvini blocks two NGO boats

Migrants: Malta Refuses Refueling Ocean Viking Humanitarian Boat -

The successor of Aquarius, the Ocean Viking, chartered by SOS Mediterranean and Médecins sans Frontières, must rescue migrants off the coast of Europe. The

chb44.com

Italian Deputy PM hits out at Richard Gere's criticism over migrants

Italy's Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini has issued a stunning rebuke to American actor Richard Gere who criticised the country's refusal to let in more than 100 migrants who are stranded at sea.

www.dailymail.co.uk

Turkey Threatens to Suspend EU Migrant Deal

Turkey will cancel its migrant readmission agreement with the European Union as long as the bloc fails to deliver on its promise of visa-free travel for Turkish citizens in the EU, the country’s foreign minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said this week in a televised interview. “We will not wait on the...

greece.greekreporter.com

And the crisis continues, with headlines that make it clear that the crisis hasn't ended, it was just contained and transformed into a persistent issue.
Salvini's line is the same, mainstream media's line is the same, EU's line is the same, Erdogan keeps using his EU deal to close the eastern route as a leash to pull EU around in unrelated disputes, "humanitarian" NGOs with their "rescue" boats keep picking up migrants near the coasts of Libya, put there by local smugglers on as cheap as possible, engineless boats to put them in a danger that they will oh so conveniently need to be "rescued" from, and of course brought to an EU country because all the countries on the African side of the sea don't respect "human rights" enough, disregarding the facts that even Libya was apparently not too bad for the migrants to willingly enter in the first place, as they tend to not be its inhabitants.

The only thing that has changed over the recent years was Salvini getting into Italian government and entacting his hardline policy against the smuggling/rescue scheme, a policy which is being put under constant tests and pressure from the NGOs and some influential EU governments.
Malta's patience with this has also been tested in turn, as Salvini's refusal to allow the ferrying to Italy has made the NGO's use the "last resort" choice of Malta more often; Malta, being a densely populated island country of less than half a million people, is highly sensitive to the kind of numbers of people brought by the NGOs, and despite relative political tolerance of the scheme in general, its government would be forced to take drastic measures if it was to become a main offloading site. As such, the NGOs would prefer to use its convenient location as a logistical and R&R port, offloading migrants there only in exceptional cases. But the latter ones, due to Salvini's stance, were happening more often, pushing Malta to start blocking logistical support for the "rescue NGO" ships.

One of the most obvious questions that are not mentioned by the mainstream media is why NGO's registered in and ships flagged in distinctly non-Italian countries stubbornly insist on disembarking their contentious passengers in Italy specifically. I think it's a combination of logistics, and settinmg a political point that is vital to them - namely, Italy is the closest of the mainland EU locations by far, allowing much quicker turnaround between Libya and the disembarkation point, in turn allowing the NGO's with their relatively limited numbers to move many more migrants without using as much fuel, and with much faster turnaround time too - any time spent by one of their ships enroute to, say, France, means time not spent going back to Libya and grabbing more migrants. This, combined with all the humanitarian excuses for refusing any nearby African ports, clearly point at pressuring Italy, as if it's blockade is not broken by standoffs and EU pressure, the whole "rescue" scheme, with all its suspicions regarding its goals, benefactors and connections, would have to take a major cut in cost-effectivness, not to mention needing to put one of its reluctant political allies, like, say, France, as the replacement for Italy, certainly souring the relationship.

So, what do you think? What more could be done? Where is this crisis going, and when is it going to end, if at all?

 

[Big Steve]

Generally speaking, it's never going to end, in that you're always going to have people who want to move, or have to move in some cases, and will choose wealthier countries so they can have better lives. And it's going to require a lot of treasure either way: either accommodating them or finding ways to improve their countries of origin so they don't feel the need or desire to emigrate.

 

[GoldRanger]

At least some EU countries are finally blocking these boats.

 

[Scottty]

And it's going to require a lot of treasure either way: either accommodating them or finding ways to improve their countries of origin so they don't feel the need or desire to emigrate.

Those are not the only options. Far easier just to not let them in.

 

[LTR]

What countries are these NGO rescue ships operating from or under? Seems to make the most direct sense they should take in the migrants then.

 

[Flintsteel]

My big question is where are the NGOsb getting the money to operate from?

 

[Big Steve]

Those are not the only options. Far easier just to not let them in.

Then you've got to sink a lot of time, money, and effort into patrolling your coasts and finding and capturing those who get in anyway. And that's not going to end it. At the very best, with a lot of effort you might persuade some or even most to go for different places, but you'll always have them trying to come in.

 

[Scottty]

Then you've got to sink a lot of time, money, and effort into patrolling your coasts and finding and capturing those who get in anyway. And that's not going to end it. At the very best, with a lot of effort you might persuade some or even most to go for different places, but you'll always have them trying to come in.

Well, the immune response shouldn't stop at the skin. No welfare for them, for one thing. If they show up at a government office demanding hand-outs, they get arrested and deported.

 

[GoldRanger]

Then you've got to sink a lot of time, money, and effort into patrolling your coasts and finding and capturing those who get in anyway. And that's not going to end it. At the very best, with a lot of effort you might persuade some or even most to go for different places, but you'll always have them trying to come in.

That will end up less costly than radically changing your demographic balance, creating immense long-term cultural tensions, etc.

 

[Marduk]

Then you've got to sink a lot of time, money, and effort into patrolling your coasts and finding and capturing those who get in anyway. And that's not going to end it. At the very best, with a lot of effort you might persuade some or even most to go for different places, but you'll always have them trying to come in.

The thing is, it worked. It worked so well that the current shenanigans with "rescue boats" were developed to circumvent it. Back at the height of the crisis migrants would use larger vessels, usually old fishing boats (or anything else as those ran out) to transport migrants right to the Italian coast. But Italy and Frontex has become obsessed with catching those, slapping as much sanctions and punishments at everyone involved in controlling, commanding or owning these vessels, including fairly serious prison sentences for the crews, in addition to confiscating the vessels themselves.
It was poor business for the smugglers as cheap old small ships started to become a thing of the past and they had to pay serious money for effectively a single use vessel, the migrants could hardly afford their services anymore.
So the solution was to switch to the rescue based model, with large RHIBs and such, first getting as far as they could, but hey, outboard engines cost money too, so it eventually optimized further to the current model - smugglers bring them out to sea only as far as Libyan territorial waters go (and if the NGOs feel lucky enough, not even that far), and the rest of the way is handled by "legalized" ferries in form of "rescue boats" that have rescued these victims of totally non accidental maritime accidents.

Only Salvini is slowly managing to push some kind of legal sanctions against these NGOs, but unlike random criminals from North Africa they can defend themselves by shouting humanitarian slogans in the welcoming ears of northwestern EU governments. The cold fact is that without these, the smuggler's business model would have collapsed, and their services would become too expensive for many of the migrants that can still afford them.
Yes, in the end the raw numbers are highly influenced by the financial setup of the smuggling organizations on their side of the Med, and that in turn is dependent on how much is the EU going to do to make their operations harder. Sure, it won't stop all the smuggling, but it can raise the costs so much that for vast majority it becomes infeasible, in turn taking away the economies of scale from the smuggling business, causing further price rise, and in the end collapse of the whole route to insignificant numbers.

Generally speaking, it's never going to end, in that you're always going to have people who want to move, or have to move in some cases, and will choose wealthier countries so they can have better lives. And it's going to require a lot of treasure either way: either accommodating them or finding ways to improve their countries of origin so they don't feel the need or desire to emigrate.

No amount of help is going to do that, it's just impossible to drag sovereign countries kicking and screaming into having policies that will ensure order, safety, rule of law and prosperity, nevermind a genrous welfare state that is the ultimate reward these migrants get in their destinations of choice. That's why their "want" needs to be secondary, and said wealthier countries need to assert their interests over that by limiting the ability to move to them if they don't want to be increasingly crushed by this burden - which is a term used even by the pro-migration EU governments, at least when it comes to arguing for mandatory relocation of the migrants

What countries are these NGO rescue ships operating from or under? Seems to make the most direct sense they should take in the migrants then.

The two mentioned ones are from France and Spain, another recent one was Germany. "Flags of convenience" seem to have disappeared from these vessels with Salvini's crackdown. The NGOs themselves also tend to be registered in these same countries. Due to meaningful influence of progressive left in these countries and even other, more centrist parties sticking to the "rescue" narrative and catering to such interests, so far these don't seem too willing to crack down on this.

 

[Edgeplay_cgo]

My big question is where are the NGOsb getting the money to operate from?

From powers, both private and governmental with a motive to disrupt and destroy Western civilization. This is an existential threat.

 

[GoldRanger]

The motive may also not necessarily be nefarious (i.e. "destroy western civilization") it can also be a "the road to hell is paved with good intentions" situation. "Trying to save the poor by giving them a better life" is a great slogan that can be used to collect seriously large sums of money as donations, without thinking about the longer term implications of acting that way.

 

[Edgeplay_cgo]

The motive may also not necessarily be nefarious (i.e. "destroy western civilization") it can also be a "the road to hell is paved with good intentions" situation. "Trying to save the poor by giving them a better life" is a great slogan that can be used to collect seriously large sums of money as donations, without thinking about the longer term implications of acting that way.

I'll buy that, but frankly don't care to differentiate between the two. Both need to be defeated, or we are looking at Eurabia, and a probable European - Eurabian land war.

 

[Navarro]

That will end up less costly than radically changing your demographic balance, creating immense long-term cultural tensions, etc.

Not only does moving them to refugee camps in foreign countries prevent the creation of long-term cultural tensions, doing so will allow us to help more of them at a lower cost.

 

[The Original Sixth]

So, what do you think? What more could be done? Where is this crisis going, and when is it going to end, if at all?

What more can be done?

The situation that the EU has found itself in, is that they are either incapable of handling the current issues that plague Europe or unwilling. Very possibly both. The fears of mass immigration sparked a strong upwind in nationalist groups, along with inequality in economics, the bailouts, the surging Russia, and various other issues. Those major cracks have gone as far back as at least 08 and instead of taking the painful measures they needed to responsibly fix the situation, if indeed it could be fixed at all, were instead ignored for the past three years by focusing on the Brits.

Things will get worse. Even if their is a downtick in immigration in the short-term, it will not last. As the USA withdraws from the world order, the low food production costs and safe transportation will leave as well. Those African nations with the huge population booms were only able to have them because of that system. Now they will have nowhere to go. Except Europe. Which has a dwindling demographic, socialist programs, and a long shoreline they can make a run for. The European governments will be torn between trying to replace their dwindling demographics with protecting what they are as a people, because there is no way their culture will survive being made a minority within their own borders. And people have begun to realize that the immigrants that move to their countries haven't integrated, between poor immigration policies of the hosting nation and the immigrants who only wanted economic benefits, not social ones.

Worse, because some of these immigrants are already in these countries, they may side with their incoming relatives rather than their hosting nations. And if they can vote, then they're their own voter market. I can't say that it will be enough to change the course of what happens, but it may make it more painful. It will get so bad, we may even see bloodshed. Because when you're being overrun, you will probably shoot to protect what is yours. And when you have no food, you will choose the possible death of getting shot to the assured death of starving.

I don't know how well the EU can survive the situation in which Spanish or Italian military forces use live rounds to defend their borders. The old rules of civilians being sacred doesn't apply when large swaths of a neighboring population is throwing itself at your borders in order to obtain its resources. I don't see a choice. The Europeans must shoot. The Africans must get food.

It will probably end in bloodshed and starvation.

 

[Marduk]

I don't know how well the EU can survive the situation in which Spanish or Italian military forces use live rounds to defend their borders. The old rules of civilians being sacred doesn't apply when large swaths of a neighboring population is throwing itself at your borders in order to obtain its resources. I don't see a choice. The Europeans must shoot. The Africans must get food.

It will probably end in bloodshed and starvation.

For starters Europeans must stop giving free shit to everyone from far away enough who can show up and say the word "asylum". That's what is driving the current migration waves, not need to get food. Starving people are not very good at moving around to a coast half a continent away to then try their hand at illegal immigration. As things stand, people from terribly run third world countries are finding out that there is this little trick with which they can have access to top tier public services and more, and all they have to do to get them is... show up in the right place and tell the right story!
Pull factors is where a lot can be done, and unlike push factors, it does not require asking, begging, bribing or threatening foreign governments to do them a favor. Unfortunately, that's also where the main problem with EU countries lie. The ideological mire that many EU national establishments are stuck in. They would much rather beg Turkey or Morocco to do the "dirty" work of telling "no" to poor people from afar than do it themselves, or even let more willing EU members do it (because their local bleeding hearts would still demand that they do something about such mean treatment of poor little asylum seekers).

 

[The Original Sixth]

For starters Europeans must stop giving free shit to everyone from far away enough who can show up and say the word "asylum". That's what is driving the current migration waves, not need to get food.

Yes, I said that in the coming future, the famine in Africa will drive migration north.

Starving people are not very good at moving around to a coast half a continent away to then try their hand at illegal immigration. As things stand, people from terribly run third world countries are finding out that there is this little trick with which they can have access to top tier public services and more, and all they have to do to get them is... show up in the right place and tell the right story!

People will leave begin to leave when food prices skyrocket, not when they're so emancipated they can't move. It will get worse as the famine gets worse. The local governments, thick as they may be, will suddenly snap those socialist benefits damn quick when the USA withdraws and the hungry hordes start beating on their doors.

The EU does this right now because the powerful want to look charitable to the masses and the masses have deluded themselves into thinking that a first world nation can solve the world's problems. I've seen it personally before. A co-worker I knew has deluded himself into believing that simply because the USA is the world's most powerful military, that it can provide immediate, clean, and fully functioning detention centers for illegal migrants on the southern border after a vicious spike in immigrating families.

For the USA, we can afford some degree of stupidity. Our geography gives us a much greater margin of error. So the US population at large can be less aware. For Europe, that is not the case. Europe has to an extent, deluded itself into thinking that it's the United States, because they were our allies and had a rival GDP. They aren't. And it will cost them.

Pull factors is where a lot can be done, and unlike push factors, it does not require asking, begging, bribing or threatening foreign governments to do them a favor. Unfortunately, that's also where the main problem with EU countries lie. The ideological mire that many EU national establishments are stuck in. They would much rather beg Turkey or Morocco to do the "dirty" work of telling "no" to poor people from afar than do it themselves, or even let more willing EU members do it (because their local bleeding hearts would still demand that they do something about such mean treatment of poor little asylum seekers).

Having Turkey step in was actually a good idea. Creating a boundary away from your border is always a good thing. The problem that the EU has, is not that they won't slam the doors shut when the horde comes, it's that they encouraged the horde to come at all.

 

[Culsu]

Regarding the issue of costs: Frontex's annual budget in 2018 was 320 million Euros, up from 140 million in 2015. In contrast, to accomodate refugees/illegal immigrants, Germany's federal budget was taxed with 21.4 billion Euros in the same time (2018). And that's just the federal budget (with even more being done and spent on the state and communal level, but no definitive numbers for those exist - probably intentionally), and just Germany. Even rightly assuming that Germany takes in the overall brunt of the newcomers it's not unreasonable to assume the annual costs of accomodating them, EU-wide, is clearly in excess of 50 billion Euros. Border security most certainly looks like a more sensible approach.

 

[Marduk]

Yes, I said that in the coming future, the famine in Africa will drive migration north.

As i said, that, ironically, would hardly be that bad. Random starving people with no preparation would not do a great job crossing the damn Sahara, getting to smugglers in Libya and paying them. Even if many would try, most would not get far. In such a scenario the middle/upper class would probably flood smuggling routes to capacity. A somewhat limited, organized and tolerated stream may be the worst realistic scenario. Many migrants in fact spend up to few years on the journey, staying for some time in middle income countries like Lebanon or Turkey, earning money in more or less legal means for the next leg of the journey as they go.

People will leave begin to leave when food prices skyrocket, not when they're so emancipated they can't move. It will get worse as the famine gets worse. The local governments, thick as they may be, will suddenly snap those socialist benefits damn quick when the USA withdraws and the hungry hordes start beating on their doors.

That's part of my point. If they can't pay for food, how will they pay few thousand bucks at least for a smuggler?

The EU does this right now because the powerful want to look charitable to the masses and the masses have deluded themselves into thinking that a first world nation can solve the world's problems.

Replace masses with media, "special snowflake" classes, NGO activists and international bureaucrats. The masses aren't too enthusiastic despite being bombarded with propaganda by the aforementioned.

I've seen it personally before. A co-worker I knew has deluded himself into believing that simply because the USA is the world's most powerful military, that it can provide immediate, clean, and fully functioning detention centers for illegal migrants on the southern border after a vicious spike in immigrating families.

That's illustrative of one of the main problems with the debate. We are dealing with a criminal business, bleeding hearts want to be nice and make exceptions for children, families etc...
Criminals love to exploit such weaknesses.
Make it so illegals with children have to be released into the country?
Congratulations, now you have made it clear to all of them that they need to arrange a child for themselves, or have one of the criminals assisting with their journey arrange some kind of a child for them to bring along, like if someone's kid was a valid replacement for a passport, or even better - after all, a passport would make it easier to deport them, someone's kid, quite the opposite. No good intention will be left unabused.
Give special protections and favors to "unaccompanied minors"? Great, now every 20 something (or if they are feeling particularly cocky, 30 something) Syrian jihadi in need of a vacation is going to say he's totally just 16.

For the USA, we can afford some degree of stupidity. Our geography gives us a much greater margin of error. So the US population at large can be less aware. For Europe, that is not the case. Europe has to an extent, deluded itself into thinking that it's the United States, because they were our allies and had a rival GDP. They aren't. And it will cost them.

With the pull factor being so far the biggest issue, i think sufficient pull factors can easily transcend geographical obstacles, for the same reasons why the migrants are moving to a different continent rather than stay in the richer countries of Africa.

The Latest: Group of 116 Africans arrested at border

More than 500 migrants from African nations, including Angola, Cameroon and the Republic of Congo have been apprehended at the Del Rio border patrol sector of the U.S.-Mexico border since May 30, according to U.S. Customs and Border Patrol.

www.foxnews.com

They would find a way to get to even Australia if a sufficiently leftist government was waiting there to welcome them generously enough.

Having Turkey step in was actually a good idea. Creating a boundary away from your border is always a good thing. The problem that the EU has, is not that they won't slam the doors shut when the horde comes, it's that they encouraged the horde to come at all.

Relying on Turkey for it is a weakness, and Erdogan is someone willing to exploit such. So it's just turning one problem into another.

 

[Edgeplay_cgo]

Not only does moving them to refugee camps in foreign countries prevent the creation of long-term cultural tensions, doing so will allow us to help more of them at a lower cost.

I have advocated refugee camps, but they have several problems. Now, I'm assuming we're both talking about high end refugee housing, not a sea of cinder block hovels and tarpaper shacks, like we saw in Lebanon and similar areas, or even wooden barracks like our old Nisei camps. But those will be the photos the proponents of unlimited, uncontrolled immigration. That will be difficult to overcome, as the press will show Dachau pictures and scream of tarpaper shacks, cinder block hovels, and typhus. The truth will help us little.

The other problem will be control of the camps. They will need to be aggressively policed by a tough, uncompromising police force that will instantly be unpopular, as they are being policed by "foreigners" that they automatically dislike. As an example, I'll cite the Chicago projects like Cabrini Green and Ida B Wells, even down to the cops being "foreign." They quickly became gang-run hellholes of crime.

They quickly descended into maintenance nightmares, partially because tenants are typically careless of government housing and sufficient maintenance funds are never allocated. I think it's predictable that refugee camps will fare the same, and probably more quickly.

A major effort must be expended on source interdiction. Personally, I think a lot could be accomplished by sinking the refugee vessels at sea, but that is not likely to be tolerated. But I bet it would dry up the flow, quickly. Seizing the "rescue" vessels and imprisoning the crews for decades would help a lot.

It's going to be a long struggle. It is war.