# European immigration debate **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [August 28, 2015, 1:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/european-immigration-debate/729171 "2015-08-28T13:58:49Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![ryu238](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/cdc98d/32.png) [@ryu238](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ryu238)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2015, 1:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/european-immigration-debate/729171/1 "2015-08-28T13:58:49Z")
[http://www.donotlink.com/ghj3](http://www.donotlink.com/ghj3) Someone made this picture to attack immigrants heading into Europe…is there any truth to it? ---
**Author:** ![andros](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e480ec/32.png) [@andros](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/andros)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2015, 2:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/european-immigration-debate/729171/2 "2015-08-28T14:10:59Z")
No. Why are you posting shit from Stormfront? ---
**Author:** ![ryu238](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/cdc98d/32.png) [@ryu238](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ryu238)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2015, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/european-immigration-debate/729171/3 "2015-08-28T14:40:18Z")
It’s not from storefront. I am trying to debunk it. Also can you explain why it’s wrong? ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2015, 2:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/european-immigration-debate/729171/4 "2015-08-28T14:43:32Z")
> [@ryu238](#): > > It’s not from storefront. I am trying to debunk it. > Also can you explain why it’s wrong? Why don’t you explain why it’s right? You’re the one who posted it. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2015, 2:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/european-immigration-debate/729171/5 "2015-08-28T14:49:30Z")
It seems that the site the OP is using uses a [donotlink.com](http://donotlink.com) tool that has branded that link as “nonsense” and indeed it goes to stormfront, not willing to give them any traffic, so thank you donotlink! ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2015, 2:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/european-immigration-debate/729171/6 "2015-08-28T14:51:57Z")
> [@ryu238](#): > > [Magazine d'informations et actualités sur la technologie - Do Not Link !](http://www.donotlink.com/ghj3) > Someone made this picture to attack immigrants heading into Europe…is there any truth to it? I think you need a bit more meat behind whatever it is you want to debate. If it’s that there are a ton of people on the borders of the EU trying to gain asylum and being stopped (or overwhelmed) then that’s true enough. Here is a BBC article talking about some of the issues: > [@](#): > > Why is EU struggling with migrants and asylum? > > Some 2,500 migrants have drowned in the Mediterranean this year as overcrowded boats head for the coasts of Greece and Italy. > > The flow of desperate migrants from Syria and North Africa hoping to reach Europe is already much higher than in the same period in 2014. > > Germany, which receives by far the most asylum applications in the EU, is expecting 800,000 refugees to arrive this year. > [@](#): > > How big is the migration challenge affecting Europe now? > > The number of migrants reaching Europe by boat has risen dramatically this year, compared with the same period in 2014. The number arriving in Greece, in particular, has soared. > > The EU’s border agency said that almost 50,000 migrants had arrived on the Greek islands in July alone, most of them Syrians. > > The number of migrants reaching Greece by sea had reached 158,000 by mid-August, according to the UN, overtaking the 90,000 who arrived in Italy by sea. > > The majority heading for Greece via the eastern Mediterranean route take the relatively short voyage from the Turkish mainland to the islands of Kos, Chios, Lesvos and Samos. There are some charts and graphs in there that about where the immigrants are coming from, what’s stopping them and some of the other issues the EU is facing. Perhaps read the article or one like it, figure out what it is you actually want to debate and then come back and post some meat. ---
**Author:** ![Memnon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f1d935/32.png) [@Memnon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Memnon)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2015, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/european-immigration-debate/729171/7 "2015-08-28T14:52:32Z")
Most refugees fleeing Syria do, indeed, end up somewhere between Syria and Germany. Those that end up in Germany are a small percentage of the total, and typically have a good reason to head there (i.e. they have family or connections there, or they have skills which they have reason to believe will benefit them there). But really, stuff from Stormfront debunks itself. It’s _Stormfront_. If it wasn’t bullshit they wouldn’t put it out there in the first place. ---
**Author:** ![Stoneburg](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/df705f/32.png) [@Stoneburg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stoneburg)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2015, 2:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/european-immigration-debate/729171/8 "2015-08-28T14:56:46Z")
There’s obviously a fairly large influx of refugees to Europe with all the wars going on in the middle east, and there is a problem with different countries in the EU having very different policies regarding refugees. Some countries are very restrictive and others are much more liberal, this is one of the factors that leads to an imbalance in the accepting of these people. Germany is the country that has absorbed most people by far, but it also has the biggest population in EU. Sweden is second on the list even though having a rather small population. So depending on whether you use absolute or relative numbers, those two countries are the one who are bearing the brunt of this. France and the UK who are close to Germany in size and population only absorb a fraction of the numbers. This is leading to an upsurge for populist anti-immigration parties in these countries, and obviously a lot of nasty propaganda for the fringe extremists. Looking at it from a refugee perspective it makes a lot of sense to skip past the nations like Turkey, Greece and Italy who all have harsh anti-refugee policies and weak economies, and instead go for more stable countries like Germany and Sweden. But for the paranoid simpletons on the fringe this is of course interpreted as some sort of “invasion” or “muslim takeover”. It’s just people fleeing a war and trying to make rational choices for themselves and their families. ---
**Author:** ![ryu238](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/cdc98d/32.png) [@ryu238](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ryu238)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2015, 3:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/european-immigration-debate/729171/9 "2015-08-28T15:20:17Z")
> [@XT](#): > > I think you need a bit more meat behind whatever it is you want to debate. If it’s that there are a ton of people on the borders of the EU trying to gain asylum and being stopped (or overwhelmed) then that’s true enough. Here is a BBC article talking about some of the issues: > > There are some charts and graphs in there that about where the immigrants are coming from, what’s stopping them and some of the other issues the EU is facing. Perhaps read the article or one like it, figure out what it is you actually want to debate and then come back and post some meat. The point of the graph is that immigrants are fleeing war torn countries…And ignoring other nations that aren’t war torn towards nations with good benefits… ---
**Author:** ![PatrickLondon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/patricklondon/32/4422_2.png) [@PatrickLondon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatrickLondon)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2015, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/european-immigration-debate/729171/10 "2015-08-28T15:26:40Z")
> [@ryu238](#): > > The point of the graph is that immigrants are fleeing war torn countries…And ignoring other nations that aren’t war torn towards nations with good benefits… Or towards nations where they may already have connections, and a better prospect of employment, rather than countries struggling with their own economic problems and little or no experience of absorbing either refugees or immigrants. ---
**Author:** ![Stoneburg](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/df705f/32.png) [@Stoneburg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stoneburg)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2015, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/european-immigration-debate/729171/11 "2015-08-28T15:28:03Z")
> [@Tithonus](#): > > Most refugees fleeing Syria do, indeed, end up somewhere between Syria and Germany. Those that end up in Germany are a small percentage of the total, and typically have a good reason to head there (i.e. they have family or connections there, or they have skills which they have reason to believe will benefit them there). > > But really, stuff from Stormfront debunks itself. It’s _Stormfront_. If it wasn’t bullshit they wouldn’t put it out there in the first place. Actually it is not a small percentage at all, Germany has received about a third of the total number of refugees and way more than any other nation. It is a real political problem that the amount of responsibility that the different countries share is so imbalanced. Basically the top two or three nations when it comes to receiving absorb as much as the rest of the countries do together. Here’s the stats: [http://appsso.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/nui/show.do](http://appsso.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/nui/show.do) ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2015, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/european-immigration-debate/729171/12 "2015-08-28T15:28:45Z")
> [@ryu238](#): > > The point of the graph is that immigrants are fleeing war torn countries…And ignoring other nations that aren’t war torn towards nations with good benefits… Ok, well then that is incorrect. Many of the states that border the EU don’t have open immigration policies. Even some of the EU states don’t have as open of policies and set strict limits on the numbers of people able to seek asylum. A lot of the folks fleeing their various war torn states are trying to gain asylum in EU states that DO have open immigration policies (such as Germany). Many are being stopped in those border states that aren’t even allowing them to pass through. The chart you linked to ignores the reality of whether or not states allow immigration, asylum or even people to pass through in many cases, so can be dismissed as horseshit. Was there anything else you wanted to talk about on this subject? ---
**Author:** ![ryu238](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/cdc98d/32.png) [@ryu238](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ryu238)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2015, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/european-immigration-debate/729171/13 "2015-08-28T15:30:17Z")
> [@Stoneburg](#): > > Looking at it from a refugee perspective it makes a lot of sense to skip past the nations like Turkey, Greece and Italy who all have harsh anti-refugee policies and weak economies, and instead go for more stable countries like Germany and Sweden. But for the paranoid simpletons on the fringe this is of course interpreted as some sort of “invasion” or “muslim takeover”. It’s just people fleeing a war and trying to make rational choices for themselves and their families. Thanks. Apparently Nazis think no war equals good place to settle. ---
**Author:** ![up\_the\_junction](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/f1d935/32.png) [@up\_the\_junction](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/up_the_junction)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2015, 3:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/european-immigration-debate/729171/14 "2015-08-28T15:33:14Z")
So the OP - a new poster - has started three threads so far: > [@](#): > > Blacks commit more crimes? > South Africa who does the land belong to? Natives Land Act of 1913 > European immigration debate I dunno, if you look real hard maybe someone better than me can detect a theme. ---
**Author:** ![ryu238](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/cdc98d/32.png) [@ryu238](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ryu238)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2015, 3:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/european-immigration-debate/729171/15 "2015-08-28T15:44:53Z")
> [@XT](#): > > Ok, well then that is incorrect. Many of the states that border the EU don’t have open immigration policies. Even some of the EU states don’t have as open of policies and set strict limits on the numbers of people able to seek asylum. A lot of the folks fleeing their various war torn states are trying to gain asylum in EU states that DO have open immigration policies (such as Germany). Many are being stopped in those border states that aren’t even allowing them to pass through. The chart you linked to ignores the reality of whether or not states allow immigration, asylum or even people to pass through in many cases, so can be dismissed as horseshit. > > Was there anything else you wanted to talk about on this subject? Thanks and yeah I do. Nazis like to blame high immigration for rape in Sweden. Fortunately I came across this: [https://www.quora.com/Why-are-there-high-rape-crimes-in-Sweden-Norway-and-Denmark-compared-to-the-rest-of-the-world](https://www.quora.com/Why-are-there-high-rape-crimes-in-Sweden-Norway-and-Denmark-compared-to-the-rest-of-the-world) > [@](#): > > For every crime (possibly except murder), the number of reported incidents is not the same as the number of incidents. Obviously, some reports may be false, and this may differ from culture to culture and individual to individual. Even if we neglect that, there is also the rate of reporting, and this can vary widely. People will be far less likely to report a crime that more hostile the authorities are to people and the less seriously they take reports. Dismissal of reports of sexual battery are commonplace, and they will also differ significantly from culture to culture. > > In passing, let’s note that rape is usually defined legally in a sexist way, as something that can only happen to women. A lot of places, such as most of the United States, have adopted less sexist or non-sexist sexual battery statuses. This doesn’t completely solve the problem, though, as various agencies such as rape hotlines, even in states that have had non-sexist sexual battery laws for decades, tend to use the old-fashioned definition of rape. This could be controlled for by declaring simply that one does not care about male victims, which is commonplace. Even if one agree to this, the other problems make getting accurate numbers practically impossible. > > A much better way of getting crime statistics is victimization surveys. (They do, however, require the victims not to be dead, as in murder, but then at least there is a body that can be difficult to ignore.) These have their problems as well, but the problems are methodological, and very smart researchers can do a lot about them. They will also, however, differ from culture to culture, based on patterns of communication in the cultures. For example, a culture with near-universal phone service may give different results than one without. A common way to deal with this is to try to use a scientific random sample, but this requires being able more-or-less accurately to guess what other characteristics of populations would be likely to affect the measurement. Very large samples are also required. Whether a study is done for various cultures depends heavily on funding of and interest by researchers, which is also highly variable. > > There are two kinds of studies we have that give the best pictures: > > Large, international crime victims surveys, such as the ICVS - International Crime Victims Survey > National crime reports for large rich countries, such as the United States and Canada, through national police forces (FBI, RCMP). > > The methodologies of these two kinds of studies differ, but there’s a heuristic in science, that if different methodologies produce the same results, the results are more likely to be correct. > > When you do this for the two categories above, two patterns emerge. Sexual crimes in general go way up under two conditions: > > A large military presence > The further one gets North in the Northern Hemisphere > > Number 1 is easy to understand, as lots of aggressive and violent crimes go up with a high military presence. Despite what many in the military say about honor and the like, there is a social cost to training large numbers of people to kill others. > > Number 2 is a bit trickier to understand. Perhaps the cold or lack of sunlight have an emotional effect on people. Perhaps it’s an artifact of spending more time indoors with each other (which incidentally is the reason for the spread of colds in the winter, not the actual cold, which would normally reduce the spread of airborne infections). Maybe it even has something to do with the fact that sexual maturation is significantly faster the closer one gets to the tropics. Whatever it is, it seems to hold, and Sweden is pretty far North. > > (Note that I’m not giving references for this. They are easily found on the web. I used to provide links, but it did not result my desired behavior, which is for people to look up their own stuff and try to show that I am wrong. That’s the kind of thing that delights scientists [we’re perverse]. However, they are easy to find in Google, and I hope that a few people will get pissed off at me for this answer and look some up, adding value to the discussion.) Interesting, but does it hold water? ---
**Author:** ![ryu238](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/cdc98d/32.png) [@ryu238](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ryu238)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2015, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/european-immigration-debate/729171/16 "2015-08-28T15:47:09Z")
> [@up\_the\_junction](#): > > So the OP - a new poster - has started three threads so far: > I dunno, if you look real hard maybe someone better than me can detect a theme. I swear if accusations that I am JAQing off start… ---
**Author:** ![Stoneburg](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/df705f/32.png) [@Stoneburg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stoneburg)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2015, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/european-immigration-debate/729171/17 "2015-08-28T15:54:31Z")
> [@ryu238](#): > > Thanks and yeah I do. > Nazis like to blame high immigration for rape in Sweden. > Fortunately I came across this: [https://www.quora.com/Why-are-there-high-rape-crimes-in-Sweden-Norway-and-Denmark-compared-to-the-rest-of-the-world](https://www.quora.com/Why-are-there-high-rape-crimes-in-Sweden-Norway-and-Denmark-compared-to-the-rest-of-the-world) > Interesting, but does it hold water? No it does not. The reason the rape statistics are skewed is from what I understand because of the way these things are measured, as well as Sweden having a (fortunately) high rate of these crimes being reported. When I looked into this I found out that in Sweden, if a woman is raped multiple times by a single person, that is reported as multiple rapes, and this apparently isn’t the standard internationally. Since most cases of rape happen within existing relationship (I think only like 10% are perpetrated by “strangers”) this is fairly common and would lead to a very big increase in the statistics. Immigrants do seem to be over represented in this statistic but nowhere near to the extent that the anti-immigration populists would have us believe. It’s still problematic, and I for one am not very fond of the view of women that some of the immigrant groups have as a cultural baggage. Then again, I’m not really fond of any cultural baggage at all. ---
**Author:** ![ryu238](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/cdc98d/32.png) [@ryu238](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ryu238)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2015, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/european-immigration-debate/729171/18 "2015-08-28T15:58:21Z")
Interesting…what are the real numbers then? ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2015, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/european-immigration-debate/729171/19 "2015-08-28T17:00:04Z")
> [@ryu238](#): > > I swear if accusations that I am JAQing off start… So the only reason you keep bringing up what the Nazis say is that you’re desperately trying to find some way to refute those handsome devils, but it’s so hard because they’re so convincing? ---
**Author:** ![Grim\_Render](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a87d85/32.png) [@Grim\_Render](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grim_Render)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2015, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/european-immigration-debate/729171/20 "2015-08-28T17:11:21Z")
> [@ryu238](#): > > Interesting, but does it hold water? Its bull, and it should be obvious that its bull. While rates in Alaska are very high, compare with Canada, Norway, Finland, Iceland etc. > [@Stoneburg](#): > > Immigrants do seem to be over represented in this statistic but nowhere near to the extent that the anti-immigration populists would have us believe. It’s still problematic, and I for one am not very fond of the view of women that some of the immigrant groups have as a cultural baggage. Then again, I’m not really fond of any cultural baggage at all. I seem to remember a debate about the notion that all the “stranger rapes” in Norway was committed by immigrants. I remember calculation that even if this was correct, immigrants in Norway would still have a lower rate of rapes than Americans. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/european-immigration-debate/729171.md?page=2)