u/archer_fan_420

For the longest time I held progressive left wing views on basically all topics, but more recently I have shifted right on immigration, or at the very least, on refugees and the asylum system.

I am a canadian, and I think generally speaking refugee claimants in Canada are largely reasonable and valid, and perhaps barring times of economic hardship, it is a GOOD thing to accept people fleeing from persecution.

Obviously I am not european so I don’t have a horse in the race. europeans feel free to say f off.

With that being said…

Refugees are (in theory) people fleeing persecution, people who would otherwise die or have their human rights violated in their respective countries based off of their identity or their beliefs.

The european right often gains popularity by framing refugee claimants, in particular migrants from the middle east, north africa and sub saharan africa as people who go to europe for “free handouts”, and they also frame them as committing lots of crime, such as murder and sexual assault.

A number of factors suggest to me that this isn’t far from the truth.

The boat crossings that are frequently on the news, and in refugee claimant camps, the demographics are overwhelmingly adult men.

I would counter this by considering if this is just selective media coverage, and if this is true, ie the boats are actually proportionally women and children and families, please let me know.

Otherwise…

In what world are ADULT MEN persecuted in their respective countries? In the middle east, and africa, societies are highly patriarchical, with women oftentimes as second class citizens.

There are boat crossings TO THE UK. And there are many refugees making their way to Germany

Boat crossings to the UK means that they are already in france. the boat crossings are from the english channel.

the fact that they are in france, and are trying to get into the UK, suggest to me that they are economic opportunists, trying to pursue better government benefits in the UK, because they are ALREADY in a safe country (France).

Unless I am misinformed, and they are actually sailing along the coast line to get there from africa, in which case, that is an even better argument that they’re being selective economic opportunists.

The same applies for Germany which has no coastline on the mediterranean. Refugees already have to pass through multiple safe countries to get there. the difference is that germany is much richer than italy or spain, or any county bordering the mediterranean.

People often say “immigrants are a net positive to a country, and they commit crime at a lower rate than natives”

This is objectively true… but this uses immigrants as a blanket category to apply to all immigrants as a whole.

when breaking it down by place or origin, immigrants from other developed nations, east/south-east asian immigrants especially, as well as south asian immigrants to the usa commit overwhelmingly less crime, a significantly lower amount rely on government benefits, etc this applies to not only immigrants but also refugees, as i understand a refugee and a non-refugee immigrant are different.

My belief is that this is because to immigrate to europe from those countries, it requires much more commitment and economic capital (ie by flying, securing proper visas).

On the other hand, statistics show that north african and sub saharan refugees overwhelmingly rely on the governments of various eu nations for benefits, much higher than the natives. they are also disproportionately commuting crime.

If these statistics are false and misleading, i am absolutely open to changing my mind in this regard.

to conclude; I am fully aware that i could be influenced by media with an incentive to demonize refugees and immigrants in general, and i have been mislead by false statistics, and if so please elaborate below.

thank you.

Bid before sleep

CMV: The (specifically) european right is correct about north african and sub saharan migrants/refugees crossing from the mediterranean