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Recommended reading: Europe's Migration Crisis in Context: Why Now and What Next?
Ignacio Urquijo
20 January 2016
Natalia Banulescu-Bogdan and Susan Fratzke answered a series of relevant questions related to migration in the article ‘Europe’s Migration Crisis in Context: Why Now and What Next?’. The summing-up of the answers can be found below:
Economic Migrant or Refugee?
The authors of the article divide the composition of those arriving in the so-called ‘migration-crisis’ into three categories:
1) “Individuals whose protection claims are likely to be recognized by European authorities, such as Syrians and Eritreans.”
2) “Individuals fleeing instability or violence in their home countries, who may not qualify for refugee status but are still at risk for other reasons”, including Somalis and some Syrians.
3) “Migrants who feel compelled to leave their countries for largely economic reasons”, for example, Western Balkans and sub-Saharan nationals.
Despite this classification, the authors also notice that “individuals have complex and overlapping motivations for leaving their origin countries that defy simple categorization”. While “international law draws a bright line between refugees and other migrants”, this distinction is “much more nuanced in practice”. The authors use the example of the Roma coming from the Western Balkans, whose motivation can be indeed economic but who could have suffered discrimination in their origin countries. That’s why the authors report that “each arrival must receive an individual assessment of his or her claim for protection”.
Why Now?
The escalation of the arrivals at Europe’s Mediterranean shores during the last months can be attributed to “a confluence of intersecting push-and-pull factors”. Some of them were “simmering for years” and others are new. Among them:
• “The on-going violence and instability in origin countries that have both precipitated mass movements and made return impossible”. For instance, the Syrian civil war, which erupted in March 2011, and the political oppression in Eritrea.
• “The deterioration of conditions in countries of first asylum which has led some, including Jordan and Lebanon, to tighten their borders, limiting access to nearby safe havens for the displaced”. In Lebanon, for example, Syrians are now one quarter of the population of the whole country.
• “The continue lack of opportunities to work or enrol in school for most refugees, which is a major driver of onward movements”. More than “half of Syrians in Lebanon and one-sixth of refugees in Jordan are living in extreme poverty”.
• “The geopolitical changes that have closed off alternative destinations, such as Libya”, which used to be a “regional hub for migrant labor before the Arab Spring”.
• “The creative use of social media”, which enables ‘success’ stories “to spread instantaneously, along with tips on how to navigate the journey and access critical services upon arrival”.
• “Classic patterns of chain migration may also be responsible for some of the new flows, as settled migrants reunify with family and friends”.
Why This Crisis Is So Difficult to Tackle?
Three primary factors can be found in the article as the responsible of limiting the system’s capacity respond:
1) “Existing approaches to protection have proven singularly unable to find solutions for long-term displaced populations”. The actual response has been criticized for “leaving refugees essentially ‘warehoused’ for years on end, their lives in limbo, with little focus on long-term, sustainable solutions.”
2) “The international community has failed to offer anything like meaningful burden-sharing to host countries in conflict regions, which care for the vast majority of the world’s refugees”. It is estimated that “86 per cent of refugees are hosted in the developing world”. For instance, “ninety per cent of the 4 million Syrians displaced outside their country’s borders are located in three countries: Turkey, Jordan, and Lebanon”.
3) The contradiction in the asylum system, which forces refugees to gain access to a state’s territory “in order to exercise their rights to claim asylum”, but at the same time, wealthy nations are undertaking “a large-scale effort to secure and ‘push out’ their borders”, such as visa and airline restrictions. As a result, “refugees are forced to rely on increasingly risky and dangerous routes, often requiring the use of smugglers, to gain entry to asylum systems in Europe and elsewhere”.
Source: http://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/europe-migration-crisis-context-why-now-and-what-next
Economic Migrant or Refugee?
The authors of the article divide the composition of those arriving in the so-called ‘migration-crisis’ into three categories:
1) “Individuals whose protection claims are likely to be recognized by European authorities, such as Syrians and Eritreans.”
2) “Individuals fleeing instability or violence in their home countries, who may not qualify for refugee status but are still at risk for other reasons”, including Somalis and some Syrians.
3) “Migrants who feel compelled to leave their countries for largely economic reasons”, for example, Western Balkans and sub-Saharan nationals.
Despite this classification, the authors also notice that “individuals have complex and overlapping motivations for leaving their origin countries that defy simple categorization”. While “international law draws a bright line between refugees and other migrants”, this distinction is “much more nuanced in practice”. The authors use the example of the Roma coming from the Western Balkans, whose motivation can be indeed economic but who could have suffered discrimination in their origin countries. That’s why the authors report that “each arrival must receive an individual assessment of his or her claim for protection”.
Why Now?
The escalation of the arrivals at Europe’s Mediterranean shores during the last months can be attributed to “a confluence of intersecting push-and-pull factors”. Some of them were “simmering for years” and others are new. Among them:
• “The on-going violence and instability in origin countries that have both precipitated mass movements and made return impossible”. For instance, the Syrian civil war, which erupted in March 2011, and the political oppression in Eritrea.
• “The deterioration of conditions in countries of first asylum which has led some, including Jordan and Lebanon, to tighten their borders, limiting access to nearby safe havens for the displaced”. In Lebanon, for example, Syrians are now one quarter of the population of the whole country.
• “The continue lack of opportunities to work or enrol in school for most refugees, which is a major driver of onward movements”. More than “half of Syrians in Lebanon and one-sixth of refugees in Jordan are living in extreme poverty”.
• “The geopolitical changes that have closed off alternative destinations, such as Libya”, which used to be a “regional hub for migrant labor before the Arab Spring”.
• “The creative use of social media”, which enables ‘success’ stories “to spread instantaneously, along with tips on how to navigate the journey and access critical services upon arrival”.
• “Classic patterns of chain migration may also be responsible for some of the new flows, as settled migrants reunify with family and friends”.
Why This Crisis Is So Difficult to Tackle?
Three primary factors can be found in the article as the responsible of limiting the system’s capacity respond:
1) “Existing approaches to protection have proven singularly unable to find solutions for long-term displaced populations”. The actual response has been criticized for “leaving refugees essentially ‘warehoused’ for years on end, their lives in limbo, with little focus on long-term, sustainable solutions.”
2) “The international community has failed to offer anything like meaningful burden-sharing to host countries in conflict regions, which care for the vast majority of the world’s refugees”. It is estimated that “86 per cent of refugees are hosted in the developing world”. For instance, “ninety per cent of the 4 million Syrians displaced outside their country’s borders are located in three countries: Turkey, Jordan, and Lebanon”.
3) The contradiction in the asylum system, which forces refugees to gain access to a state’s territory “in order to exercise their rights to claim asylum”, but at the same time, wealthy nations are undertaking “a large-scale effort to secure and ‘push out’ their borders”, such as visa and airline restrictions. As a result, “refugees are forced to rely on increasingly risky and dangerous routes, often requiring the use of smugglers, to gain entry to asylum systems in Europe and elsewhere”.
Source: http://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/europe-migration-crisis-context-why-now-and-what-next
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