[Exofunctor]

Yes, you're right; European politics has fallen victim to ridiculous notions of ancestral guilt. Is it any wonder that people who had no involvement in something that happened hundreds of years ago are unhappy that they're being punished for it?

> European unity is about more than free trade.

You're right again, which is why it's insane to drive a wedge between Europeans with politically and socially untenable forced immigration.

[erispoe]

Just because you say it's "socially untenable forced immigration" does not make it so. You have no evidence that it is, indeed, untenable. Rants from your "expat friends" are not evidence, they are anecdotes.

Germany has been accepting much more immigrant refugees than other European countries, out of moral duty but also out of economic interest. Germany has had pro-immigration programs for years before that, especially after the great recession, because the country has a deficit of young working-age people to contribute to their economy.

Some refugees have committed crimes and offenses, as it is likely to happen from any large group of people. I have yet to see any evidence that they do it in higher proportion that european-born population.

You can take any anecdote and turn it into fear-mongering. Before we had refugees, romani people were the target of choice, before that, south-europeans. Nationalists have always found a convenient scapegoat.

And by the way, there is no evidence that immigration, even mass choc-wave immigration, has adverse effects on the economy of a country.

[Yetanfou]

   Just because you say it's "socially untenable forced immigration"
   does not make it so. You have no evidence that it is, indeed, untenable.

Have a look around the suburbs of [Sweden] Stockholm, the city of Malmö, some of the suburbs of Göteborg or [France] the banlieux of Paris to get a view on what the original poster meant. There is no need for 'rants from "expat friends"' to form an opinion on the situation which has developed due to untenable migration.

Also, what do you mean by 'immigrant refugees'? There is no such thing as an 'immigrant refugee', people either come as refugee or as immigrant. You can claim that refugees are by definition immigrants. Objectively speaking this is true as they migrated from another country, but in the context of the discussion on migration it only serves to muddle the view as refugees have a special status, guaranteed by international conventions, whereas immigrants do not have this claim. This is an important distinction due to the fact that many immigrants (without valid claims of refuge) came along with the refugees from the war in Syria and Iraq. In some countries - Sweden being a good example - the majority of those claiming asylum fall under this category and as such did not have valid reasons for asylum. The insistence on grouping these different categories together only serves to erode the public support for true asylum seekers as the number of people 'hitching a ride' on the crisis quickly strains the capacity of a country to take up (true) refugees to the breaking point (viz. Sweden, again). Sweden has now 'closed its borders' (in theory, at least, in practice it still takes up around 50.000 per year).

[Yetanfou]

   I have yet to see any evidence that they do it in higher 
   proportion that european-born population.

Evidence is available in abundance for those willing to look for it. Here is an often-discussed publication from the Swedish "Crime-prevention council" on the subject:

https://www.bra.se/bra/publikationer/arkiv/publikationer/200...

https://www.bra.se/download/18.cba82f7130f475a2f1800012697/1...

Similar publications are available from other countries, eg. The Netherlands:

https://www.cbs.nl/NR/rdonlyres/FA26E32C-250B-4D1D-B3B9-3508...

I'm a migrant myself (from the Netherlands to Sweden) so this thing is interesting to me. If you read these reports you'll soon find out that it is not simply the fact that someone migrates from country A to country B which makes him or her more likely to commit crimes. A simple look at the statistics shows that immigrants from certain regions to both Sweden and the Netherlands are actually underrepresented in crime statistics, this goes for people from eg. China and Japan. People who come from eg. north-African and middle-eastern countries are over-represented. Over- or under-representation in crime statistics is more a factor of culture and cultural differences than it is a simple factor of origin.

[vacri]

Hundreds of years ago? Decolonialisation was still going strong in the 1960s, with some last vestiges as late as the 1980s.

> they're being punished for it?

This is such a childish view. Recognising that you've benefitted from the suffering of others and wanting to share back some of those benefits is not "punishment".