[_zoltan_]

that was such a self inflicted wound that Europe, and Germany, did to itself. No wonder people are voting AfD.

and for the downvoters: these are facts. this is what the politician in Europe campaigned with, built platforms on and said for everything. "We'll get engineers, and doctors! Lots of workers!" Fast forward 5 years... How's the Willkommenkultur going you ask? Look at AfD. Look recently at the 10 million Switzerland votes.

And I'm writing this as an immigrant myself... It's sad.

[bulbar]

You talking about refugees or migration? That's two totally different things. Germany is in desperate need of migration and yes, the people that come are skilled workers.

Refugees is a completely different topic.

[_zoltan_]

Willkommenkultur should have given it away that I am talking about refugees. however, in normal societal culture, these cannot be separated, I promise you. refugees set the tone for how migrants are viewed by the general public.

[snovymgodym]

I'm going to assume that you're not being intentionally obtuse, so I'll clarify what people are saying.

Germany didn't and still does not have meaningful immigration enforcement. For fairly understandable reasons, German asylum law is quite permissive. You get benefits from the government (read, from the German taxpayer) as soon as you submit an asylum claim even if it ultimately gets denied. Processing an asylum claim takes a long time, and there are many ways to delay it. It is very hard to get deported by force from Germany.

The net effect of this was that a huge number of young men who were essentially economic migrants came to Germany in the last 15 years on dubious asylum claims by misrepresenting their age, their national origin, the situations in their home country, and so on. A lot of these people are perpetually unemployed, not only due to the complicated nature of getting work permission as an asylum seeker, but also because they lack the language and professional skills to work the in-demand jobs in Germany, and because, well they continue to get government benefits.

This is on top of the fact that the German social support system is already strained from age demographics, and that large groups of young men who come from misogynistic/chauvinistic societies and are perpetually unemployed behave rather predictably.

In addition, by allowing this abuse of the system, the skilled legal migrants also suffer as they are heavily taxed to subsidize non-working "asylum seekers" and growing anti-migration/anti-foreign sentiment gets directed to them as well.

So in conclusion, refugees and migration are not "totally different things". In fact, in the case of Germany they are two deeply intwined topics that cannot just be dealt with in isolation.

[bulbar]

It's two different topics in the sense that the process for skilled workers must be simplified so that they can come and stay easier. We also need those people as our society won't be sustainable otherwise.

The challenges with Asylum seekers are very different as you have pointed out.

[account42]

The "refugees" are migrants. Low-skilled migrants who would not make it through to normal immigration process but still migrants. They are not coming here for safety but to build a better life for themselves - and their families who are often initially left back home.

[BeetleB]

> and for the downvoters: these are facts.

One would expect you would follow that sentence with some facts...

[_zoltan_]

I did. you're welcome to use your favourite search engine.

[ifwinterco]

The backlash is baked in now I think, people hoping it will just go away are delusional.

But if European elites (including UK) are smart they should be able to avoid the worst outcomes, most people don't really want trouble.

Issue is, there's no sign of smartness so far