The following op-ed with a Swiss perspective on immigration was published in the Austrian daily
Die Presse. Many thanks to JLH for the translation:
Refugees: Boundlessly Reckless
by Roger Köppel
June 7, 2015
Under the pressure of waves of refugees, politicians are
demanding a further opening of European borders. The opposite is
correct.
The waves of immigration are swelling There are more than a
billion people in Africa. Europe has 733 million. The excess demographic
pressure in the South is breaking new paths into the wealthy North. UNO
estimates that by the year 2050, two billion mostly young Africans will
be confronting ca. 691 million aging Europeans. The answer of our
politicians and spin-doctors is that we should take in even more illegal
economic immigrants — erroneously called refugees. This friendly offer
will increase the demand.
The southern border of Europe is as open as a barn door. There is no
Fortress Europe. 220,000 illegal immigrants landed on the Italian coast
in the past year. This year, Germany alone expects a doubling of
asylum-seekers to 500,000. No one claims responsibility for the
constitutionally asserted protection of Europe’s external borders. The
Italians know that illegal immigrants prefer to go to the wealthy North,
and they put them on trains without registering them. Recently a Roman
diplomat assured us, with charm and amid copious gestures: “The refugees
just disappear.”
It is essentially clear to everyone, although no one dares to say it,
that what is going on here is a widely applied abuse of our right of
asylum by illegal economic refugees. It is an officially tolerated
breach of the law in grand style. The Dublin Treaty on Refugees does not
work. In a Europe of open borders, the overburdened Italians have no
motivation to carry out the bureaucratic directives from Brussels. It is
illusory to introduce an orderly asylum process in the case of tens —
indeed hundreds — of thousands of immigrants flooding in. It is hardly
possible to expel those who threw away their papers. Illegal, economic
refugees would not be coming if they didn’t know that they could stay.
The tragic pictures and tales of capsizing smugglers’ boats and
drowning people are deceptive. Most illegal immigrants manage to afford
the expensive passage across the Mediterranean. It is worth the
investment to escape the misery zones of Africa and Arabia for the
welfare paradise of Europe. Television reports talk about war refugees
and pregnant women, but the pictures show mostly young black Africans
traveling north.
There may be a few, individual, genuine, Geneva
Convention-appropriate refugees among them. But the fact that these
illegals pay thousands of francs to make the difficult passage suggests
that this is more about escaping the general misery than fleeing
imminent persecution.
What is the meaning of “asylum”? The motives for immigration are
understandable, but there is legislation and there are asylum laws. The
Federal Republic, like Switzerland, recognizes the legal claim of asylum
as intended for those in peril of life and limb — for the politically
persecuted. Refugees from civil war or poverty, people with no
prospects, do not qualify. It isn’t that complicated. If you want to
adhere to the asylum law, you must oppose its abuse. Like infractions of
the tax laws or trade regulations. Those who qualify for asylum may be
taken in; illegal immigrants must be immediately expelled. The opposite
is true nowadays in many countries. Problems of implementation are
acute. Here is one absurd example from many: the fastest growing group
of asylum seekers in Switzerland isn’t Syrians, but Kosovars. At the
same time, the Swiss army is serving side-by-side with the German army
in Kosovo.
Modern European asylum law is a product of the past century. It was
instituted after the terrible human rights abuses of the Germans, the
Russians and the Turks in two world wars. The idea was to guarantee
supranational protection to people under threat because of their
ethnicity, religion or politics. It was not established to facilitate
mass migration or the lessening of population pressure in the most
densely settled areas of Africa. So the question is, how can we retain
the tradition of asylum shaped by the painful experiences of the past
century, and still maintain control over the waves of migration driven
by misery and demography?
It does no good to go on and on about unrealistic ideals. Anyone who
calls for the unconditional acceptance of all the “damned of this earth”
(Herbert Prantl) should start by taking refugees into his own house.
Changes to the laws intended to bring about a broadening of the right of
asylum to include the unfortunate or suffering would have no chance in a
referendum, because of their utter impracticality. Such solidarity is
only possible if clear limits are set. Contrariwise, asylum policy loses
its moral justification with a majority population if it is suspected
of being heartless and cynical because it throws up obstacles without
offering any credible ideas of how to realize the humanitarian mission
of asylum. How then, can those who are qualified for asylum be helped
and illegal refugees be put in their place?
The point is to offer protection to the truly persecuted. In the case
of larger wars and crises, the number of people needing protection can
be considerable. Not every war automatically produces great numbers of
people who are at mortal risk. In Syria, there were and still are safe
areas. Our correspondents know Syrians who were allowed into Turkey, but
regularly return to Syria.
Asylum means protection and rescue. Asylum is not a license for
immigration into whatever country. We do not have to bring asylum
seekers to Europe from far removed, culturally distant areas of crisis.
Instead, when it is necessary and makes sense, we should establish
humanitarian facilities in the crisis regions themselves. It would
obviate refugees trekking thousands of kilometers to North Africa.
Mobile camps near the war areas are much more effective, so that
refugees can be brought quickly and permanently into a secure situation.
That is what the West should concentrate its financial and humanitarian
efforts on.
At any rate, the responsibility is not automatically Europe’s. On the
contrary. The Arab Gulf states and the obscenely rich Saudis are doing
much too little to help their co-religionists in Syria. We must abandon
the neocolonial conception that the West is responsible for all the
world’s problems. It will require the strength to leave others to
themselves to solve their own problems.
When the protection of the refugees is assured, the genuine asylum
seekers are taken care of. Western countries are free to form
contingents for those particularly in need of protection. Care should be
taken that those people brought here return home after he crisis has
passed. That would ease the strain on social services and also prevent a
brain-drain in the affected areas. The left-liberal British immigration
researcher Paul Collier calls the West’s using political asylum to
bleed poor countries dry of human resources a moral scandal.
Asylum must be preserved — but in the locale. In most cases, this is
already happening. UNO speaks of 230 million refugees worldwide. Not
even ten percent of them qualify for asylum. The great majority are
illegals who have left their countries for economic reasons. We cannot
and must not take them in. It is the duty of every state to secure its
borders against illegal immigration. Someone who breaks into a house is
prosecuted and punished. Someone who illegally enters a country is
rewarded with social services. That is wrong. Illegal immigration must
not be rewarded. If it is, more and more illegals will cross the
Mediterranean — along with more and more dead. Papal urging to
completely open the borders is irresponsible.
A toxic climate. Of course, the Vatican is free to take refugees
itself in Rome. Private charity is a noble thing. Charity decreed or
forced by the government at the expense of the taxpayer poisons the
political atmosphere. It is possible to preserve the tradition of asylum
and simultaneously fight illegal immigration. It is not a scandal, but
an ethical commandment and an imperative of the reality of life to close
off the illegal channels into the West. Nothing absolves us of the
legal and moral duty to secure our territories against illegal
immigrants. They are a threat to the security and well-being of our
states.
Europe must protect its borders. By closing off the Mediterranean to illegal immigration, we will be saving lives.
Roger Köppel, 50 is the publisher and editor-in-chief of the Swiss weekly Die Weltwoche. He was previously editor-in-chief of Die Welt. He is the liberal-conservative candidate of the SVP for the National Assembly of the Swiss parliament.
His text, Boundlessly Reckless, is an answer to Herbert Prantl’s polemic, In the Name of Humanity, which appeared in Die Presse Sunday.
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