EU Immigration Crisis Megathread

[Admiral Yi]

I had meant the people fleeing Syria, specifically; sorry for not being clearer.  I think we would describe the people from the Balkans as "Immigrants" which has a more neutral connotation for us (positively "America is a land of immigrants," negatively "Illegal immigrant.")  "Migrant," I think, is a little more negative ("Migrant worker.")

To me immigrant connotes someone who moves to another country in accordance with the law.

[Duque de Bragança]

Stuttgart Struggles to House the Migrants It Embraces

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/07/world/europe/stuttgart-embraces-migrants-and-the-challenge-of-housing-them.html?_r=0

The NYT had a piece on the city I live in. I work together with people from Argentina, Turkey, Russia, France, Italy, Korea, India, Poland, Bosnia, Serbia, Khazakstan, etc. My doctor is Italian, the guy who cuts my hair Macedonian, the cashiers at the grocery store come from many places, the ladies at the dry cleaners are Polish, the tailor is from Africa. The building I live in has people from various nations and of course a Kebab place in the ground floor.

Maybe the NYT should take a look at the Rot Stadt in Stuttgart, say around Schozacher Straße. Proportion of Germans there sure looks like the proportion of French and Italians in the banlieues of Paris and Rome. Still not as bad as say Marseille Nord but given time...
But then comparing smaller Stuttgart to Paris and Rome, the latter where immigration is much more recent, does not  make much sense. After all, the banlieues were once desirable in France. Thing is, the European proles in the banlieue nowadays vote with their feet, since they are pushed out by the so-called alienated guest workers (not working much nowadays), they are refugees as well, they just go farther than suburbs, to the peri-urban, some kind of grey zone between country side and suburbs.

[Razgovory]

As a person of a certain age whose country was... "not all that modern" even 40 years ago, I can tell you that western men have little to no idea of what males from certain civilizations are told to think.

In Portugal's case, when I was young, we were expected to try get all the women we could, willingly or not, and never to take 'no' for an answer. This including chasing them in the streets in broad daylight. On the reverse side of the coin, we were to defend our female relatives/love interests from the other males, and to use violence whenever required, which could be quite often.

Um thanks for sharing that.  I'll remember that next time I see a Portuguese guy.  Why did you share this exactly?

[Richard Hakluyt]

I had meant the people fleeing Syria, specifically; sorry for not being clearer.  I think we would describe the people from the Balkans as "Immigrants" which has a more neutral connotation for us (positively "America is a land of immigrants," negatively "Illegal immigrant.")  "Migrant," I think, is a little more negative ("Migrant worker.")

To me immigrant connotes someone who moves to another country in accordance with the law.

Same here. For me the difference between a migrant, refugee and expatriate is a matter of description rather than of moral judgement.

[Malthus]

I had meant the people fleeing Syria, specifically; sorry for not being clearer.  I think we would describe the people from the Balkans as "Immigrants" which has a more neutral connotation for us (positively "America is a land of immigrants," negatively "Illegal immigrant.")  "Migrant," I think, is a little more negative ("Migrant worker.")

To me immigrant connotes someone who moves to another country in accordance with the law.

I dunno, what about the widespread use of the term "illegal immigrant"?

[Admiral Yi]

I dunno, what about the widespread use of the term "illegal immigrant"?

The adjective "illegal" changes the meaning.

[Malthus]

I dunno, what about the widespread use of the term "illegal immigrant"?

The adjective "illegal" changes the meaning.

Yup. What I'm thinking is that if one qualifies the term "immigrant" with "illegal", that means the term "immigrant" is more general than "someone who moves in accordance with the law". It is someone who moves, maybe in accordance with the law, and maybe not - hence qualifiers "legal" or "illegal".

[Admiral Yi]

Yup. What I'm thinking is that if one qualifies the term "immigrant" with "illegal", that means the term "immigrant" is more general than "someone who moves in accordance with the law". It is someone who moves, maybe in accordance with the law, and maybe not - hence qualifiers "legal" or "illegal".

In your experience do you find that people feel the need to qualify immigrate with legal when that's what they are referring to?  I do not.

[Eddie Teach]

In your experience do you find that people feel the need to qualify immigrate with legal when that's what they are referring to?  I do not.

If they're excluding illegal immigrants from their statement, then yes.

[Admiral Yi]

If they're excluding illegal immigrants from their statement, then yes.

Right, it's only used (in my experience) when the speaker is purposefully trying to contrast legal and illegal immigration.  Again in my experience, when someone says "my parents immigrated to this country 20 years ago," or "I'm thinking about emigrating to Australia," the strong suggestion is that it was done legally.

[dps]

To me, "refugee" would describe someone displaced by some sort of crisis (be it political, environmental, or what-have-you) for an indefinite but temporary period, whereas "immigrant" (and its opposite, "emigrant") would describe someone moving to a different country on what is intended to be a permanent basis.  "Migrant" would describe someone who is moving around on a constant or near constant basis, as in a migrant farm worker who moves around the country on a seasonal basis.

[Tamas]

In case you are thinking the migration wave is over, think again.

This weekend, 23 001 migrants/refugees crossed into Hungary.

It's just less hussle these days because there is now a well-oiled mechanism in place, which starts around Greece/Macedonia and ends in Austria, or I'd imagine, Germany, where each country picks up the incomings and promplty dumps them in their relevant neighbour's doorstep.

[PJL]

The irony of all this is that, if the EU (or at least the Eurozone) were a properly functioning federal country much like the US, the migrants would just stay in Greece or Italy, much like the Mexicans staying in the border states of the US.

[Eddie Teach]

like the Mexicans staying in the border states of the US.

But they don't.

[Valmy]

The irony of all this is that, if the EU (or at least the Eurozone) were a properly functioning federal country much like the US, the migrants would just stay in Greece or Italy, much like the Mexicans staying in the border states of the US.

Well to be fair the best states in the US just happen to be the border states

Well ok Arizona sucks. That is the exception.