The discussion of refugees is based on complete idiocy from both sides. For instance, the pro-refugee side keeps blaming the opponents for their refusal to see reality while easily editing out inconvenient bits of reality.
Take the Tsarnaevs, for instance. This family of Chechen terrorists was in the US as asylum seekers. And getting the asylum status is one step harder than getting the refugee status because of the added hurdle of needing to get a tourist visa first. (Getting a tourist visa to the US from Russia is not the same as getting one from France, obviously.) The Tsarnaevs easily overcame all these hurdles and proceeded to slaughter people in Boston. In the meanwhile, some good, deserving family was languishing within the immigration system because of its incapacity to lie and cheat.
The really sad part of the US immigration process is that it’s quite painful and unforgiving for good, law-abiding people and very easy to game for all kinds of shitty folks. I’ve seen this so many times that I don’t even want to look any more.
And it’s the same with social welfare where it exists (not in the US). In Quebec, for instance, good, hard-working people can get no assistance in a moment of legitimate hardship while diamond-bedecked swindlers rake in the cash needed to buy a new country house. (These are real people I know I’m talking about.)
None of this means that all immigration should be closed or the welfare system (where it exists, obviously, and that’s not in the US) should be scrapped. All I’m saying is that there is a whole world of possibilities between “nobody ever games the refugee / welfare system” and “everybody who uses these systems is a criminal and a cheat.”
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