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.”
Clarissa's Blog 
How weird is the American immigration system that it is easier to gain entry into the country by winning the green card through lottery as opposed to applying as a highly qualified professional? The whole system makes no sense.
Canada announced today that we are increasing the number of our refugee imports but what that number actually is will be revealed next week. A true reality show. Yippee!
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Highly qualified professionals can’t be pitied or patronized, so refugee-whisperers do all they can to make entrance for us as hard as possible.
As for Canada, Trudeau needs to grow his voter base. He knows who gave him the win this time.
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Very true. Valuable analysis is nuanced and complex. It can’t be reduces to soundbites or attractive Twitter explanations. My blog is for people who can process something more complex than the usual outrage – generating exclamations.
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On what basis was any Tsarnaev a refugeee?
They were on the winning (Putin/Kadyrov’s side. Had there been some kind of Chechen Maidan, then yeah they’d be refugees (though again no reason for the US to take them in).
What steams my clams is the shifting explanations on why Europe needs to take in vast numbers of young, fighting age men with no particular job skills and lots of counter-indicators (reckless disregard for national borders) that they’d ever be able to contribute to any European country. From fleeing war to seeking a better life. I understand that life in Afghanistan or Bangladesh is awful, but why is that Germany’s burden?
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Here is the sad irony of the whole thing. The closer people are to the sources of power and corruption in their countries, the easier it is for them to manufacture “proof” of persecution they experience. People like Tsarnaevs can easily purchase a mountain of documents testifying to their “suffering” precisely because they are bad people.
As for why this is US’s or Germany’s problem: this is the price you get to pay for the narcissistic fantasy that crappy living conditions all over the world were created by the West. Everything has a price, and this is the price of that particular bit of self-flattering delusion. I agree completely that the Maidan (or anything else other people choose to do) is not the US’s problem but if you desperately need to believe that the US organized the Maidan forcing simple-minded Ukrainians into participating, then it stands to reason that you will keep paying for that demeaning fantasy by carrying Ukrainians on your back for ever and ever.
The choice is simple: accept that people have agency or pay through the nose for maintaining the fantasy that they don’t.
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By “you” I don’t mean you personally, of course.
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