2 ms·

This is similar to the distinction that the media fail to grasp between "asylum seeker" and "immigrant".

• Kalium 11y ago
  I'm not sure how much of it is "fails to grasp" so much as a deliberate blurring of lines. Sometimes it's accurate - like a Syrian dentist displaced by violence who cannot find a new job. From listening to coverage, there's a group number of economic migrants who prefer to present themselves as asylum seekers. It's kind of mess, because the ideals on the two not-always-mutually-exclusive groups differ wildly. Generally countries get to pick their economic migrants, but not their asylum seekers...
  • venomsnake 11y ago
    Did you choose the country to which to run - then you are more of economic migrant, not asylum seeker.
    • IkmoIkmo 11y ago
      Say your house is on fire, it burns down, and your house will remain on fire for half a decade (e.g. Syrian civil war is past 4.5 years old with no end in sight), and you have a list of different shelters to go to where you'll need to spend years, raise your kids, build a new livelihood because yours is destroyed. What do you do? You just go to any random one? Or to the best one that is within reach? The answer is obvious, and it doesn't make you an economic migrant.
    • blowski 11y ago
      An asylum seeker is simply somebody who as applied for asylum in another country, but not yet been accepted. They may do so because they are persecuted in their home country, but the definition of persecuted is (necessarily) very loose. There is no definition of an 'economic migrant', and there is no easy way of categorising the people involved.