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From my experience with people who’ve spent years over there, there isn’t much desire for refugees to stay and become citizens. They are perceived by the voting

From my experience with people who’ve spent years over there, there isn’t much desire for refugees to stay and become citizens. They are perceived by the voting public as competing for jobs. Jobs are perceived as scarce. It is politically far more popular to run on a platform of getting rid of refugees and refugee camps. There is also a very widespread perception that refugee camps are about making money for corrupt politicians and contractors, and that the UN or America or the EU or something is paying a lot of money and pays per head. So the public feels that more refugees = more corrupt money lining politicians’ pockets. Against this context, there is no political future for “liberalising working rights” and “providing a path to citizenship”.

pjc50 2y ago
Same story everywhere, sadly.
bluGill 2y ago
Even though making refuges citizens would mean that money dries up. Of course I've long been in the minority that thinks the US should have unlimited immigration.
HideousKojima 2y ago
>There is also a very widespread perception that refugee camps are about making money for corrupt politicians and contractors Even though that isn't what refugee camps are "about" it's something that happens pretty regularly.
MPSFounder 2y ago
Same story everywhere. Intel was founded by Andy Grove, a refugee. I recently saw a comment opposing refugees mention that refugees in the old days were Eastern Europeans, whereas nowadays it is people from backwards countries (whatever that means). Anti-refugee sentiment is often racism that just happens to be accepted. Sbux once offered 10,000 refugees jobs, and had to rescind them in favor of veterans because Americans were offended. My personal view is refugees are often the hardest working and most honest people, given they experienced extreme hardships (similar to how holocaust survivors went on to dominate business and finance in America). It is such a shame America turned its back on many (particularly from Syria and Ukraine in recent years, although many churches sponsored Ukrainian families because they are Christian. Funny enough, I believe 10% of Syria are Christians too, but suburban churches did not sponsor them, with a minister saying they do not blend in, whatever that means).
atoav 2y ago
A dynamic that surprised me when years ago I learned about it was that consistently the most anti-migration electorate is from areas with next to no migration, while areas with the most migration are generally supportive of it. I watched out for this since and it appears to be a general dynamic accross many different wildly different nations. This disparity is usually showing up as a rural-urban divide, with the cities being more migrant friendly. Whether migration is good or bad in pure economic terms is mostly a function of the demography of a country/region. For most industrialized nations more migrations would be economically benefitial, since the own birth rates are too low to even cover the retirement of their own population. But of course for many people migration isn't just a rational economic question, is a much more loaded, symbolic issue —interwoven with questions of identity, self-worth, self-perception, self-confidence and mythological narratives of the own nation. Which is why identity politics is so effective in getting people to vote against their own economic interests.

pjc50 2y ago

Same story everywhere, sadly.

bluGill 2y ago

Even though making refuges citizens would mean that money dries up. Of course I've long been in the minority that thinks the US should have unlimited immigration.

HideousKojima 2y ago

>There is also a very widespread perception that refugee camps are about making money for corrupt politicians and contractors Even though that isn't what refugee camps are "about" it's something that happens pretty regularly.

MPSFounder 2y ago

Same story everywhere. Intel was founded by Andy Grove, a refugee. I recently saw a comment opposing refugees mention that refugees in the old days were Eastern Europeans, whereas nowadays it is people from backwards countries (whatever that means). Anti-refugee sentiment is often racism that just happens to be accepted. Sbux once offered 10,000 refugees jobs, and had to rescind them in favor of veterans because Americans were offended. My personal view is refugees are often the hardest working and most honest people, given they experienced extreme hardships (similar to how holocaust survivors went on to dominate business and finance in America). It is such a shame America turned its back on many (particularly from Syria and Ukraine in recent years, although many churches sponsored Ukrainian families because they are Christian. Funny enough, I believe 10% of Syria are Christians too, but suburban churches did not sponsor them, with a minister saying they do not blend in, whatever that means).

atoav 2y ago

A dynamic that surprised me when years ago I learned about it was that consistently the most anti-migration electorate is from areas with next to no migration, while areas with the most migration are generally supportive of it. I watched out for this since and it appears to be a general dynamic accross many different wildly different nations. This disparity is usually showing up as a rural-urban divide, with the cities being more migrant friendly. Whether migration is good or bad in pure economic terms is mostly a function of the demography of a country/region. For most industrialized nations more migrations would be economically benefitial, since the own birth rates are too low to even cover the retirement of their own population. But of course for many people migration isn't just a rational economic question, is a much more loaded, symbolic issue —interwoven with questions of identity, self-worth, self-perception, self-confidence and mythological narratives of the own nation. Which is why identity politics is so effective in getting people to vote against their own economic interests.