Comment by ptaipale | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ptaipale | Hacker News Reader

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> One is not going to get asylum anywhere in Europe because one is fleeing from "unemployment".

Quite true, asylum is not granted, but it is still very difficult to send back those whose asylum application is rejected. Often it is not even clear where to send people "back" because they have no papers (human traffickers instruct them to destroy or hide passports) and no one can really tell where they came from.

The applicants have a right to appeal the decision; process takes years, then people make a new residence permit application based on "changed circumstances" (for instance, starting a family or having studied something) and more time passes.

This will be particularly flammable in cases where even hardened criminals cannot be deported because now that they are criminals, their home country (if known) definitely won't take them back.

And then the applicants may simply leave one country and emerge in another one as new applicants (unless biometric tracking is really started and made working).

I predict volatile times and violence for Europe.

And this is why the Australian Government uses offshore processing. These people don't get to come to Australia. This has significantly deterred economic migrants from entering via boat.

Leftists and Europeans derided it as a violation of human rights. Now I be many are secretly wishing they had implemented it.

> This has significantly deterred economic migrants from entering via boat.

This is hard to say - under "Operation Sovereign Borders" all boat arrivals are military secrets, so there's not much data on arrivals except what the government announces. The Australian navy has literally towed back boats in defiance of international laws (Wikipedia: "In August 2015, minister Dutton stated that since December 2013, 633 people on 20 vessels have been subject to turnback operations, including a boat from Vietnam in July), so at least on that front the boats haven't been quite stopped (they just don't go all the way any more).

And as for the violation of human rights: you have a right to seek asylum. You're conveniently forgetting that people who have been placed on Nauru by the Australian government have been murdered and raped, completely unnecessary.

Quote Wikipedia again:

>In 2015, several staff members from the detention centre wrote an open letter claiming that multiple instances of sexual abuse against women and children had occurred.[6] The letter claimed that the Australian government had been aware of these abuses for over 18 months.[7] This letter added weight to the Moss review which found it possible that "guards had traded marijuana for sexual favours with asylum seeker children".[8] [9][10]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nauru_Regional_Processing_Cent...

We can't really judge the situation there because journalists or international observers are not allowed in.

> This is hard to say

We do know that IMAs have significantly decreased. As the department reports on the numbers in detention[1] (See figure 1)

The ABC also kept a log of all reports[2]

1) http://www.border.gov.au/ReportsandPublications/Documents/st...

2) http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-10-25/log-of-boat-arrivals-a...

>This has significantly deterred economic migrants

That and the big ocean lying between them and everyone else.

You do realise that 30,000 IMA's arrived in the last year and a half of the previous government.

You do know that they use to fly to Indonesia, burn their passport and pay for a boat to take them from there to Australia

Its still a much harder journey to Australia than Europe.

My point is that the difficulty in making the journey is a major factor. So its not clear cut in deciding how much credit should be assigned to Australia's policy of overseas processing centers.

yes that is quite true. Australia has the only sensible policy in this. there is no need for their applications to be processed in Europe. just move them to a few islands or make a deal with Turkey or something. in fact, the EU is moving in this direction.

The problem for EU is that Schengen is broken without effective controls of external borders.

And the Schengen external border is particularly porous in Greece towards Turkey, because people can cross from Bodrum to Kos in any toy boat. And they will. Then there's also the traffic towards Lambedusa of Italy from Libya, and many other somewhat more difficult routes, but the idea is the same: bypass any border controls, and you can't be sent back.

Of course, a number will drown trying these crossings, but by the time they are about to depart for this hop, they have already paid thousands of $ to traffickers, and if they choose not to try, they've lost their money for nothing.

And once people are in Kos, Greece is not very interested in enforcing the Dublin protocol, and the people are free to move on towards their preferred target countries (Germany, Nordic countries, and UK; that latter one still has border controls at English Channel as they are not in Schengen).

Nothing will stop this migration except EU-wide declaration that you can't get in as a spontaneous asylum seeker, you have to come via camp where your application is processed -- much like Australia.

This is a very hard decision for EU leaders to make, as there has been so much grandstanding about the humanitarian superiority of EU countries (e.g. towards Australia). However, if nothing is done, this migration is the end of EU.

Russia may yet decide to mix things up further by enabling transit of asylum seekers - it would be an even straighter and cheaper route to Finnish and Norwegian borders, and people wouldn't need to pass through the fairly hostile nations in Balkans. And then the only option for Finland and Norway would be to permanently close the border to Russia for all passengers.

Russia is in fact allowing transit of migrants[1]

1 http://neurope.eu/article/russia-is-using-asylum-seekers-to-...

But of course, how much Russia encourages operators on this route will have a great impact on the number of migrants on this route. Russian border guards belong to the security service, FSB, who in turn is direct control of Putin. No business of this type will thrive in Russia without the blessing of the president and his trusted business partners.

But Russia has here a great chance of miscalculating and increasing pressure, making Finland close the border and even move towards NATO membership.

That's the irony of the situation: those who not only have the insight that Europe isn't what they hoped for but also have the resolve to act on that insight are demonstrating qualities that would make them prime candidates for successful integration. It's a weird twist of the brain drain pattern. (But a good one, because those qualities will shine even more in the home country)

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