No people are drowning in the sea as they are encouraged to pay people smugglers to leave Turkey (not Syria) to get into Europe, not because of airlines.
No people are drowning in the sea as they are encouraged to pay people smugglers to leave Turkey (not Syria) to get into Europe, not because of airlines.
Originally Posted by Ominous Gamer
As usual you are not informed.
Congratulations America
You think the seven thousand a day who are crossing would have all crossed by air had it not been for airline regulations?
It would certainly had been cheaper for them.
"Wer Visionen hat, sollte zum Arzt gehen." - Helmut Schmidt
Not to mention safer.
Congratulations America
Indeed but its not how any form of mass migration like this ever occurs without government support now is it?
As I have said umpteen times in this thread, if Germany wants to invite refugees over safely then they can grant visas to migrants from source. They could safely and legally get a plane ticket then and simply fly direct to Munich by-passing the Aegean and thousands of miles of travel through multiple nations in-between. Would be infinitely safer I completely agree. But to blame the airlines for following the law is to put the cart before the horse. I know we're taking refugees from source and it is what I've called for all thread but that is up to the nations of Europe (and elsewhere) to get their shit together and to organise, not for the airlines to ignore the law.
The solution of this crisis is categorically not for the airlines to break the law, it is for nations to sort out a solution within the law.
Airlines would not break the law if they allow a refugee to fly. They only break the law if they allow an illegal immigrant to fly.Refugees also do not need a visa.
Congratulations America
How many refugees have been trying to get an airline ticket and been refused?
Again these people are able to be processed in Turkey and other nations, a visa and then air travel can be arranged.
Airlines check all the papers before entering if you leave or enter Schengen.
"Wer Visionen hat, sollte zum Arzt gehen." - Helmut Schmidt
And they do so because a Directive threatens them with huge fines if they carry an illegal immigrant to a country. The same Directive states that it doesn't apply to refugees. In practice all refugees are rejected on the fear they might be illegal immigrants.
Congratulations America
I believe airlines check your papers before entering if you leave or enter anywhere.
Hazir: It is not the duty of airlines to certify who is an illegal immigrant and who is a refugee. Once again what is preventing the Netherlands or Germany or anyone else from doing what we're doing and certifying refugees and then arranging transport? Why should airlines take on the responsibilities and duties of government agencies?
yet it is the law of the entire EU : airlines are de facto burdened with the question if the person presenting himself is a migrant or a refugee. The refugee they can admit with impunity, taking the migrant without the necessary visum is heavily fined.
Oh, and what is keeping us from doing that is the simple fact that the Turks won't have it. Turks don't recognize any Syrian as a refugee.
Congratulations America
I'll defend the EU here again, it is not a uniquely EU regulation but a standard one. International air travel (with or without the EU) has standards. Checking documentation before you are entitled to board an aircraft is standard operating procedure in or outside the EU.
Turkey does not need to recognise Syrians as refugees in order for us to speak to them inside there. The UNHCR says that there are 22 refugee camps in Turkey with a further 2 being constructed. A total of 1.5 million Syrian refugees are already being dealt with by the UNHCR and a total of 1.9 million refugees are expected there: http://www.unhcr.org/pages/49e48e0fa7f.html
It is simply invalid to say that Turkey is preventing anyone from issuing refugee visas to any of the refugees already there. If there is residency to be granted to refugees it should be via these already existing camps and then refugees should be encouraged to head to these camps and then onwards to Europe if possible rather than on to the sea because we're operating a medieval trial by water and if you make it across you can stay.
There is this pesky little thing called sovereignty. Also, refugees do not need visa's for travel. Strictly speaking they don't even need ID. The reality of UNHCR dealing with Syrian refugees in Turkey is when a Syrian refugee goes to the office in Ankara or Istanbul is 'not for Syrians'. The lucky ones who make it past the doorman get told to come back sometime in the next decade. Syrians who try to formalize their stay in Turkey get told that they may get some not-quite residency in a year or two. Or at least, that's when they can get back to formally apply for it. The refugee camps are indeed there, housing about 1 out of every 9 Syrian refugees. The rest live where they can afford to stay. That goes all the way down to living with your entire family under some blankets under an overpass. The majority of Syrians in Turkey live in squalid condition, at prices usually higher than those Turks pay for decent houses.
Now, just for fun, please tell me how you think to cram all Syrian refugees in the existing camps? Stack them? Let them have rotating sleep shifts of 3 hours each? Please enlighten us how your well thought out plans are going to work.
Congratulations America
Sovereignty is not infringed by granting refugee visas to those in the UNHCR camps. How do you think we're taking people from camps, if not doing that?
Your claim that the UNHCR response to Syrians is to be told its "not for Syrians" is completely unsubstantiated and utter bullshit. It is a lie pure and simple. The UNHCR is not dealing with no refugees in Turkey, it is dealing with 1.5 million refugees. So stop lying because it is utterly ignorant and absurd.
There are already 1.5 million in Turkey that the UNHCR is dealing with. I'm not suggesting stacking them, I'm suggesting relieving them by taking them out directly if you're going to take people.
Your solution is to wait for people to get across the water and if they make it then argue with each other as to who takes whom from those who are ALREADY SAFE. Or blame the Airlines for nations inaction. Or ooh look squirrel ...
Nah, they don't check my papers when I leave or enter Switzerland (to Europe).
"Wer Visionen hat, sollte zum Arzt gehen." - Helmut Schmidt
You're within Schengen to within Schengen. You're neither entering nor leaving it.
If you were to fly from Switzerland to the USA then your papers would be checked. Or from Australia to the USA - and it would have nothing to do with the EU.
Of course, otherwise Syrians would just fly to the US, would still be cheaper than walking to Germoney.
"Wer Visionen hat, sollte zum Arzt gehen." - Helmut Schmidt
Indeed so as I said, not an EU thing, it is standard.
It is, it is also standard to check your borders to some degree. Of course it isn't always like the GDR or North Korea.
"Wer Visionen hat, sollte zum Arzt gehen." - Helmut Schmidt
Laughable nonsense again; you do know there are direct flights from pretty much all the main Greek islands to Germany? And that there are zero refugees on those flights (except the ones who managed to get a decent looking fake ID) ?
And for your information; both those Greek islands and Germany are inside the Schengen-zone. Where the rule I have been repeating over and over again still applies; refugees can be transported by airlines risk-free, illegal immigrants can not. Resulting in airlines not taking a risk and refusing everybody who they think could turn out to be an illegal immigrant. And that today includes 100% of all refugees.
Your government's 'solution' doesn't solve that problem, for the simple reason that it treat a select number of refugees as legal immigrants, leaving the vast majority of them out in the cold. Because it re-inforces the notion that only people with a visa should be allowed on board of planes. Even though the law specifically tells us that refugees don't need visas to fly. But good luck to them trying to explain this to an airline worker who's been instructed to refuse everyone without a visa.
Congratulations America
Firstly what I wrote was not nonsense, the fact that there are zero refugees is utterly irrelevant to what I wrote.
Why you expect to delegate the responsibility of identifying who is a refugee and who is an illegal migrant to airlines is beyond me. It is not their job and it is not their duty. Stop trying to abscond one of the key duties of governments and thrust their duties onto people traffickers primarily and latterly airlines. If someone is in Greece then they are in a safe nation and they should be able to be processed in Greece and be given any paperwork they need to travel to Germany legally. There is no need or responsibility for the airlines to circumvent the duty of the Greek and German governments. The people in Greece are not in imminent and immediate danger that requires airlines to evacuate them without any paperwork.
As for my governments actions, no solution solves the problems, other than making Syria safe and free but that isn't happening any time soon. However my government does help some, while providing vast amounts of financing for the majority (95%) who need it. Continental governments are helping nobody at all, while simultaneously failing to provide obligated funding to the vast 95% majority. So we're helping more directly, while helping the majority more. So how can you contemplate criticising that?
If airlines are refusing so-called refugees in Greece without any paperwork then they are doing entirely the right thing. Paperwork can and should be acquired in Greece. You forget that when the rules that refugees don't need paperwork was written, it was also written that refugees needed to claim in the first safe nation. Refugees do not have the right to go anywhere in the world they please. The notion of evacuating fleeing refugees is one thing, on the other hand flying between safe nations without any paperwork like you are proposing was never agreed.
People may have been refugees when they left Syria. Anyone moving from Greece to Germany is an illegal migrant and the airlines are obligated to refuse them all. Let Germany give them paperwork if they want to, to fly legally. You can't even have the dishonest pretence of "we can't due to Turkey" if people are in Greece already.
Doesn't make the immediate impact less, but changes the nature and aftermath of the effort by quite a bit if you know that the refugees aren't going to stay forever (only a few 10.000 stayed after the war). The refugees entering now: are unlikely to ever leave (making them in effect migrants), are likely to bring over their families (multiply number of accepted people by 3 to 5), are likely to have low levels of employment (cf. the employmentrate of the migrants already present), more often than not have a wildly differing culture as well as a religion that just as often is opposed to the culture receiving them (and we all know how well "integration" went with the current batch), and will in many cases need psychological help sooner or later (apparently the traumatised of the Balkan-Breakup of the 90s are starting to -finally- seek the help they need).
in effect the WW1-effort lasted about a year. This one will last for decades. So you tell me how a million-man refugee wave that left as swiftly as it came is different from a wave of unknown size that is unlikely to ever leave.
Does it mean we don't need to help refugees? No! But they need to understand that our hospitality is of an ending nature.
Demographic problems have political/diplomatic solutions...but the only "governments" that can solve these problems aren't in place just yet. Might as well ask if China's one-child policy will change over the next year, when the better question is how will policy change over the next decade, or century. Or ask Japanese about their aging population, compared to their 'dollar' valuations for commerce and trade.
I think the policies for refugees is taking back status to political ideology. The US should be accepting millions of political refugees from the middle East and Africa, regardless of their religious affinities.
Even if all pans out the way you say it will for Syrians and other real refugees, we're talking about no more than 1% of the population of the affected area (EU).
And that's me allowing for your implicit claim that all refugees are the same.
Congratulations America
Curious on your maths there. There were 22 million Syrians in 2013. That's without factoring in that many of the Syrians crossing are not really Syrians.
95% haven't crossed to Europe last I heard a figure (that may have changed) which is why we need to deal with source nations instead of just those already here. If more cross as is happening then an upper limit of 1% seems unlikely. The population of the EU is not 2.2 billion.
Duh, like the entire Syrian population will EVER flee from the country.
Congratulations America
Those who've fled (which are not all who will flee before the conflict is over) already exceed 1%
Of whom close to 80% don't have the desire or means to come to the EU.
Congratulations America
Ah so only people who have the means to come to the EU are worthy of refuge here in your eyes? That explains why you want this people smugglers sink or swim policy, its survival of the wealthiest rather than fittest.
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