Understanding the problems confronting refugees—and those striving to protect them—depends on grasping precise legal definitions.

The core definition of a “refugee” is contained in the 1951 United Nations Convention relating to the Status of Refugees and its 1967 Protocol relating to the Status of Refugees, which define a refugee as an individual who: “owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality, and is unable or unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country.”

With biggest driving force for change still to manifest itself: It seem to me that the definition is long over due a revamp.

Climate Change will like the Internet have a profound effect on the world.

The Internet alone has assisted the creation of wars, by highlighting the inequalities that exist between the have and have not’s. It is exposing Capitalism and the free Market for what it real is. It is unveiling corruption, challenging the mass media and assisting mass immigration by generating sizeable networks to deal with the any obstacles set in their paths.

Climate change will change any definition of undocumented aliens asylum seekers. It will displace millions, impacting on the economy, by having a positive affecting on some groups and negatively others.

Trade agreements like the TTPI will weaken the case of those who would venture a rigid and single-factor comparison between “political” immigration and “economic” immigration.

We can expect the migratory issue to become increasingly political. A more rational approach would be to consider who the illegal immigrants are, before making immigration laws.

Much of Europe’s brewing migration debate carries a polarized tone of certainty, and migrants themselves are often slotted into neat “political” and “economic” categories.

You can see this at the moment as the EU struggles to establish who are political refugees and illegal immigration, on the role of economic versus non-economic factors. The definition Refugee has and is being ignored.

Is it possible to distinguish between the poverty of “condition” and the poverty of “position”?

Poverty, while a commonly cited factor “pushing” migration, is difficult to define.

In the former situation, the two main factors are a lack of employment and steady income, which prompt a feeling of having “nothing to lose.”Their biggest concern and expectation is to improve their physical well-being, something they regard as impossible at home.

This element has also got a growing home-grown element of poverty due to unemployment, no hours contracts, and exploration of the vulnerable within the EU.

Poverty of position, in contrast, involves migrants who use emigration as a way of more rapidly climbing the social ladder. These migrants feel that their income and position in their home country will never match their social capital (for example, their level of formal education or training). They move to places where they believe they can realize their aspirations.

Theses generic terms therefore covers a wide range of facts but Violence and Conflict are the leading causes of the current wave of migration [to Europe]

It is rooted in the crazy [U.S.] idea to launch an intervention in Iraq, which allegedly had weapons of mass destruction, but nothing was found.” A disaster that destabilized the Middle East giving rise of terrorism that we now see to-day.

However some of the blame for many asylum seekers is not wars.

For example, persecution is not necessarily imposed by the government or other official institutions in their country of origin. Some may face violence at the hands of mafia networks, armed groups, or a dominant majority group in connection with factors that are not directly political, such as ethnicity.

Others may be threatened for having a lifestyle that involves a socially unacceptable choice of spouse, sexual orientation, etc. As a result, some people are threatened and persecuted without fully meeting the demands of the 1951 United Nations Convention relating to the Status of Refugees.

The long the short and tall of it is that Northern Africa today can no longer defend Europe from the immense masses of people on the move.

As Europe turns its back, these are refugees, not migrants, are arriving in their thousands on Greek shores .

The number thought to be in the UK could be as high as 863,000 – larger than the population of Leeds. By comparison, Italy was thought to have up to 461,000, Germany had 457,000, France’s top estimate was 400,000 and Spain had 354,000. Greece, it is estimated that about 100.000-150.000 undocumented refugees and migrants enter Greece each year, among them maybe around 10.000 unaccompanied minors.

Refugees and other vulnerable people deserve the protection and assistance to which they are entitled under international law. Rather then the inhumane treatment seen in the below:

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2015/08/streams-refugees-flow-macedonia-greece-150823072040825.html

In a wide range of countries, attitudes toward immigrants appear to be related to labor-market concerns, security and cultural considerations, as well as individual feelings toward political refugees and illegal immigration.

Are attitudes toward foreigners influenced by economic considerations or are they driven exclusively by non-economic issues?

At what point do we as citizens of the EU conclude that these people have already suffered enough and deserve to be aided in their flight to safety?

Without legal alternative routes for refugees to enter other European countries, people fleeing conflicts in the Middle East, Africa and elsewhere have taken matters into their own hands

The future of Europe, will be determined by its ability to confront the issue of immigration. Whatever the attitude of the government, population pressure will be immense on Europe and there is no chance to prevent such migration.

On the one hand, the Fortress Europe concept essentially focuses on the role of external border controls and neglects the entry and settlement of clandestine immigrants and undocumented aliens. At the same time, border controls, deportations, mass arrests, and internment of migrants in closed centers and prisons invalidate the thesis of Europe as a sieve.

Europe, which is neighbor to many war zones takes in more than 1.5 million legal migrants.

Overall, forced displacement numbers in Europe totalled 6.7 million at the end of the year, compared to 4.4 million at the end of 2013, and with the largest proportion of this being Syrians in Turkey and Ukrainians in the Russian Federation. Syria’s ongoing war, with 7.6 million people displaced internally, and 3.88 million people displaced into the surrounding region and beyond as refugees, has alone made the Middle East the world’s largest producer and host of forced displacement. Adding to the high totals from Syria was a new displacement of least 2.6 million people in Iraq and 309,000 newly displaced in Libya.

Today, Libya, between 500,000 and one million people aspire to come to Europe.

With population growth of 7% or 8% in Africa, against just over 1% here, migratory pressure is mechanical.

It is not possible or desirable that Europe opens its doors to every tom dick and harry. On the other hand it not possible to address the situation with 4-meter (13-foot) high fence on its borders like Hungary, or We need to build a wall, we need to keep illegals out,” Donald Trump said at last Thursday’s GOP debate.

I for one do not want to be represented by Israeli or Berlin wall.

It needs policies that better serve the interests of both nations and immigrants.

It is beyond me that we cannot move FRONTEX (It coordinates EU States’ actions in the implementation of EU border management measures.) from Warsaw (Poland) to some where useful.  So far this year, more than 180,000 migrants have reached Greece and Italy by sea (others come from Turkey via the land border with Bulgaria).

In the first four months of this year, more than a quarter of a million people claimed asylum in a European Union member state.

Where is the big deal in setting up humanitarian corridors for asylum seekers. To putting up initial reception center. To agreeing to a binding quota system for distributing refugees among all European countries.

I am sure if an appeal was made to all European Citizens the majority of the 509 million would not begrudge 10 Euros a month.

Let us hope that Europe can respond intelligently by rejecting generalisations and simplistic discourse by being true to its values, notably in terms of asylum and yet be more effective.

I leave you with the words of  Ahmed Satuf, another refugee from Idlib in Syria, told Al Jazeera he didn’t want anything from Macedonia, except for being allowed to cross its borders.

“I’m not a terrorist. We are humans. Where’s the humanity? Where’s the world? Everyone here, they are families,” he said.

“We don’t need anything. We don’t need money. Let us cross. I want to go to Germany.”

Europe above all places in the world born of integrationist ideals yet undermined by participants’ unwillingness to share costs as well as benefits, has a chance to shine.

“For us, today Europe is at stake” 

said Orban Viktor the president of Hungary,  “The survival, disappearance or, more precisely, the transformation beyond recognition of the European citizen’s lifestyle, European values and the European nations.”

He knows where he can stick that finger of his.