Talk:2015 European migrant crisis/Archive 1

Current title (April 2015):
I haven't suggested one title yet. Is the current title accurate and precise, or is it vague and ambiguous? If the latter, what shall the proposed title be? (Update:) "April" has been added to the title as of 00:48, 20 April 2015 (UTC); is improvement sufficient or insufficient? --George Ho (talk) 21:27, 18 April 2015 (UTC)
 * It seems to me ok. We have previous articles with same type of names such as 2013 Lampedusa migrant shipwreck, 2011 Mediterranean Sea migrant shipwreck and 2009 Mediterranean Sea migrant shipwreck. So, this can be line up with them. --Ant a n O 04:34, 19 April 2015 (UTC)


 * Not precise - I don't know if there is already commonname in sources because this event is quite fresh, but I think that the current article is not precise enough., I don't think that examples you brought here support your position that current article title is ok because they don't mention name of specific country, like current title does. The current title could connect shipwreck with Libya (whatever Libya that might be), which is undue weight. As far as I understood, many if not most migrants were from other African countries, not from Lybia. The incident occured in Italian territorial waters, near Lampedusa, not in Libyan. This article is not about Libya, migrants or shipwrecks. This article is about tragic death of people, similar to Tragedy of Otranto, so the word tragedy or something similar to it should be mentioned in the article title. --Antidiskriminator (talk) 18:59, 19 April 2015 (UTC)
 * I think that a move to April 2015 Mediterranean Sea migrant shipwreck (I think that User:Roberto73c tried this through a simple copy-paste at 2015 Mediterranean Sea migrant shipwreck) might be a good idea; the shipwreck was not in Libya and the migrants are not necessarily Libyan. --Super Nintendo Chalmers (talk) 13:55, 20 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Because the title was changed twice, I've decided to remove the RFC. The discussion may still continue. --George Ho (talk) 18:14, 20 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Use of the word "Crisis" is painting with two brushes, and should be avoided. "Anomaly" is more like it, specific capsizes might be a "crisis", but labeling the whole thing as "crisis" is again, painting with two brushes.Kehkou (talk) 22:16, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

The word "migrant" is is entirely inaccurate.These people are refugees. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.65.126.251 (talk) 12:55, 7 September 2015 (UTC)
 * absolutely correct. They are refugees, not migrants.  There is a difference.  The camps in the Lebanon, in Turkey, and so on are refugee camps.  Sadly, millions, literally, left their homes for these camps in an effort to survive, having escaped a violent war.  Boscaswell (talk) 19:20, 10 September 2015 (UTC)

Ditto the above comment. The title "The European Migrant Crisis" is euphemistic and inaccurate - The Refugee Crisis is the correct title. This is NOT a European crisis. Tos987 (talk) 22:57, 17 September 2015 (UTC)tos987
 * This IS a European Crisis when you look at where the traffic of people goes. and migrant suits fine enough. 195.109.63.17 (talk) 15:04, 5 November 2015 (UTC)


 * The title "Migrant Crisis" ought to be removed and replaced with the accurate term used by the English-language media such as the Guardian, the Independent or the Times where this is known as the "Refugee Crisis." The term migrant crisis can be retained as an AKA, however to use it as the primary title conveys significant bias that is inappropriate for Wikipedia. -Ice-72 (talk) 11:36, 10 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Any time when I have the news on TV, I see in the banner "Migrant Crisis" and so is that the words spoken by the news-readers. This agruing about what word to chose is a futile one that will never end as long as its varying types of people who are traveling. There's refugees (mostly from syria), there migrants from africa who have admitted to go along with the stream for better work. and like I've said somewhere here already. the "Act of migration" is the 'movement from A to B' which notion that B is the destination where one wants to remain indefinately. and a "Migrant" is a person who is 'Migrating' --> so in the most general/abstract form of the word, Migrant applies. 195.109.63.17 (talk) 08:58, 12 November 2015 (UTC)
 * How isn't it a European crisis? It involves refugees from the middle east seeking asylum in Europe. It certainly isn't an asian, african, australian, or Americas (north & south) crisis. It's a regional mediterranean problem mainly affecting Europe, it isn't a global issue as the name "The Refugee Crisis" would imply. The real problem is that the default name is "european migrant crisis" on here and not "european refugee crisis" Yazman (talk) 14:06, 23 January 2016 (UTC)

Other boat
Will the other boat be a new article or a subsection (Reuters) -- Aronzak (talk) 09:58, 19 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Subsection would be ideal with the title "2015 Libya migrant shipwreck". --Ant a n O 10:14, 19 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Could you tell us why did you move this article to new name? Is there any new article? --Ant a n O 10:10, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

Number of rescued
none of the links from the inline citations provides the number of 49 rescued as mentioned in the article. They all give the number of 28. --Pavlo Chemist (talk) 16:58, 19 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Mentioned in the lead section with "The Guardian". --Ant a n O 17:25, 19 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Where? Look at the lead of the cited article in "The Guardian": "Italian coastguard retrieves 28 survivors so far, and about 20 bodies, according to the interior ministry, after boat sinks 60 miles off Libyan coast". --Pavlo Chemist (talk) 21:10, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

Expand the focus
Why is this article about just the 2 shipwrecks in April and not all the other ones in 2015 or in 2013 and 2014 for that matter? What is notable here is not just the individual incidents but the overall trend.Monopoly31121993 (talk) 18:19, 19 April 2015 (UTC)


 * Support merge, if done carefully (but it might be good to see a draft first). The scope of the merged article should be restricted to shipwrecks on the route from Libya to Italy, and only if migrants were the principal reason for the trip.  Probably collect at Libya migrant shipwrecks, so Draft:Libya migrant shipwrecks would be a place to start.  I added to See Also the list of what I could find in a quick search : 2014 Libya migrant shipwreck, 2013 Lampedusa migrant shipwreck, 2011 Mediterranean Sea migrant shipwreck, 2009 Mediterranean Sea migrant shipwreck.  Please note any others. Wnt (talk) 22:25, 19 April 2015 (UTC)


 * The general subject should be covered at Immigration to Italy. This article should be expanded to (further) cover the surge of immigrant attempts and other accidents in April 2015, but early year's incidents should remain in the numerous article that already exist for them. --ThaddeusB (talk) 00:24, 20 April 2015 (UTC)


 * The notable phenomena here is not the individual events but overall pattern of events and increased migration due to unresolved regional conflicts. It's also not simply linked to immigration to Italy. It's happening all over the Mediterranean Sea, Italy was just the only one of the debt strapped Mediterranean countries to try to do something about it, which the richer EU countries refused to fund. The result is way more people getting killed. Wnt, your additions to the See Also section are really helpful.Monopoly31121993 (talk) 07:31, 20 April 2015 (UTC)


 * There should be a common article, and it should not be covered under Immigration to Italy. Italy is not the final destination of those migrants, there are boats to Cyprus, Malta, and Greece as well, it is really a EU issue.  Wikipedia badly needs a dedicated article to the crisis of undocumented boat migrants crossing the Mediterranean, to *any* of the EU Mediterranean states. --Gerrit CUTEDH 14:36, 20 April 2015 (UTC)


 * Strong oppose per WP:COATRACK - Operation Mare Nostrum is its own article - all migrant boats to Italy until 31 October 2014 should be under Operation Mare Nostrum's article. Wikipedia does not exist for WP:ADVOCACY, it only documents things that are notable to the media - and mass casualty events are more notable than minor events. -- Aronzak (talk) 14:48, 20 April 2015 (UTC)
 * The ongoing migrant crisis in the Mediterranean has been extensively covered throughout media in Europe and around the world. The overall trend is most certainly notable and of encyclopedic value.  Just a quick selection of articles:       , and so on, and so forth.  Mare Nostrum is just one element in this topic, that needs not a single article but a large number of them. --Gerrit CUTEDH 18:22, 20 April 2015 (UTC)
 * There is no reason you (or anyone else) can't create an article on the overall trend. The shipwrecks would properly not have much weight in such an article, though, so it doesn't seem wise to try to convert this article about (notable) shipwrecks into one about a (notable) trend - much better to have articles on both. --ThaddeusB (talk) 19:49, 20 April 2015 (UTC)
 * WP:COATRACK means that other content on other topics belong in other articles, not this one. Be BOLD and create any articles you want on migration, just not in this article. Don't move this article to include shipwrecks before 31 Oct 2014 - that belongs in Operation Mare Nostrum or another article. -- Aronzak (talk) 20:55, 20 April 2015 (UTC)
 * The "coatrack" citation is always a bad sign. I don't know what kind of bias you think you're opposing, but it looks like bias to me to claim that the pre- and post- Mare Nostrum periods are so separate that they can't be combined, but everything else can be.  I could live with a one-article-per-one-shipwreck standard; I could live with all of the Libya-Italy migrant shipwrecks combined in a big article, but drawing the line between those two periods seems contrary to the sources, which typically describe the wrecks as a continuing problem that has gotten worse lately. Wnt (talk) 23:41, 20 April 2015 (UTC)

Stuff I don't get
Some questions I'd like to see answered include:


 * Why are these shipwrecks so lethal? I would have thought the waters are warm, floating debris should be common, and help fast to arrive.
 * Why is the seemingly voluntary migration here being compared to the "slave trade"?
 * What is the motivation for the migrants? I thought it had been the Libyan Civil War but here we're reading the migrants were going into Libya in order to get on these boats.
 * Why aren't the migrants coming from Tunisia, which is closer to Lampedusa?

Wnt (talk) 22:33, 19 April 2015 (UTC)


 * Just re your first - if you can't swim, you'll drown in warm water just as fast as in cold. Martinevans123 (talk) 22:48, 19 April 2015 (UTC)


 * What Martin said on the first point - most Africans can't swim. On the second point, presumably b/c RS have (inaccurately) drawn the comparison - we should probably refrain from copying the point though unless made clear it is commentary by X source.  The motivation for migration is clear - greater economic opportunity.  And on the last point, I don't know for sure but probably because of better control over departures in Tunisia and/or more opportunities to buy ships/ship tickets in Libya. --ThaddeusB (talk) 00:28, 20 April 2015 (UTC)


 * Yes many Africans can't swim, but also they don't have life jackets on the vessels and they are packed on several orders of magnitude above what is considered seaworthy - to maximise profits by people smugglers - look at this image.-- Aronzak (talk) 09:09, 20 April 2015 (UTC)


 * You're joking right? (most Africans can't swim)!!! The ship capsized. It doesn't matter if they could swim or not and I would love to see your statistics on what percentage of Africans compared to Europeans can swim. If you're trapped under ship, upside-down, in the dark, with hundreds of people all around you who are just as scared as you are then you're probably going to die, especially if you're a child or a parent trying to save their child.Monopoly31121993 (talk) 07:24, 20 April 2015 (UTC)
 * It's also hard to swim if you've been locked in the hold by the people smugglers. Martinevans123 (talk) 07:32, 20 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Haven't seen that article yet. If you have facts about people being chained to the deck just like a 15th century slave ship then I would encourage you to add that to the page. Remember we only use reliable sources.Monopoly31121993 (talk) 07:43, 20 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Well, not sure about "chained to the deck", but BBC News this morning has been reporting an eye-witness statement to the effect that hundreds of people were locked below deck. And a possible maximum number of 950 persons. Martinevans123 (talk) 07:49, 20 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Both of these reports already appear in the article. Martinevans123 (talk) 09:52, 20 April 2015 (UTC)


 * With respect to the slave trade comment, I think that's linked to political issues in the EU and attempting to deflect blame for the loss of life onto the people who organized these boat trips. The organizers of these trips are called human traffickers, and they smuggle people and often work for branches of criminal organizations. They're hardly slave traders but if politicians can focus media attention on that they can deflect a lot of the blame that they have in this since they were the ones who decided to stop funding and scale back the rescue operations in 2014. The short answer is, there's a political reason why they phrased it that way and even though there is slavery in the world today, human traffickers are normally not slave traders although they may very well be horrible human beings, even murders who deserve to be called any number of things.Monopoly31121993 (talk) 07:43, 20 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Terms have multiple meanings - some people smuggled across borders end up in the sex trade to try and pay off debts. Asylum seekers have the ability to declare political asylum, while migrants who do not work in the formal sector of the economy join the informal sector, often in exploitative arrangements. -- Aronzak (talk) 09:09, 20 April 2015 (UTC)

You want to portray like you care for Humanity, and the woman and little children with missing limbs and body parts ,that would consider them part of humanity, but these don't apply they were not purchased I a Mall ,or a IKEA ,Costco ,they don't know what these Dream Stores ,that have everything from shovels to blow up Islands and Everything that comes in a wasted Package that will ultimately be disgarded like these broken displaced for all eternity Peoole are not cardboard even though alot of people would diregard the person and keep the nice Cardboard Boxes. This is an aprothy that needs some dealing with equality ,and Seperate all the peoole Born in two sections GOOD ,BAD. Whenever you are ready ,Have Faith Oh Little Non Believers of Massive Heart attack and Incarcerations. Rejoin society and eradicate Violent Greed issues and expose all the Pretenders Please ......Whiste Blowers is not Ratting ,and you are not in the Mafia ! Either you explain this to be or ,I will explain it to you ,just you will not beable to fill your teeny cup .With important valuable Information about modernization of the future ,and join the rest of the World ,time is now ....Vote in your self ,expose bad evil ,sick people ,they need help ,not positions in the White House. Pavle vlastimirovic (talk) 08:48, 9 September 2015 (UTC)

Becuz stuff Spartan-BUFFALO2KILL (talk) 22:54, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

Removing Italian Chart
I have removed the Italian chart for multiple reasons:
 * 1- Article was in Italian which I don't understand
 * 2- Statistics describe two uncomparable periods (2014 and the first 60 days of 2015)
 * 3- It's unclear what the statistics represent ("Migrants by sea to Italy"). Does that mean people who arrived in Italy by sea? People who Italy registered as arriving? People this research institute thinks arrived? This is unclear and not helpful.
 * 1- Non-English sources are allowed. Data come from the Italian Ministry of Interiors. Frontex data are scattered in these reports.
 * 2- It's not a comparison at all. Two distinct charts instead of one would do as well.
 * 3- Statistics represent migrants arrived in Italy by sea, mainly from Libya (the "Statistics" section describes the same data).
 * (I remove the chart, which can be recovered from the chronology). Nykterinos (talk) 16:39, 20 April 2015 (UTC)

Sorry I couldn't find how to post this in a new section. Can someone check the numbers on the "Migrants crossing EU sea borders in 2014 by nationality," chart. I did a word search for the number listed of Afghans, and could not find that number located in the report cited. Is this just my error, or does the table need to be modified/deleted? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.84.192.95 (talk) 13:54, 22 April 2015 (UTC)
 * You need to sum the numbers for Quarters 1,2,3,4 of 2014 in the "Sea Borders" Chart on page 12 of the report. Nykterinos (talk) 14:00, 22 April 2015 (UTC)

They are illegal immigrants
They are illegal immigrants, so we must stop to use the term migrant in this article, because they are not. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 151.68.151.25 (talk) 20:28, 21 April 2015 (UTC)


 * On Wikipedia, we do not use our personal opinion to make decisions by rather fellow what the majority of reliable sources say. Here, the majority of reliable sources use the term "migrant" so we do too.  --ThaddeusB (talk) 21:06, 21 April 2015 (UTC)


 * This is not a my personal opinion, this is a fact, if they would be true migrants, they woud have a visa. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 151.68.163.48 (talk) 21:14, 21 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Words have multiple meanings. The term migrant does not imply use of a visa.  Again, we follow what the sources say not what the "facts" are. --ThaddeusB (talk) 21:17, 21 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Yeah, i mean maby in Newspeak the word migrant doesn't imply use of a visa, but in english and italian, who doesn't have a visa, or doesn't have a valid visa or overstay it, is an illegal immigrant or clandestino in italian. Put the question at vote and we see what happen. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 151.68.163.48 (talk) 21:36, 21 April 2015 (UTC)
 * If consensus here is to change the article, we can change the article. That is rather different than repeatedly reverting the article to your preferred version as you were doing though...  I welcome further opinions on the matter. --ThaddeusB (talk) 21:42, 21 April 2015 (UTC)


 * Sorry, I obviously need to brush up on my "handy Italian phrasebook" before I could be considered fit to comment. Martinevans123 (talk) 21:48, 21 April 2015 (UTC)

The troll here are you. I'm not a xenophobic or racist, so someone ban this troll. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 151.68.163.48 (talk) 22:07, 21 April 2015 (UTC)


 * To answer the original comment, legal or not, they are migrants generically. Peoples have been migrating between countries throughout history at different times even before it was de rigeur to issue the legal documentation, and regardless of the opinion of the residents of where they migrated too. (Would the first settlers in the Americas have been considered legal immigrants to the Native American rulers? Judging by the hostile reaction of some natives who considered the 'white man' had come to take away their land these settlers would probably be considered "illegals".)Cloptonson (talk) 05:39, 18 September 2015 (UTC)


 * Please do not ban people over their opinions. But that said, "migrant" is an acceptable term for the article.  An immigrant is a type of migrant, and an illegal immigrant is a type of immigrant, so all illegal immigrants are migrants.  But the migrants turning up in Italy may have valid claims of refugee status, which under international law do not make them illegal immigrants but something else, I think.  Hmmm, I don't actually know.  In any case... follow the sources.  This isn't rocket science - you get reliable sources that say "illegal immigrants" then you're welcome to use it in context of covering those sources. Wnt (talk) 23:36, 21 April 2015 (UTC)
 * You are mostly correct, but a Migrant is simply a person, or group of people who moves from place A to B, the "Act of migration" only describes the movement of the group, nothing else. An Immigrant, is a person or group to ENTER a country, with intension of remaining there. You become an Illegal Immigrant, when you 'stay without permission' or otherwise 'enter without clearance' for instance going through customs. Just to make clear 195.109.63.17 (talk) 06:37, 6 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Oppose. The term "illegal immigrant" is not used by the EU, the UN and most RS, because many of the migrants arriving by sea are refugees who have a lawful right to enter EU countries to seek asylum. They are sometimes called "irregular migrants", but "migrants" only is the most neutral and comprehensive term. Nykterinos (talk) 00:03, 22 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Afghanistan, Algeria, Bangladesh, Chad, Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, India, Iraq, Ivory Coast, Libya, Mali, Mauritania, Morocco, Nigeria, Pakistan, Palestine, Senegal, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia and Zambia. This is the list taken from this article. They are illegal immigrant until they prove they are escaping a war, or they are persecuted by their government or with the complicity of it. But the reality is that only a tiny part of them are refugees, most of them are economic immigrants trying to enter in Italy illegally. And i can't accept that nationals listed above that live here legally, are put at the same level using the same word migrant, with the same nationals that enter illegally, and dishonestly claim to be refugees, while in fact they are not. If y'all like to mix chocolate (legal immigrant) with shit (illegal immigrant) then i suggest y'all to change the word rape with sex and rapist with lover.151.44.80.171 (talk) 10:29, 22 April 2015 (UTC)
 * More than half of the migrants who crossed EU sea borders in 2014 came from Syria, Eritrea and Afghanistan. They are not “illegal immigrants” until they are recognized refugee status, but asylum-seekers or "prima facie" refugees, who arrive in Europe in the only lawful way provided for by international and EU law. No one calls “illegal immigrants” the millions of Syrian refugees who fled to Turkey and Lebanon, a tiny fraction of whom tried to enter Europe by sea. Nykterinos (talk) 13:09, 22 April 2015 (UTC)
 * I taken this from the page refugee here in wikipedia "Until a request for refuge has been accepted, the person is referred to as an asylum seeker. Only after the recognition of the asylum seeker's protection needs is he or she is officially referred to as a refugee and enjoys refugee status." And this from your link of UNHCR "The terms asylum-seeker and refugee are often confused: an asylum-seeker is someone who says he or she is a refugee, but whose claim has not yet been definitively evaluated." This means that before they make a request (they can't do it in the ship at sea) they are illegal immigrants, after landing, all of them make a request and become asylum seeker, after this evaluation, only a 46% are recognized as refugees, the other are illegal immigrants. So the right, more neutral and not biased term y'all have to use is illegal immigrants, because the sources speak clearly.151.18.131.47 (talk) 14:05, 22 April 2015 (UTC)
 * As you wrote, after this evaluation, only a 46% are recognized as refugees, the other are illegal immigrants. You can't know if they are illegal immigrants before evaluating their requests for asylum. On the other hand, if you know that most of them come from refugee-producing countries, you can say that they are "prima-facie refugees". Finally, most RS don't use the term "illegal immigrants", so we don't use it either. Nykterinos (talk) 14:35, 22 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Visto che lo capisci ti parlo in italiano perché il mio inglese fa schifo. Se entrano illegalmente sono clandestini, una volta fatta la richiesta di asilo, diventano richiedenti asilo, meno la metà di questi poi risultano essere dei veri rifugiati dopo che le richieste sono state valutate. L'altra metà non solo entra illegalmente ma si spaccia per rifugiato ovviamente questi vanno deportati. Il fatto che vengano da paesi fonte di rifugiati, non rende tutti i nazionali di quel paese rifugiati. Primo perché la convenzione sui rifugiati prevede il rifiuto dello status se si sono commessi crimini contro la pace, di guerra, contro l'umanità, ma anche altre tipologie per esempio uno stupro commesso al di fuori dei crimini citati prima.


 * Secondo perché, il fatto che ci sia una guerra in un paese non significa che venga coinvolto tutto il paese. Per esempio la guerra in Ucraina è limitata al confine russo, il resto del paese vive in perfetta pace, quindi se si presenta un ucraino che vive a Kiev o al confine romeno o polacco non può, giustamente essere considerato un rifugiato. Se in Italia venissero perseguitati i germanofoni, e questi chiedessero rigugio negli USA, questo non garantirebbe lo status di rifugiato a tutti gli altri italiani.


 * Il termine più corretto per descrivere le persone che tentano di entrare illegalmente in un paese, è clandestini. Perché ripeto diventano richiedenti asilo solo dopo aver fatto una richiesta che non posso fare mentre sono sui barconi. Se poi volete continuare a chiamere migranti quelli che in realtà sono clandestini, fate pure, utilizzate le vostre fonti politicamente correte. 151.44.62.156 (talk) 15:28, 22 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Que? 220  of  Borg 16:20, 22 October 2015 (UTC)


 * Comment Wikipedia bases its reporting on reliable sources, not original research. An EU report says that 111,600 asylum applications were made in the fourth quarter of 2014, and 46% were accepted. 95% of Syrians who apply for protection are accepted, and only 64% of Afghanis. Others from non-conflict zones have low rates of genuine asylum claims.
 * The phrase "Illegal immigrants" is a bad way to express a group of people where, among those who apply for refugee protection under the convention, 45% are found to be valid asylum seekers. Some of the ones who fail do illegally cross EU borders into countries like the UK. Many of the people on the boats who reach Italy will not bother to try and go though the process of asylum applications, but will travel across the boarders (illegally) to other places in Europe.


 * The definition of refugee is based on the refugee convention that states that a person's "life or freedom would be threatened on account of his race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social or political opinion." Asylum seekers have to prove that the government has a protection obligation to them on one of those five grounds (race, religion, nationality, social or political group).


 * Note - the way that asylum claims are assessed has changed in the past. LGBT is a social group, but in the UK, but people who claim to be gay were forced to forced to undergo penis bloodflow tests in 2013 - but that was struck down by a human rights court. related (BBC 2013 Telegraph 2015). Refugee status is not easy to acquire, and the majority of people on boats will not go though the process. -- Aronzak (talk) 12:36, 22 April 2015 (UTC)


 * Also IOM figures from Gallup show that migration is more opposed in Italy, Malta, Greece and the UK. Pew figures show this also. -- Aronzak (talk) 22:13, 22 April 2015 (UTC)
 * You used the wrong word, nobody is opposed (i.e. stop immigration and close the borders), the majority of the world and continents, except Asia, want the same level or a decreased level of (legal) immigration. I, and i think others people, are opposed to illegal immigration. But you are off topic, because we are talking about the choice of using the word illegal immigrants or migrants. And i showed y'all that they are illegal immigrants. 151.18.55.101 (talk) 09:55, 23 April 2015 (UTC)

They are refugees and refugees are never illegal. Most of them are Syrians who are fleeing the war, only some from other countries who saw the opportunity and jumped on the bandwagon. Sh eri ff (report) 01:39, 20 October 2015 (UTC)
 * They are refugees, and they may be legal. Something that is being reported however is that they are often registered only far in the EU territories. biggest problem maybe is that its unclear where they stop, or want to go. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.109.63.17 (talk) 10:27, 5 November 2015 (UTC)

It is interesting how before (the 1990s, 2000s) they were called invaders (e.g. in the BBC film Wave), then inflitrators (e.g. in Israeli law), then illegal migrants, then migrants, then asylum seekers. Below Wikipedians want to call all of them refugees for the sake of this article. I augur the future terms: road pilgrims, boat heroes, and ''flying-in saints'. Zezen (talk) 04:34, 21 March 2016 (UTC)

Requested move

 * The following is a closed discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the proposal was no consensus for a move at this time, given the potential interest in creating a separate article. --BDD (talk) 20:17, 26 May 2015 (UTC)

April 2015 Mediterranean Sea migrant shipwrecks &rarr; 2015 Mediterranean Sea Migrants Crisis – In my opinion, a better name for the article is "2015 Mediterranean Migrants Crisis " or something like that.

See here http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-32409151

..or here http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/libya/11553303/Theres-only-one-way-to-stop-the-Mediterranean-migrant-crisis.html

--Relisted. George Ho (talk) 17:23, 6 May 2015 (UTC) Barjimoa (talk) 13:22, 22 April 2015 (UTC)


 * Oppose - The current name is better since it covers April incident only. If there is need for wide coverage, it is better to start new article. --Ant a n O 13:58, 22 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Surely you mean "incident s " - plural? Nick Cooper (talk) 21:37, 5 May 2015 (UTC)


 * Oppose - I agree with Antan - a separate article should be created for the overall crisis. The shipwrecks are notable in their own right. --ThaddeusB (talk) 16:44, 22 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Strong support - This is clearly an ongoing issue that can't be neatly delineated to the past month, as evidenced by the most recent sinking. Nick Cooper (talk) 15:11, 5 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Oppose Scope of article is the April incident only. Consequential and notable by itself If an article happens to be created about the flood of refugees and the larger issues, and that seems likely, this could be linked in it.  But burying it in the larger context is wrong, IMHO.  7&amp;6=thirteen (☎) 15:16, 5 May 2015 (UTC)
 * What do you mean by "the April incident only"? This page documents four sinkings between 13 and 20 April, not a single incident. Nick Cooper (talk) 21:34, 5 May 2015 (UTC)


 * Wait - The recently added sinkings, one on 3 May and two on 5 May, are still scantily described and supported by sources. If these can be expanded the article might look quite different. Martinevans123 (talk) 18:36, 6 May 2015 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Move request
I suggest moving this blown-out-of-proportion "article" (and all the other migrant shipwreck articles) to the Conditions en route section of the Migration crisis in Europe article.89.134.247.250 (talk) 11:42, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

Requested move 6 August 2015

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the move request was: Moved. Natg 19 (talk) 00:31, 14 August 2015 (UTC)

European migration crisis → European migrant crisis – as per Google news search raw results from the last year where


 * "European migrant crisis" got "About 773 results" and
 * "European migration crisis" got "2 results". The title also fits in with Wikipedia articles in reference to "migrant vessels".  They are not referred to as "migration vessels". GregKaye 05:38, 6 August 2015 (UTC)


 * Support. Makes sense. Thanks, DA Sonnenfeld (talk) 10:13, 9 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Support. Rob.HUN (talk) 14:18, 9 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Support. --Iztwoz (talk) 16:15, 9 August 2015 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

2015 Mediterranean migration crisis
I started 2015 Mediterranean migration crisis a few days ago after failing to find an article on the topic. They should be merged, but I think the title needs a date, which could be 2014, but should probably be 2015. And I have not been here long enough to know what to do about the article I started.E.M.Gregory (talk) 18:56, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

Expansion is due, possible Western European bias
Since the article is now about the migrant crisis in general, it needs to address it in the context of Europe and the EU. Currently it is geared towards Italy, Greece, and the Channel Tunnel, and it covers little about the Turkey-Balkans land route which causes serious problems in Central and Eastern Europe.

Examples of points that should be addressed using the available reliable sources (not necessarily in English):


 * the "Balkans route", its importance considering the Schengen Zone, the stops on it and the actions taken by the countries on it (Bulgaria, Macedonia, Serbia, Hungary, Austria, Germany)
 * the failed border lock operation in Macedonia (where migrants stormed Macedonian riot police and went through razor wires)
 * the border fence constructed in Hungary (and its apparent shortcomings and possible reinforcement with police and military personnel, also Budapest's authorities provide humanitarian "transit zones" to aid migrants traveling through the city)
 * Austria's agreement to strengthen Hungarian border security by providing some of their police staff
 * the failure in the EU to agree about sharing migrants and the special status given to Italy, Greece, Hungary and Bulgaria
 * the four anti-immigration border fences constructed or under construction (Greece-Turkey, Bulgaria-Turkey, Hungary-Serbia, Latvia-Russia) and their reception
 * human rights assessments of the migrant situation in each involved country (Macedonian and Serbian police brutality and looting)
 * anti-migrant sentiments and riots in various countries (now at least in Italy, Eastern Germany and in Southern Hungary)
 * analysis of the migrants' motives, their minor riots, and presenting the sentiment that many of them apparently have no intention to comply with what EU or national agencies require or wish for (for example fingerprint collection), and they either don't ask for asylum/refugee status in the first country they meet, or leave the country behind before their request can be even examined (meanwhile burdening the already overworked migrant authorities especially in Central and Eastern Europe)

I can't really expand the article now, mainly because I don't have that kind of Wiki-expertise, language skill and citing skills, but I hope some editors would take notice of the important points which aren't necessarily well-represented in Western European media. --Rev L. Snowfox (talk) 20:13, 25 August 2015 (UTC)


 * I agree with the comments above. I live in the region and there has been a lot of coverage in the international media about the Balkan route recently, but it seems Wiki editors aren't too interested in it. According to UN estimates the route will soon have a flow of approx 3,000 people per day, along a clear pattern that has emerged. Most people go from Turkey's mainland to Greek islands (primarily Kos and Lesbos), then from there towards Greek mainland with the goal of reaching the area around Thessaloniki, and from there to the Macedonian border and the town of Gevgelija where thousands try to get on board of trains and buses travelling northwards towards Serbia. Once dropped off at the border, they are directed towards aid centers in Preševo, and from there they board buses towards Belgrade (where hundreds of them can be seen resting in parks near the bus station) and then onwards to the border with Hungary. After boarding buses northwards they are dropped off near the village of Kanjiža, where the Serbian government has set up a temporary relief camp, and from there they walk on foot towards Horgoš, a border village which has an abandoned railway track leading up to Hungarian border. The track cuts through the fence erected by Hungarian authorities so they think this is their best chance of getting through. About a third of them are women and children, and roughly 80 percent of these people are Syrian, the rest mostly Iraqi and Afghan. The large majority of them intend to reach Germany to seek asylum, with smaller portions going to Sweden, Finland, the Netherlands, Austria and France where they have relatives living there already. They see Hungary's Schengen border as the last leg of their journey and none of them are interested in staying in any of the countries along the way, which is why they are keen to avoid registering in Hungary - for fear that they would be kept there and prevented from reaching Germany. This is clearly a separate phenomenon from the groups crossing the Mediterranean and going through Italy towards France and Calais in hopes of getting into the UK. There's plenty of sources out there reporting about this. InflatableSupertrooper (talk) 22:06, 27 August 2015 (UTC)
 * There has been a great deal added to this article recently about Hungary, Austria, and Croatia. It looks like it is still missing some information about Macedonia, Romania, Bulgaria, and Serbia. I'll add back the Geographical imbalance template until these oversights are addressed. Mamyles (talk) 23:36, 7 September 2015 (UTC)

Vehicle Accidents List
I just started compiling this list pending the number of serious traffic accidents involving human trafficking if somebody wants to help: List of migrant vehicle incidents in Europe Global aviator (talk) 12:29, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

Causes and results
Two issues which are deserved to be described in the article in the separate sections are causes and results of the crisis. The collapse of the nation states or economies due to geopolitical and environmental crisis as well as wars has led to this crisis. If the current situation of the Middle East and North Africa became worse, it might lead to a huge wave of immigration like Migration Period and this would brought about a serious socio-political crisis in Europe. -- Seyyed(t-c) 07:59, 29 August 2015 (UTC)

Migrants or Refugees?
The article (and the title) mainly uses the term "Migrants". The UNHCR has produced the following on the distinction between migrant and refugee (from http://www.unhcr.org/55df0e556.html): "Refugees are persons fleeing armed conflict or persecution." and "Migrants choose to move not because of a direct threat of persecution or death, but mainly to improve their lives by finding work, or in some cases for education, family reunion, or other reasons.", while adding "So, back to Europe and the large numbers of people arriving this year and last year by boats in Greece, Italy and elsewhere. Which are they? Refugees or migrants? In fact, they happen to be both. The majority of people arriving this year in Italy and Greece especially have been from countries mired in war or which otherwise are considered to be 'refugee-producing' and for whom international protection is needed. However, a smaller proportion is from elsewhere, and for many of these individuals, the term 'migrant' would be correct.".

So, it seems that in terms of the UNHCR definition the article should replace "migrant" by "refugee" in most places (and arguably also in the title).

These distinctions do matter as usage of the term "migrant" implies a certain political agenda: namely that the people come "only" to improve their economic condition, not under fear of life and thus implying that no one is under any obligation to offer shelter. Views? 86.189.248.185 (talk) 22:07, 30 August 2015 (UTC)


 * Despite hand-wringing social media campaigns, "migrant" implies no such thing. It is a neutral term that covers refugees, economic migrants, and others. It is undeniable that a significant minority are economic migrants, so it would be misleading to use "refugees" as a top-level description. It would also be simplistic to claim that everybody originating from any particular country are refugees. Nick Cooper (talk) 05:29, 31 August 2015 (UTC)
 * totally agree with Nick Cooper, word have meaning, and saying refugee when many of them are economic migrants will be missleading 210.13.71.163 (talk) 10:50, 31 August 2015 (UTC)
 * I;m not talking about social media compaigns. Rather about recommended usage by the UNHRC. The majority are refugess. Some are migrants. Lets use the term migrants for all of them. Sounds like pushing a political agenda to me. 81.146.63.239 (talk) 23:45, 2 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Following the UNHRC recommendation I also suggest that we should replace the current "a combination of economic migrants and refugees" used in the introductory paragraph with "a majority of refugees in combination with other immigrants"  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.181.138.245 (talk) 19:46, 4 September 2015 (UTC)
 * I see from Nick Cooper's profile that he is British; in such a context, his comments on the neutrality of the term "migrant" are disingenuous. In the first decade of the 21st century "migrant" became adopted in British political/media discourse as, following "illegal immigrant" and "asylum seeker", the latest and broadest euphemism for "foreigner (probably of colour) who doesn't have any right to come over here whatever the law says and whom we don't want over here". The term "migrant crisis" is, therefore, to British Wikipedia readers, tendentious and implicitly judgemental. This characteristically British attitude, displayed to some degree in some comments here, was satirised by British comedian Mark Steel when he observed that, ultimately, all such people are economic refugees, because they can earn more when alive than when dead. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.97.248.156 (talk) 17:02, 20 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Maybe you should keep your prejudiced misassumptions to yourself? Nick Cooper (talk) 11:35, 8 April 2016 (UTC)

If the majority of reliable sources call this a "migrant crisis", then we should do the same anyway. The lead should explain clearly that even the UNHCR acknowledges there are various motives behind the current situation. --Rev L. Snowfox (talk) 08:43, 31 August 2015 (UTC)
 * The majority of independent sources use the term "migrant crisis" - note that the word "refugee" is only correctly used to describe somebody who has made a claim under the refugee convention that is successful and is found to be genuine - people making the claims are called asylum seekers and those whose claims are rejected are not called refugees. The rejection rate of refugee applications varies based on country of origin, but is never zero. -- Callinus (talk) 11:46, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

I've changed one particular instance of "illegal immigrants" to "refugees", where the given (UNHRC) source (currently [29]) clearly says that the large majority are refugees. 81.146.63.239 (talk) 23:54, 2 September 2015 (UTC)


 * This article is about both refugees and migrants. To keep things workable, I think we should use the word that is used by the specific source in all sentences that are related to that source. Debresser (talk) 07:54, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

That's what the UNCHR says.

"The terms asylum-seeker and refugee are often confused: an asylum-seeker is someone who says he or she is a refugee, but whose claim has not yet been definitively evaluated. On average, about 1 million people seek asylum on an individual basis every year. In mid-2014, there were more than 1.2 million asylum-seekers. National asylum systems are there to decide which asylum-seekers actually qualify for international protection. Those judged through proper procedures not to be refugees, nor to be in need of any other form of international protection, can be sent back to their home countries. The efficiency of the asylum system is key. If the asylum system is both fast and fair, then people who know they are not refugees have little incentive to make a claim in the first place, thereby benefitting both the host country and the refugees for whom the system is intended. '''During mass movements of refugees (usually as a result of conflicts or generalized violence as opposed to individual persecution), there is not - and never will be - a capacity to conduct individual asylum interviews for everyone who has crossed the border. Nor is it usually necessary, since in such circumstances it is generally evident why they have fled. As a result, such groups are often declared "prima facie" refugees'''."

So I guess that most of the asylum seekers coming to the EU are defined immediatly as refugees because we are talking about a mass movement of people which is the result of conflicts as opposed to individual persecution. Barjimoa (talk) 08:30, 20 March 2016 (UTC)

migrants will be forced to leave the territory of the European Union. totally false statement
this statement "migrants will be forced to leave the territory of the European Union" is in the introduction of the article. but according to french "cours des comptes" (official body of french government) only 1% of the one who get their asylum request denied are forced to leave the country, and the other just stay. So saying "will be forced" when 99% of them are forced to nothing and just stay is just false. a proper statement should be " migrants should be forced to leave the territory of the European Union according to the law, but only 1% do really leave the territory in practice" source: [] cost 2 billions a year, and 1% of the one who get the request rejected leave France 210.13.71.163 (talk) 10:54, 31 August 2015 (UTC)
 * You can't extrapolate the whole of the EU from one country. Nick Cooper (talk) 12:03, 31 August 2015 (UTC)
 * So this statement is wrong in France (1% of the one rejected really leave)... let see germany we can see that 8000 have been kick out in 6 months... vs 800,000 entry in Germany planned for 2015 (out of it, if it is like in France 50-75% should not get asylum... thus it is around 1.5-2% kick out)... should I found for every single country in Europe, or showing that instead of 100% it is 1-2% in the two biggest European country is enough?  Plus the rules in Wikipedia is not that people should prove things wrong, but that a claims should be supported by credible source, and the claim that "they will be forced" is supported by no source. quite the opposit in fact 210.13.71.163 (talk) 01:24, 1 September 2015 (UTC)
 * All academic now, given that the word "forced" is no longer used. It is, of course, entirely logical that those whose applications failed should not remain, i.e. they should leave, regardless of whether "force" is used or not. Nick Cooper (talk) 09:41, 1 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Actually no. If people refuse to leave, governments cant even fully stop fundig or sheltering them. The dutch tried a few says ago and an NGO launched a complain with the U.N.. So "supposed to leave" would be correct. Alexpl (talk) 21:33, 7 September 2015 (UTC)

European nature of crisis?
As the vast majority of the refugees of the Syrian Civil War are still in the Middle East, and, as the victims are not European themselves for the most part, I wonder if it really appropriate to call the crisis European. Perhaps '2010s migrant crisis' would be better? Munci (talk) 12:51, 1 September 2015 (UTC)


 * This article isn't about the refugees of the Syrian Civil War. It is about the unprecedented migrant influx in Europe which is actually causing problems in Europe itself, mostly because hardly any country was prepared to handle 3000+ of migrants per day, of which some might apply for asylum, and some might riot when faced with European and local immigration policies. --Rev L. Snowfox (talk) 12:58, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

I agree with the user above me. This article is here to cover the migrant influx in the EU. And it is a term often used by the media. Barjimoa (talk) 15:01, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

Current title (1 september 2015)
The title of this page might need to be changed in order to reflect the changes in that crisis since April 2015. The term refugee seems more precise than migrant : It would also reflect the change that is occurring in the media, politics speeches and public opinion. Therefor Europe's refugee crisis seems a more appropriate title    — Preceding unsigned comment added by Phecda (talk • contribs)  19:22, 1 September 2015‎
 * The proposed title is better suited to the content of this Wikipedia article.Filpro (talk) 17:57, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

I prefer the current title. "European migrant crisis" is still far more used. 213.233.5.23 (talk) 18:56, 3 September 2015 (UTC)


 * Calling it a Refugee Crisis is too precise, because not all are refugees, there's been numerous news bulletins touching that topic already and many of the non-refugees have acknowledged this. Migrant is fine. 195.109.63.17 (talk) 11:13, 9 December 2015 (UTC)

Migrant routes
The section "Migrant routes" should include a subsection for Malta. I'm not an expert in this area so hopefully someone else would be able to add this section. Xwejnusgozo (talk) 11:16, 2 September 2015 (UTC)


 * There is some information here: Demographics of Malta Xwejnusgozo (talk) 11:18, 2 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Thank you for the link - I've copied its main points here. The information is a bit outdated, but will provide a start to add more. Mamyles (talk) 14:00, 2 September 2015 (UTC)


 * When I first visited Malta in 2008 migration seemed a hot topic of conversation, when I was back there last month, not remotely so much. I got the impression that Malta's long-standing tough stance on the matter has been a marked deterrent, with migrants now avoiding the country by choice, if possible. I'll see if I can dig up some local news sources. Nick Cooper (talk) 10:55, 4 September 2015 (UTC)

Biased coverage of events in Germany
Why is the entire English-speaking world seemingly incapable of providing anything like a balanced news coverage of events in Germany? Seemingly always, as is the case here too, only neo-Nazis and their ilk are mentioned. In this article 2 sentences are devoted to sporadic anti-immigrant events. Not a word of Chancellor Merkel's offer to cater for 800,000 refugees this year (match that anyone? or anywhere remotely close?). No mention of, for example, the 'Refugees welcome' banners brought by the spectators to televised football games. No mention of the large volunteer mobilisation to help the new arrivals. No mention of the donations of help that were so numerous that Munich police took to Twitter to ask people to stop sending it, because they had too much. A bit of balance, please. And an explanation of your lack of it too, please. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2001:14BA:4ED:D000:68FD:1B4A:3E43:58BE (talk) 17:01, 4 September 2015 (UTC)

I agree, there a lot of far-right wing users trying to change the sense of the article. Barjimoa (talk) 18:02, 4 September 2015 (UTC)


 * It should also be mentioned that UK is not going to take any migrants or refugees. --Tuvixer (talk) 18:47, 4 September 2015 (UTC)


 * Er, the UK in recent years takes in around 600,000 immigrants per year... Argovian (talk) 21:16, 4 September 2015 (UTC)

- Immigrants. Not refugees. Germany also takes in numerous non-refugee immigrants. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2001:14BA:4ED:D000:351E:7F34:51B0:5649 (talk) 16:30, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

As originator of the above complaint about the article, I hereby state no sympathy/agreement with either of the (Barjimoa/Tuximer) above comments. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2001:14BA:4ED:D000:CC36:B5AA:F5DB:B077 (talk) 20:02, 4 September 2015 (UTC)


 * And a lot of internationalist far-left/globalist left-liberal user trying to do the same. Rob.HUN (talk) 21:10, 4 September 2015 (UTC)

Where is Merkel and the German government's ambiguous statements? Without these, the whole article is meaningless (migrants' reaction in Hungary, Orbán's steps etc.) --Norden1990 (talk) 21:05, 4 September 2015 (UTC)

Point of view
Due to mostly negative reactions on the article, which can be find for example HERE. I didn't get why do we mention Pegida to Germany's section and not for example words of Angela Merkel or in section for the Czech Republic why we do not mention words from Government or Prime Minister Sobotka who supports solidarity when President has no power in setting foreign policy. I think it is appropriate. Thanks -- Itsyoungrapper (talk) 21:34, 4 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Why don't you mention it? (no offence meant) I don't think this questions the neutrality of the article as a whole. Rob.HUN (talk) 21:51, 4 September 2015 (UTC)


 * The entire section is just a collection of soundbites taken from news reports and serves little informative value. Which is in fact emblematic of the entire handling of the crisis in Europe - lots of empty talk around Europe: countries which have barely seen a single migrant so far are embroiled in debates on how to house and offer them shelter despite the fact nobody has plans to relocate there (Slovakia, Slovenia, Croatia, the Baltics, etc.) and countries which are popular migrant destinations (primarily Germany, but also Sweden, Austria, UK and the Netherlands) are reporting reactions from all sides of the political spectrum, but are really helpless anyway faced with such a colossal wave of people coming in (except the non-Schengen UK, that is). This article should conflate these opinions into an overview summary and simply focus on facts related to the crisis - like description of the two main migrant routes (through the Mediterranean and the one through the Balkans), the gradual caving in of governments who started offering transportation just to get rid of them (Greek government ferries to its mainland, Macedonian government trains to Serbia, Serbian government buses to Hungary, Hungarian trains to Austria) or not (Hungarian fence, Poseidon, Calais jungle, etc.) and destination countries' plans how to handle the influx. Nobody really cares what Croatians or Slovakians or Lithuanians or Poles or Latvians think. And nobody is risking their life crossing the sea in a rubber dinghy only to build a better future for themselves in a place like Riga or Ljubljana or Budapest. Instead of "European migrant crisis" this article might as well be titled "mass marathon towards Germany", and article body should reflect that. Just my 2c. InflatableSupertrooper (talk) 21:58, 4 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Also, a chronology of events would be in order. InflatableSupertrooper (talk) 22:00, 4 September 2015 (UTC)


 * Nobody really cares what Croatians or Slovakians or Lithuanians or Poles or Latvians think. And nobody is risking their life crossing the sea in a rubber dinghy only to build a better future for themselves in a place like Riga or Ljubljana or Budapest. Instead of "European migrant crisis" this article might as well be titled "mass marathon towards Germany", and article body should reflect that.


 * Well the article should mention what the government of EU members think about the migrant crisis. Alao that sounded somewhat rude, people do settle in these countries' capitals, but yeah, the migrants' choice is Germany or Sweden, and the article should elaborate on this fact. --Rev L. Snowfox (talk) 19:23, 7 September 2015 (UTC)
 * What people 'THINK' is completely irrelevant. What is 'HAPPENING' should covered here. Sure, like everyone I can think what should be done and where this should be done but it doesn't help this article in anyway. Opinion are meaningless. 195.109.63.17 (talk) 12:27, 5 November 2015 (UTC)

Migrants and refugees
A refugee is, according to the 1951 Refugee Convention, any person who "owing to a well-founded fear" of persecution is outside their country of nationality and "unable" or "unwilling" to seek the protection of that country. To gain the status, one has to go through the legal process of claiming asylum. The 1951 Refugee Convention: http://www.unhcr.org/pages/49da0e466.html

As soon as someone fleeing persecution and mortal danger gets into a country where he/she is no longer persecuted but still caries on "fleeing" without invitation by a third country, he/she is no longer a refugee but a migrant.

The only real refugees in Europe Schengen Area are Lybian citizens whose country is a direct neighbour to the Schengen Area. Rob.HUN (talk) 22:54, 4 September 2015 (UTC)
 * That's WP:OR posing as legalese. Plenty of news outlets and international organisations came out recently with their interpretations of these terms (Amnesty, IBT), and most of them agree that the difference is that refugees cannot be repatriated due to violent conflicts and persecution in their country of origin whereas migrants can (as they are simply moving from poor countries in search for work and better living conditions). It's a huge distinction in Germany and it's the reason why Germany is keen for EU to adopt a common list of safe countries so that Kosovars (who kept flowing into Germany for months before Syrians showed up) could be re-classified as "migrants" and therefore sent back, making room for newly arrived Syrians. (Another rather important piece of the story nobody remembered to add to the article). According to your interpretation nobody is a refugee after crossing more than one border. Which is plain false. InflatableSupertrooper (talk) 23:00, 4 September 2015 (UTC)
 * I agree with InflatableSupertrooper. Yours is WP:Original research which contradicts what WP:reliable sources say. Multiple reliable sources (UNHCR, IBT, etc.) call the crisis a refugee crisis and say that most of the migrants are refugees, and we should report what reliable sources say. I reworded the first sentence because it lacked sources and was not WP:verifiable. It can be improved, but reliable sources need to be cited. Nykterinos (talk) 23:13, 4 September 2015 (UTC)


 * If these people are refugees fleeing persecution and not economic migrants, why aren't they willing to stop in Italy, France, Austria, Hungary, Serbia, Bulgaria, Greece, Turkey? All are democratic and peacful countries. Rob.HUN (talk) 23:16, 4 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Actually, many of them do apply for asylum in Italy, France, Austria, Hungary, etc., and most of them do remain in the countries neighbouring to the ones they flee (Turkey, Lebanon, Pakistan, etc.). However, you OR is meaningless here: by reverting sourced content and restoring unsourced one, you're breaching Wikipedia policies and not respecting the WP:Consensus achieving process. Nykterinos (talk) 23:31, 4 September 2015 (UTC)
 * If you would care to serach: here are some MIGRANT CRISIS sources BBC, WSJ, Financial Times, The Telegraph, CNN, USA Today, The Economist. I'm not questioning that there are refugees among all these people, I'm arguing against calling it a European refugee crisis. Rob.HUN (talk) 23:40, 4 September 2015 (UTC)
 * I didn't delete "migrant crisis", I just added REFUGEE CRISIS (UNHCR, International Business Times, The Guardian, Financial Times, The Independent), with specific quotations (UNHCR: "This is a primarily refugee crisis, not only a migration phenomenon"), plus other sources. Nykterinos (talk) 23:57, 4 September 2015 (UTC)

The descriptions (with regard to people who are not in a practical or ethical position not to fight for their homelands) that I use are "migrating refugees" and "migrant refugees". Those with legitimate reason not to engage in solving the problems of their own lands were refugees (and people recooping) to the point that they got to refugee camps and support from adjacent countries. They remain refugees after this point but these people then also become migrants. In addition to migrating refugees there are also reports of their being plenty of economic migrants travelling within Europe. GregKaye 02:24, 5 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Whatever UNHCR, Amesty etc. and some of the press (usually left-liberal and far-left) claim, one who travels across the half world and willing to settle in one special place of his/her desire without being invited or granted the right beforehand, cannot be called a real refugee.37.76.7.78 (talk) 06:10, 5 September 2015 (UTC)


 * A lot of them apply for asylum in France and Italy. You guys have to accept that a lot of them are asylum seekers. However, The current title is ok to me. The important thing is to mention the fact that a lot of them (probably the majority) are asylum seekers. Barjimoa (talk) 08:34, 5 September 2015 (UTC)
 * I do not disagree with you, but "a lot of them" isn't a good way to discuss it. If you have - just as an example - one million people entering Italy and 100,000 applying for asylum, that is "a lot" but far away from being the majority. There is also a difference between the migration routes - 40% of asylum requests in Germany are from Balkan countries and exploit the very slow German asylum system in order to get money, well knowing that asylum requests are ultimately futile (this was criticized by the UN). So north of former Yugoslavia (Hungary, Austria, Germany) there is a high chance that a significant part are fake refugees. To discuss how great the share actually is seems to be pointless as that will be different every day. (Equality 7-2522 (talk) 06:35, 9 September 2015 (UTC))

I would prefer that the terms being used avoid carrying a political message. During I edited the page I noted that apparently someone attempted to replace the phrase "asylum seeker" with "refugee". While "asylum seeker" is a neutral description of such people avoiding the suggestion that the asylum has to be granted and that the request is justified, "refugee" suggests that those people are indeed in need of help, something which has not been decided in a fair and orderly way apparently when they reach the Hungarian or Mazedonian border. If people have not been granted asylum yet but want to request it, they are asylum seekers and it is not up to Wikipedia users to decide how justified their requests are. "Migrant" on the other hand is a neutral and more general term - a person who moves from one place to another. Actually, if those people do not request asylum in the first EU country they enter and/or deliberately go to a different EU member state, they do happen to be "illegal immigrants" (in those countries), as they violate EU agreements. Wikipedia is no place for emotions but for facts like law. (Equality 7-2522 (talk) 06:35, 9 September 2015 (UTC))
 * This is exactly what I tried to get at some earlier in this topic. The FACT is (look it up) is that many people (the MAJORITY) are by that definition illegal. Because for that majority the fact is, that mostr only REGISTERED as being whatever AFTER crossing MULTIPLE country borders. I don't care for a moment if they are supposed to be migrant, refugee, asylum-seeker, traveller, economic-something, infiltrated terrorist or what have you, they all simply just walk 5000 kilometers without verification of their person on them. What the title reads in the end won't matter all too much, becuase we're trying to catch more than 1 type into 1 name... so give it up, nobody will ever win that argument. 195.109.63.17 (talk) 12:41, 5 November 2015 (UTC)

Re your discussion, please see my move request below. I hope I pinged everybody interested, otherwise feel free to notify others without canvassing the discussion. --PanchoS (talk) 22:57, 19 March 2016 (UTC)

Only 2015?
Apart from this page desperately needing a more thorough and frequent updating schedule, and the need for neutrality between the neo-nazis and radical liberals swarming this page, one problem I have is that this page only addresses the Migrant Crisis as of this year. The Migrant Crisis is a long affair whose pre-2015 should not be mentioned only as background information. This page needs merging with pages like the 201x Migrant Shipwrecks pages and generally more focus on pre-2015 events. Sleath56 (talk) 06:23, 5 September 2015 (UTC)


 * Opposing migration in itself or advocating strict immigration laws/control in itself doesn't make you neo-nazi. I hope you aren't implying that. --Rev L. Snowfox (talk) 19:32, 7 September 2015 (UTC)
 * I fail to see how you could have garnered such a view from my post. In it, I was calling out that extremists of both sides were making emotionally-based judgements in editing the page. I did not give any descript information that might have judged what I believe an extremist to be.

Sleath56 (talk) 03:48, 11 September 2015 (UTC)

The Migrant crisis as a European crisis has been studied as a whole since april 2015. Before that, it was seen as a Mediterranean crisis, or as a Hungarian crisis etc etc... I think it is ok to mantain that in the background section.

I agree that there is a need for neutrality. A lot of users do not want to accept that a large number of migrants are asylum seekers. It is also true that other users do not even consider economic migration. Barjimoa (talk) 08:28, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

What the hell is a "radical liberal" anyway? It's funny how you can tell when people are from the U.S., they think that "Liberal" is akin to saying "Communist" or something, which of course is like saying "bad guy". It's like this "far-left" that, you know, doesn't actually exist in the West. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.224.182.5 (talk) 02:03, 15 September 2015 (UTC)

Mass immigration
From how many migrants is an immigration a mass immigration? How many people per day/week/month/year suffice? Are cca. 220.000 people per year (2014) "enough"?37.76.7.78 (talk) 15:38, 5 September 2015 (UTC)
 * In my opinion, if the number of immigrants exceeds the number of newborn children in the country or area it is mass immigration, and if more than 1% of the current population size is added by immigration it is mass immigration too. Usually, the term is used when a country experiences an unseen influx of people, so it is not fixed and universal. For Hungary 200.000 immigrants will be mass immigration, for the US probably not. Ultimately the deciding psychological factor is whether a society experiences significant costs and issues due to the immigration, as that indicates that it was not prepared and ready to accept so many people. (Equality 7-2522 (talk) 06:58, 9 September 2015 (UTC))
 * I think in this context crisis reflects this already, not so much because of the use of the word mass, but because all countries that need to to handle it are seemingly ill-equipped. 195.109.63.17 (talk) 13:34, 5 November 2015 (UTC)

Violence committed by migrants in Calais
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/sep/04/britons-do-no-drive-to-calais-convoy-disruption-calaid http://www.demorgen.be/buitenland/vlaams-hulpkonvooi-geplunderd-in-calais-vader-beschermt-gezin-met-koevoet-a2446562/

Seems that families that collected food and clothing for total strangers, drove for hours to deliver it, nearly got murdered them by the intended recipients of their generosity, with the blame being given to them in national publications. Even left-wing publications seem unable to hide the truth of the situation. Wajajad (talk) 20:26, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

Military deserters
A section should be added to highlight the following fact. Migrants are leaving their home countries with legitiMate governments and militaries, and in a state of war, they are illegally deserting their requirements of staying in their countries. This excludes women, children, and other protected groups, of course. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 178.148.127.44 (talk) 00:08, 7 September 2015 (UTC)

Motivations section
Any indication why more driven to Europe this year than in past - to add to article? There has commonly been war, poverty, etc in the mentioned areas. Why more mass exodus now? Is it perhaps because there is now a more sophisticated industry/network to move people?
 * Many reasons have been given, no idea what to include:
 * Survival: 1. With 50 Mio - more refugees than ever. Intensification in syria/irak by ISIS & US and Turkish airstikes. New and ongoing wars in Central African Republic, South Sudan, Ukraine, crises in Afghanistan, Democratic Republic of Congo, Libya, Somalia. Not to forget Ebola + the earthquake in Nepal. 2. Lack of money in the UN food progam for refugees in turkey and other syrian neighbours, forcing the some 4 Million people to consider leaving the camps.
 * "Pull factors": A) Availability of social media and modern com devices as a tool for motivation (by relatives and friends who "made" it) and as a vital aid for organizing the entire trip (including human traffickers). B) Amount of aid and benefits for recognised refugees guide people to the destination thought to be most profitable. Alexpl (talk) 06:48, 8 September 2015 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 8 September 2015

 * Red question icon with gradient background.svg Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format. Also, provide reliable sources for your edit requests/claims. JustBerry (talk) 22:34, 8 September 2015 (UTC)

Incidents
Several serious accidents and deaths have occurred in Europe as a result of human trafficking involving migrants. Standard cargo trucks are normally used, increasing the severity of accidents when they occur.

On 9/8/15, migrants from Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan, organized a dash past Hungarian police in frustration with living conditions and the processing time for their fingerprints, along with their entry into the European Union (EU). The refugees charged the police line at the holding camp near Roszke, Hungary. They walked & hiked 4-5 miles, leaving there possessions that slowed them down. Police were able to stop a little over half of the migrants.

Ex Parte talk 21:12, 8 September 2015 (UTC)

disproportionately too much pictures from Hungary
I think in this article there are disproportionately too much pictures from Hungary! Despite the fact that many European countries are involved, and much more heavily than Hungary. --Neo (talk) 12:01, 9 September 2015 (UTC)


 * On a look, yes, there were pictures from Hungary just there for the sake of it, without link to the subject of the section. Now every image is relevant to the section, there is the Mediterranean Sea, North Africa, Germany... &#39;&#39;&#39;tAD&#39;&#39;&#39; (talk) 06:37, 10 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Hungary is the core issue in the current political crisis, at least from june 2014 to september 2015. So You cannot consider it as another country. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.193.106.199 (talk) 19:48, 15 September 2015 (UTC)
 * If you mean that protecting their borders from uninvited, pushy "refugees" then yes, I suppose Hungary is at the "core" of the issue. On the other hand, eastern Europe as a whole is pretty much protecting their sovereign rights, too. 68.19.7.73 (talk) 22:47, 16 September 2015 (UTC)

tendentious map
Map of refugees in neighboring countries looks like it's trying to make a political point (not surprising given the sources). Why are some countries colored and not others? If it is supposed to highlight neighboring countries then why isn't the number of Syrian refugees in Israel specified? By the way, all the 0-refugee countries do have refugees (even if far fewer than in others), some of whom may be Syrian, so the number of 0 is probably incorrect.--128.183.2.230 (talk) 17:11, 10 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Furthermore, the map in the source is taken from a tweeted image, while the actual text says something quite different. The article says that none of the Gulf countries has offered any refugee resettlement, but that does not mean they are not hosting refugees. The figures for the other countries are for refugees currently in the country, not resettled refugees. The article states that there are currently 500,000 Syrians in Saudi Arabia, though it is not known how many of them are refugees.--158.222.143.13 (talk) 00:35, 11 September 2015 (UTC)

If you don't like the sourced map then per WP:BOLD propose a fix or productive change, don't just remove information you don't like. -- Callinus (talk) 15:27, 11 September 2015 (UTC)
 * No information is better than inaccurate and slanted information.--Staberinde (talk) 15:35, 11 September 2015 (UTC)


 * Syrians in Saudi Arabia are not classified as refugees. Saudi Arabia, like all of the Gulf states, is not a signatory to the 1951 United Nations Refugee Convention. — See "The Arab world’s wealthiest nations are doing next to nothing for Syria’s refugees". The Washington Post. 2 September 2015.


 * Syrians in Saudi Arabia are foreign workers (see kafala system) who often work under slave-like conditions. — "'Dogs Are Better Than You': Saudi Arabia Accused of Mass Abuses During Migrant Worker Crackdown". Vice News. 11 May 2015. -- Tobby72 (talk) 17:28, 11 September 2015 (UTC)
 * The article says nothing about Syrians. Are all Syrians in Saudi Arabia migrant workers? Do you have any sources for this claim?--158.222.143.13 (talk) 17:35, 10 October 2015 (UTC)

The crisis is a 2015 phenomenon
I have read the article and it seems to conflate earlier migration from the Middle East and North Africa with the present 2015 crisis. Events are related and one can clearly see a continuum. However the migrant crisis is a 2015 phenomenon. This is the description in establish media and Wikipedia is not here to challenge such narrative or view. For that reason material not referring to the 2015 crisis or 2015 should have a limited extent in the article being mainly a background to the 2015 events. Lappspira (talk) 07:16, 12 September 2015 (UTC)
 * I don't agree. At least in the Central Mediterranean (Libya to Italy) the crisis had already started in late 2013 with the 2013 Lampedusa migrant shipwreck, the establishment of Operation Mare Nostrum, and the unprecedented number of arrivals in 2014 (170,000, the same number which will probably be reached by the end of this year). Indeed, the April 2015 shipwrecks, from which the term "European migrant crisis" started to be used, were due to the suspension of Mare Nostrum. It's impossible to explain the present crisis without mentioning those events, including in the "migrant routes" section: as you can see, this CFR backgrounder does the same, without separating sharply 2015 from the previous years. Nykterinos (talk) 09:44, 12 September 2015 (UTC)


 * I agree with Nykterinos.
 * "Malta needs EU help to cope with its immigration crisis". The Guardian. 4 August 2013.


 * "Lampedusa migrant crisis: Sicily declares emergency". BBC News. 15 October 2013.


 * "Europe's African Refugee Crisis: Is the Boat Really Full?". Der Spiegel. 15 April 2014.


 * "Many dead after migrant boats bound for Greece capsize in Aegean Sea". The Guardian. 5 May 2014.


 * "Europe faces 'colossal humanitarian catastrophe' of refugees dying at sea". The Guardian. 2 June 2014.
 * -- Tobby72 (talk) 09:52, 12 September 2015 (UTC)


 * At least For Hungry, it started just after the 2014 vote, when the leader told its first goal was to close the borders to immigration, to be against the federal european schengen «liberal» policy. 77.193.106.199 (talk) 19:35, 15 September 2015 (UTC)

I don't agree with user Nykterinos because that was a totally unrelated cause compared to this event. The 2015 crisis is happening because migrants are escaping to get away from ISIS. All in all, it makes the article too long with irrelevant information. Akmal94 (talk) 12:19, 18 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Of course, refugees and migrants from Afghanistan, Eritrea, West Africa and the Western Balkans are all fleeing from ISIS. The Central Med. was the route most used by Syrians in 2014. Nykterinos (talk) 13:14, 18 September 2015 (UTC)

European Union
Sorry for my bad english. The introduction currently is: "The 2015 European migrant crisis[1][2][3][4][5] or European refugee crisis[6][7][8][9] arose through the rising number of refugees and migrants coming to the European Union". This is correct, but the EFTA states (which are also Dublin and Schengen members) are going forgotten in the whole article. Especially Switzerland and I think also Norway also have an increased number of migrants and since they're also Schengen and Dublin countries (Liechtenstein and Iceland too) and these contries are also involved in all political processes and are affected of the troubles with the Dublin agreement. The lemma is "European migrant crisis" and not "European Union migrant crisis" (refer the german Wikipedia article). Furthermore, as example: European_migrant_crisis shall not be a subtitle in "European Union" since Dublin/Schengen is not only applicable in the EU, but also in the EFTA countries. --Filzstift (talk) 19:56, 14 September 2015 (UTC)


 * I understand but there is no problem since the Dublin agreement is part of the European Union Law. The Schengen agreement is also a European Union policy even if non-EU states are part of it. So they are correctly subtitles in "European Union". And I dont see the problem since EFTA states are linked to the EU.  The lemma "European" refers to the European Union (just like E.G. European debt crisis). Europe is often used as a totum pro parte meaning European Union. Barjimoa (talk) 23:50, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

News????
What about that news article? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 184.101.188.152 (talk) 22:17, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

Which one? Please be specific? Dimadick (talk) 11:36, 15 September 2015 (UTC)

We need to get updated and chat on truth only Niwabeine Yonah (talk) 10:43, 22 March 2016 (UTC)

Moved from article
This comment by 171.101.42.179 does not belong on the article page: ""Earlier on 14th September it was written on this page, that the Austrian soldiers on the border were authorized to shoot rubber bullets, however that notion was rolled back by another user, labeled as recentism and unreliable.""

--Boson (talk) 15:39, 16 September 2015 (UTC)

South Asia removed
I have removed the tag line "South Asia" as countries that were classified under South Asia like Afghanistan are clearly not in that part of the world, other than the fact none of the links mention these people coming from south asia as refugees. Akmal94 (talk) 12:12, 18 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Afghanistan is in South or Central Asia according to the wiki article. Check the sources. Nykterinos (talk) 13:03, 18 September 2015 (UTC)

Afghanistan is in Central Asia according to all sources i have read. I don't know why you removed my edit when none of the sources in THIS article mention refugees coming from South Asia. I am changing it back. Akmal94 (talk) 16:00, 18 September 2015 (UTC)
 * No, the wiki article about Afghanistan gives 7 sources for South Asia and 1 for Central Asia. The UNHCR source cited in the lead of this article says that, of the Mediterranean Sea arrivals, 14% come from Afghanistan, 3% from Pakistan and 1% from Bangladesh (all in South Asia). Nykterinos (talk) 17:20, 18 September 2015 (UTC)

Nykterinos, Please stop reverting my edits, none of the sources mention these refugees coming from South Asia, all they say is what country they came from but not what regions these countries are included in. As an Afghan, i can safely say my country is not in South Asia but rather central asia and closely culturally tied to the middle east. I am going to revert the edit back and i don't want to go into an edit war with you. I hope you concede. Akmal94 (talk) 02:28, 19 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Sources saying that refugees and migrants come from South Asia: CFR ("Migrants and refugees flooding into Europe from Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia"); WSJ ("people arriving from violent regions in the Middle East, Africa and South Asia"). South Asia is just a label for Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh, since Asia is too generic. The vast majority of sources cited in the Afghanistan and South Asia articles say that Afghanistan, though at the crossroads between Central Asia, the Middle East and South Asia, can be included in South Asia, so I don't know where the problem is. Edit those articles if you have different sources. And get consensus for your changes on this talk page when you are reverted, per WP:BRD. Nykterinos (talk) 10:07, 19 September 2015 (UTC)

NONE of your sources say that Afghans are included in South Asia in that refugee related article, all it says is that refugees are pouring in from those areas which are most likely Pakistani's and Indians. Central Asia in today's sense refers to the former soviet states like the stans but Afghanistan is not included since it was not part of Soviet Union, however the country is most definetely geographically part of central asia. Its even noted as being in the "heart of asia." Also, CAN be is not good enough to include Afg as part of South Asia neither is using a single source. I also fail to see how Asia is "too generic" to use in this sense considering there has been a clear distinction made in this article mentioning Middle East and Africa but not Asia. I think "other parts of Asia" or the "greater middle east" would be a better term to use then South Asia since Afghanistan is sometimes included in it but not always. Akmal94 (talk) 00:33, 20 September 2015 (UTC)
 * As a compromise between South and Central Asia, I've changed it to "South-central Asia" (which is used, for example, by Britannica). I hope it's OK now. Nykterinos (talk) 19:53, 20 September 2015 (UTC)

Alright thank you, but i seems like someobdy changed it back so i changed it again. Akmal94 (talk) 00:32, 30 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Afghanistan is by geographical decree a South Asian country. Regardless of how much someones wants this to be different, these are how the lines on the map are drawn. Although I will say: Afghanistan is known for this exact debate wether it belongs to either South- or central Asia. 195.109.63.17 (talk) 14:08, 5 November 2015 (UTC)

Gender and age balance
Noticing the images in the article and in the news, it seems that the immigrants are almost all men. As for age, while there are news images of children, most immigrants seem to be men in their late teens or twenties. The article's images show few women, children or middle age people. Has anyone seen any reports about the gender or age balance, or its relevance? --Light show (talk) 08:38, 23 September 2015 (UTC)
 * It's written in the lead: "Most of the migrants [arriving by sea] are adult men (69%)" (source UNHCR). The percentage of adult men is higher among those who attempt the riskier journey across the Central Mediterranean (77%) than among those who cross the Aegean Sea (66%). Nykterinos (talk) 09:35, 23 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Why are most of them young men? In wars, young men are fighting and killed at a much higher rate than the rest of the population, so they should be under-represented among refugees. You'd expect the large majority of refugees to be women and children. If they're fleeing a war and/or a well-founded fear of persecution; how can that not affect their wives, children, sisters and parents just as much or more? If a family is being persecuted, how can it help for the young men of that family to move to Germany? If my family were being persecuted, I'd make sure I were with them every day to protect them - moving hundreds of miles away on my own would never enter my mind. The article should explain why this is happening. It's bizarre to have seen trains packed full of young men from Africa and Asia arriving in Germany - why didn't their families travel with them? 213.205.251.59 (talk) 17:33, 5 April 2016 (UTC)

"Syrian" refugees?
"74% of the almost half a million Mediterranean Sea arrivals since the beginning of the year are refugees coming from Syria"

Except virtually none of the migrants have any identification and almost all claim to be from Syria, as they can then claim refugee status.

Many of the migrants are from countries other then Syria. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2602:304:CC34:64F0:225:FF:FEF8:B939 (talk) 05:37, 24 September 2015 (UTC)

I don't think it sounds right. Syrians, Afghans, and Eritreans are being lumped together and it's misleading.

Currently it says: "as of October 2015, 75% of the over half a million Mediterranean Sea arrivals since the beginning of the year are refugees coming from Syria (55%), Afghanistan (14%) and Eritrea (6%)."

I think it should be changed to something like: "as of October 2015, over half a million Mediterranean Sea arrivals since the beginning of the year are migrants coming from Syria (55%), Afghanistan (14%) and Eritrea (6%)." (removing the "75% of the" bit, and shouldn't it also say migrants? Considering not all of them are refugees)
 * I changed it to "the top three nationalities of the over half a million Mediterranean Sea arrivals since the beginning of the year are Syria (54%), Afghanistan (15%) and Eritrea (6%)". Nykterinos (talk) 15:13, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

Video
Here's a video - don't know if it could be useful?



Victor Grigas (talk) 00:54, 19 October 2015 (UTC)

UNHCR etcetera
Anyone knows where does UNHCR and organizations like Red Cross and Red Crescent stand in this whole crisis? I don't see them anywhere, no mention, no role from them! They are only reduced to etcetera. No role they played in Rohingya migrant crisis as well! Sh eri ff (report) 01:22, 20 October 2015 (UTC)


 * They are the guys who tell everyone to be as charitable as possible.
 * And because all the media are vehemently pro refugees and unlimited acceptance, the media is citing them in every article as the authority to declare the the EU must accept and help many many more refugees.


 * If that is true than their sources are biased as hell. (regardless of what they claim)195.109.63.17 (talk) 14:11, 5 November 2015 (UTC)

Near East migrant crisis
Still I'm wondering about the big fuss the EU makes about the so called European migrant crisis. Small Jordan (only 6.5 million inhabitants) is hosting about a million Syrian refugees and does not complain, Turkey between 1.6 and 2.0 million, tiny Lebanon at least 1.15 million. Iran welcomed about a million mainly Afghan refugees and Pakistan at least 1.5 million. The vast majority of Syrian refugees does NOT come to Europe. I think this article merely reflects the propaganda of right wing parties. The EU is the most powerful economic entity in the world and has about 508 million inhabitants. They should not complain about 0.13% refugees - compared to 10% in Jordan. Wikipedia is not neutral but hysterical as all European media and politicians. The real crisis is the Near East migrant crisis.--Meister und Margarita (talk) 21:55, 26 October 2015 (UTC)
 * This may well be a reflection of the home addresses of Wikipedia editors – many more of whom are in the EU than in Near East countries – at least as much as reflecting "the propaganda of right wing parties". Ghmyrtle (talk) 12:48, 5 November 2015 (UTC)

Very misinformed and misleading comment! Those countries are housing the refugees in camps until the war ends at which point they will send them back. Europe is not only stuck with whatever refugee makes it to Europe, but up to 8 dependant relatives they legally decide to bring over in posterity. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Hompo2015 (talk • contribs) 09:41, 9 November 2015‎

Valletta Summit
A summit about the migrant crisis is currently being held in Valletta, Malta. I don't know if this merits a separate article, but at least it should be mentioned in this one. I don't know what to say, but hopefully someone else can write something about the summit. Some useful sources: Xwejnusgozo (talk) 14:09, 11 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Migrant crisis: EU heads to offer Africa aid at Malta summit (BBC)
 * 8,000 people, many heads of state participating in Valletta Summit on Migration and CHOGM (The Malta Independent)
 * 'Absolute majority' of EU leaders to attend Valletta Summit (Malta Today)
 * Summit agenda 'counters European values,' NGOs say (Times of Malta)
 * Valletta Summit: EU-Africa leaders meet amid differences (Times of Malta)
 * Sudan, Poland missing from summit (Times of Malta)
 * Live commentary: Valletta Summit (Times of Malta)


 * Yes indeed. This seems to be the official site, if anyone wants to make a start.   Ghmyrtle (talk) 15:27, 11 November 2015 (UTC)


 * I went ahead and started the article Valletta Summit on Migration. Hopefully someone will expand/improve the article with more details etc. Xwejnusgozo (talk) 19:07, 12 November 2015 (UTC)

Staff council of German Federal office criticizes poor procedures
On 11 November 2015, the BAMF (German Federal office for migration and refugees) has been criticized by its own staff council in an open letter to its new head Frank-Jürgen Weise, in which the staff council complained, that the (recently implemented) procedures would be unlawful and too hasty and couldn't detect fraud, see text of the open letter (in German). Efb8 (talk) 22:19, 14 November 2015 (UTC)

Housing migrants in newly made ghost towns
Perhaps a silly idea, but there seem to be a lot of new housing/complexes build that are just not attracting any inhabitants, which is a huge financial loss. Even in places like Morocco, Libya, ... this has happened and there is as such a huge amount of housing capacity not being used. Couldn't those be used to house migrants ?

I also wonder whether those 11 new cities build in china, completely abandoned (see http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/explore-chinese-ghost-towns-in-tonights-episode-of-vice-on-hbo ) can't be used neither. Many migrants come from afghanistan and irak and that's more or less close to china (at least when compared to the distance to great britain, germany, norway, ... where some migrants ultimately go to).

I also added this to the see also section; but I believe this isn't a text that's too controversial to be put there, since it deals around older (proven) villages, and the concept is allready tested.
 * Abandoned towns: could be used to house migrants


 * Setting up ghost towns or ramshackle shanty towns with just the most basic commodities, towns that are meant to die off in five or twenty years as people move on - that's a solution people would be extremely reluctant to go for in contemporary Europe. Both politicians, builders and many ordinary people would be against it, and feel it was an un-European way of doing it, something that very much smacks of a developing country. It worked in the American Old West, and into the 20th century in those areas, where there was lots of space and very little public control. but it won't seem in place in Europe. 83.251.170.27 (talk) 00:23, 23 December 2015 (UTC)
 * WP:FORUM - this entire thread is a violation of the rules for the Talk Pages. Please drop it. Sort of surprised an Admin has not hatted this one yet? 98.67.176.198 (talk) 21:55, 2 February 2016 (UTC)

Length
I would be good if some knowledgeable ed could boil this down. At 23,000 words it's decidedly overlong. Sca (talk) 23:28, 27 December 2015 (UTC)


 * Red question icon with gradient background.svg Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format. Cannolis (talk) 02:00, 7 February 2016 (UTC)

Why "European migrant crisis"?
The article is called "European migrant crisis". But why? This is mainly a crisis in Syria. Many European countries have helped, including Sweden and Germany. I live in Denmark and have visited these countries. I cannot see a "crisis". It is certainly a challenge, but some people even discuss the positive effects of migrants with other views and skills coming to Europe. A title "European migrant crisis" could therefore fall into the NPOV trap. 90.184.23.200 (talk) 05:33, 10 February 2016 (UTC)

This article is here to cover the influx of asylum seekers in the EU (not only from Syria but also from Eritrea, Afghanistan etc..). The article you are looking for is "Refugees of the syrian civil war". Barjimoa (talk) 16:42, 16 February 2016 (UTC)

Percentages
"Most of the refugees and migrants are adult men (57%), 17% are women and 27% are children."

The numbers add up to 101... Firebrace (talk) 18:13, 12 February 2016 (UTC)

I updated it to the latest numbers from the same source, which do add up to 100%.

Pieceofmetalwork (talk) 21:44, 12 February 2016 (UTC)
 * It's not strange that the numbers add up to 101, if all three percentages are rounded up to the next whole number (e.g., they could be 56.6+16.7+26.7=100). The source was the UNHCR. Unfortunately, that source gave the percentages for nationalities and demographics starting from 1 January 2015 until some days ago, whereas they now start from 1 January 2016. I think it's better to keep 2015 data in the lead, since 2016 data cover only 1 month and therefore are less representative. I wasn't able to recover 2015 data using the Wayback Machine (it doesn't load the data visualization), and I can't find another UNHCR source, but I found this and this sources which provide UNHCR data and screenshots for 2015. I'll use them for the lead. Nykterinos (talk) 11:38, 13 February 2016 (UTC)

The Lion Guard
Should we list this show, particularly the episode "The Kupatana Celebration" under "Reactions" here? The conflict between Pridelanders vs Outlanders (Jackals in the case of TKC) mirrors some of the controversies here regarding refugee immigration and conflicts over space and resources. Does anyone know if any reliable sources have highlighted this? 184.145.18.50 (talk) 22:31, 23 February 2016 (UTC)

CfD nomination of Category:Transport disasters related to the European migrant crisis
Category:Transport disasters related to the European migrant crisis has been nominated for. You are encouraged to join the discussion on the Categories for discussion page. AusLondonder (talk) 02:21, 24 February 2016 (UTC)

Boarding planes and the obvious
it's nice that you patrol Wikipedia against supposedly unencyclopedic] statements, but are you aware that calling something WP:UNENCYCLOPEDIC to claim that it should be removed from Wikipedia is a tautology, and that the actual guidelines/policies that are being violated should be stated instead? You mentioned common sense, but if you actually look, the WP:COMMONSENSE page is about applying common sense, not suppressing information from article just because it can be inferred using common sense. As a matter of fact, there is WP:OBVIOUS which actually tells you that even if something is "common sense" or "obvious" to you, that doesn't mean it should be left out of an article. It's just not a criterion to decide on what articles should contain. Anyway, it is only obvious that "refugees" won't be allowed to board a plane, as you claim in your edit summaries, if it is known that there is a Schengen requirement for airlines to verify visas before letting people on board... and you removed that cited information from the article. So now it's no longer obvious at all. The irony. LjL (talk) 00:16, 5 March 2016 (UTC)
 * While you are there, I suggest you check out WP:CONSENSUS and What Wikipedia is not and see how publishing airline ticket prices qualify to be in an encyclopedia while they have been between $300 to $500 between any two European destinations for years. This is completely trivial information which is being included.  Sh eri ff  |  ☎ 911  | 01:07, 5 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Thing is, we do publish migrant smuggler prices. Why do they not fly? Most people would fly if they shall travel between Turkey and Germany, not travling by a mix of bus and train travel and walk, crossing seven borders, most of them with full passport check. I did not find this obvious, and have wondered this and searched for an answer. I want Wikipedia to answer this question. The most likely answer is that they are not let onboard. Maybe that is what SheriffIsInTown is called common sense. We should however have a source for this fact, since Wikipedia should have sources, and we can not publish a source if we don't mention that they are not let onboard. You should explain why we can't metion this, and which headline in What Wikipedia is not which is violated. We can downplay the ticket prices but they were included to compare against the fairly extensive list of smuggler prices. So for, you have been using reasons like "it's obvious" and "no value". BIL (talk) 10:47, 5 March 2016 (UTC)

Comment I remind you that the problem of carrier's responsibility is already mentioned in the article, in the background section (under the title "Carrier's responsibility"). By the way, it would be better (actually, necessary) to cite some secondary source on the matter, besides the primary sources. In the meanwhile, we can embed Hans Rosling's video, which is available on Commons. Nykterinos (talk) 13:32, 5 March 2016 (UTC)


 * I agree with both and  that the sourcing for the section was suboptimal and needs improvement, but while I am utterly at a loss as to why exactly  is linking to such generic documents as WP:CONSENSUS and WP:NOT, I think it should be clear why I link to WP:PRESERVE when it comes to sourced (if primarily so) content that all of us agree is factual, even obvious. Improve the sources, don't kill the content. Finally,, let me point out that it's not strictly necessary to provide secondary sources if we limit ourselves to stating what the primary ones say directly without drawing even the smallest of conclusions; maybe that's not what the section did, but we can do it, so if we cite the relevant Schengen passage, we can use it to simply state that visa checking is required of airlines, if that's what it plainly says. LjL (talk) 15:31, 5 March 2016 (UTC)

Closing the Greek sea border
I would like the article to answer in short, why migrants are able, without documents, to go from Turkey to Greece without being stopped. It seems that the answer is that it is hard to stop the small open boats in a safe way. This might be obvious, but all do not understand this. For example the prime minister of Sweden criticized Greece for not fulfilling their duty as a Schengen country by not protecting the outer Schengen border. Some want to expel Greece from Schengen for this reason. I assume Greece wants to block the migrants but aren't able to, since it can be read here that the land border to Turkey is closed. So what shall we write? --BIL (talk) 14:39, 7 March 2016 (UTC)
 * This problem is tricky and is being discussed now in the context of the EU-Turkey deal. Until now, Greece and the EU followed the legal point of view according to which only Turkey can prevent boat migrants from leaving from its coasts; once they are in Greek waters, Greece can’t push them back, because collective push-backs are illegal, inter alia, under the European Convention on Human Rights (Italy was condemned by the ECtHR in 2012 for pushing migrant boats back to Libya). All Greece (and the EU) can do to deter irregular immigration is arresting migrant smugglers. Officially, Greece was not being criticized by the EU for failing to stop migrants, but for failing to register them properly on arrival. I’ll add some of this info in the Greece and Italy sections. Nykterinos (talk) 13:04, 10 March 2016 (UTC)

Monday, 14 March, 2016: Migrants cross river to enter Macedonia from Greece
One article (for example): Defying E.U., Hundreds of Migrants Enter Macedonia From Greece (The New York Times)

I suppose this is a significant development that will be added to this article. I want to point out that I could not find a river named the Suva Reka, as reported in this article and others. Perhaps it's too small to appear on a map? 71.183.136.134 (talk) 00:35, 15 March 2016 (UTC)

This article (AP via Yahoo) says something different. It says that three bodies were found in the Suva Reka river, not that the migrants crossed that river. (And I found the Suva Reka on Bing Maps. It's a long way west of Idomeni and doesn't quite make it to the border.) It also says that some 300 migrants (later on, it gives their number as more than 2,000) walked east from the camp (other articles say they walked west). It doesn't name the river that they crossed, but it must be the Vardar/Axios river. 71.183.136.134 (talk) 03:47, 15 March 2016 (UTC)

This article (AFP via MSN) says the migrants hiked from Idomeni to a Greek village named Chamilo (which I found on a map; it's roughly southwest, not east, of Idomeni). It implies that the river they crossed was inside Greece. 71.183.136.134 (talk) 21:16, 15 March 2016 (UTC)

Requested move 19 March 2016

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the move request was: no consensus. (non-admin closure). SST flyer  07:57, 27 March 2016 (UTC)

European migrant crisis → European refugee crisis – The use of "migrants" vs. "refugees" has already been discussed here, see. The 1951 Geneva convention defines a "refugee" as being any person who "owing to a well-founded fear" of persecution is outside their country of nationality and "unable" or "unwilling" to seek the protection of that country. As Turkey substantially didn't ratify the Geneva Convention, and doesn't offer protection under the Geneva Convention, people coming to Schengen are still on their way to a country that does. This authoritative definition is rather broad and should encompass most people fleeing to Europe via Libya or Turkey. Quantitatively, Google returns more than twice as many results for  than it does for. Going into the details, "Migrant crisis" seems more widely used in by British news outlets and by a handful of U.S. outlets like Breitbart. "Refugee crisis" is however much more widely used by NGOs like Human Rights Watch, and by institutes or think tanks like Carnegie, Bruegel, the European Council on Foreign Relations, Brookings, Stratfor or the Centre for European Policy Studies. As Conservative Review, The American Conservative, Arutz Sheva, Politico or FOX show us, use of the term "Refugee crisis" is not limited to liberals or progressives. More importantly it's the term used by the European Commission, the United Nations Population Fund or the UNHCR, and it clearly seems to be the term preferred by scholarly works. All in all there can be no doubt that "refugee crisis" is the more widespread, the more factually accurate, and the more NPOV term, so this should basically be a clear case. PanchoS (talk) 22:51, 19 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Support. I agree that the phrase "refugee crisis" has been used by a wide variety of reliable sources more and more frequently, and it's now generally more widespread than "migrant crisis". The UNHCR says that most of the migrants involved in the crisis are refugees, so the title "refugee crisis" would be accurate and not misleading. Actually, the phrase "migrant crisis" can be more misleading, as this OECD report explains: "The term migrant can be used as a generic term to describe a situation where flows are mixed. [...] However, it would not be entirely correct to refer to this crisis as a ‘migration crisis’. Legal migration systems that enable people to enter with valid visa/permit are in place and tend to be adequately managed. What is currently observed would therefore be better described as a ‘refugee’ or ‘asylum crisis’ because it concerns specifically the European asylum system". Nykterinos (talk) 00:27, 20 March 2016 (UTC)


 * Support. I was the one that moved this page to European migration crisis (previously it was called something like "April 2015 shipwercks", which now redirects to another page). But... since then, the term has been used in a VERY misleading way and it's also true that the European Commission uses the term "Refugee Crisis" more often. Barjimoa (talk) 09:03, 20 March 2016 (UTC)


 * Oppose, in this context "migrant" is a neutral term while "refugee" contains POV. --Norden1990 (talk) 21:45, 20 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Support per excellent comments above. Renata (talk) 22:48, 20 March 2016 (UTC)


 * Oppose. Migrants is a catch-all word that includes refugees, and the number of migrants who aren't refugees isn't insignificant, especially after some European nations decided to stop considering Afghanis refugees. Dyspeptic skeptic (talk) 02:59, 21 March 2016 (UTC)

...as defined by UNHCR: "Until a request for refuge has been accepted, the person is referred to as an asylum seeker. Only after the recognition of the asylum seeker's protection needs is he or she is officially referred to as a refugee and enjoys refugee status." Zezen (talk) 04:24, 21 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Oppose. 1. BBC consistently calls them migrants, explaining why, as a matter of policy. 2. As per a discussion above (q.v.):


 * That's true... but as I said before, that's what the UNCHR says:

"The terms asylum-seeker and refugee are often confused: an asylum-seeker is someone who says he or she is a refugee, but whose claim has not yet been definitively evaluated. On average, about 1 million people seek asylum on an individual basis every year. In mid-2014, there were more than 1.2 million asylum-seekers.National asylum systems are there to decide which asylum-seekers actually qualify for international protection. Those judged through proper procedures not to be refugees, nor to be in need of any other form of international protection, can be sent back to their home countries. The efficiency of the asylum system is key. If the asylum system is both fast and fair, then people who know they are not refugees have little incentive to make a claim in the first place, thereby benefitting both the host country and the refugees for whom the system is intended. '''During mass movements of refugees (usually as a result of conflicts or generalized violence as opposed to individual persecution), there is not - and never will be - a capacity to conduct individual asylum interviews for everyone who has crossed the border. Nor is it usually necessary, since in such circumstances it is generally evident why they have fled. As a result, such groups are often declared "prima facie" refugees'''."
 * So I guess that most of the asylum seekers coming to the EU are defined immediatly as refugees because we are talking about a mass movement of people which is the result of conflicts as opposed to individual persecution. So the BBC is kinda wrong when it says that "only after the recognition of the asylum seeker's protection needs is he or she is officially referred to as a refugee and enjoys refugee status." But again, the problem is not with the use of the term "Migrant". The problem is that the term "migrant" is now used in a misleading way in a conflicting way with the word "refugee". Barjimoa (talk)


 * Oppose The vast majority of the migrants are military aged men of whom only a relatively small proportion come from Syria. While both Kurdish women and men stay to fight ISIS, the main clear definition that can be applied to people leaving is that they are "non-fighter".  Syria does not directly border on Europe and this has the effect that people exit from areas of conflict before getting to Europe.
 * Turkey does not view many migrants as being refugees and Europe takes an identical position. According to set-subset division, all refugees migrate and yet not all migrants are refugees.  "European refugee crisis" would be a very inaccurate title for the whole phenomena.  GregKaye 06:05, 21 March 2016 (UTC)


 * Oppose. As noted above, "migrants" includes refugees and is used by a number of sources. That the organizations such as HRW use the word "refugees" is expected, since economic migrations are outside their scope. Apart from that, the refugees argument is weak: if people leave Turkey because they think they're not safe there, "owing to a well-founded fear", it unclear why they undergo severe hardship crossing multiple country borders in order to specifically get to Germany. Is there a reason to fear staying in Greece, Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia or Austria? The answer is "no", which indicates that their motivation is primarily economic, which is also how many of them are describing it themselves. Nothing wrong with that, but once when "well-founded fear" is not a factor, one becomes a migrant. GregorB (talk) 09:08, 21 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Support as per above arguments. Filpro (talk) 00:41, 22 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Support People who are trying to categorize all these millions of people as migrants are failing to understand the timeline of this crisis. The fact that this crisis will start when the Syrian conflict was on its peak and majority of these refugees being Syrians makes it all the good reason to move this page to its proper name space. Pick up any notable event related to this crisis and you will find that most people were fleeing war in Syria. One example is the case of Death of Aylan Kurdi and there are many more examples of shipwrecks as well where most of the casualties were Syrians. (alt. signature)  King Julien of Wikipedia  | make a move  | 10:28, 24 March 2016 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just added archive links to 5 one external links on European migrant crisis. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive http://web.archive.org/web/20150427143337/http://www.ismu.org/irregolari-presenze/ to http://www.ismu.org/irregolari-presenze/
 * Added archive http://web.archive.org/web/20151117031158/http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/thousands-stranded-on-new-migrant-route-through-europe/ar-AAfAX74?li=AAa0dzB&ocid=mailsignout to http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/thousands-stranded-on-new-migrant-route-through-europe/ar-AAfAX74?li=AAa0dzB&ocid=mailsignout
 * Added archive http://web.archive.org/web/20151014024126/http://jyllands-posten.dk/politik/ECE8091454/Overblik%3A+Det+skete+da+flygtningestr%C3%B8mmen+n%C3%A5ede+Danmark/ to http://jyllands-posten.dk/politik/ECE8091454/Overblik%3A+Det+skete+da+flygtningestr%C3%B8mmen+n%C3%A5ede+Danmark/
 * Added archive http://web.archive.org/web/20150427143419/http://www.channelnewsasia.com/mobile/world/eu-s-tusk-considers/1794426.html to http://www.channelnewsasia.com/mobile/world/eu-s-tusk-considers/1794426.html
 * Added archive http://web.archive.org/web/20150923182953/http://www.kvoa.com/story/29997280/the-latest-merkel-says-no-legal-limit-to-refugee-numbers to http://www.kvoa.com/story/29997280/the-latest-merkel-says-no-legal-limit-to-refugee-numbers

When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true or failed to let others know (documentation at ).

Cheers.—cyberbot II  Talk to my owner :Online 12:23, 22 March 2016 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just added archive links to 1 one external link on European migrant crisis. Please take a moment to review my edit. You may add after the link to keep me from modifying it, if I keep adding bad data, but formatting bugs should be reported instead. Alternatively, you can add to keep me off the page altogether, but should be used as a last resort. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive http://web.archive.org/web/20150908133013/http://missingmigrants.iom.int/en/ to http://missingmigrants.iom.int/en

When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true or failed to let others know (documentation at ).

Cheers.—cyberbot II  Talk to my owner :Online 17:48, 27 March 2016 (UTC)

Picture of the year voting
The headline photo on this article, File:20151030 Syrians and Iraq refugees arrive at Skala Sykamias Lesvos Greece 2.jpg, which is a featured picture on Wikipedia, is running for Picture of the Year 2015 on Wikimedia Commons. Logged in editors may have noticed from the banners at the top, but round 1 voting is going on. Obviously there are a lot of great candidates, but I just wanted to put in a good word for the refugee photo, which is topical, encyclopedic, conveys action, was taken by an actual Wikipedia user (as opposed to NASA or a government source) in the year 2015, and on top of that is a well composed image. Figured I would bring it to other users' attention!-- Patrick, o Ѻ ∞ 21:25, 31 March 2016 (UTC)

"EU migration strategy" section
I’ve removed this section


 * ''In 2006, the European Commission launched a strategy aimed at handling certain demographic challenges. The challenges were identified as an ageing population, low birth rates, changing family structures and migration. The title of the strategy document is The demographic future of Europe – From challenge to opportunity.


 * ''Five key policy responses to the demographic challenges were identified. One of these responses read: "Receiving and integrating migrants into Europe". Some of the justification for this point read as follows:


 * ''   "It also falls to the European Union, which is founded on non-discrimination and the respecting of differences, to inform public opinion and combat prejudice, to identify the real obstacles to be overcome and also to point out the riches of diversity.


 * ''  This is why the EU today is working with the Member States to develop elements of a common policy on legal immigration, focussing particularly on immigration for work purposes in order to satisfy requirements in certain sectors of the labour market. This policy should be supplemented by tighter policies on integrating third-country nationals, allocating greater financial resources, and by striking up partnerships with emigration countries.
 *   At the same time, with respect to the internal mobility of Community citizens, the transition towards full freedom of movement for workers within an enlarged EU of 27 Member States will continue up to 2014. This internal mobility helps offset imbalances in labour markets in Europe and should be taken into consideration in planning immigration policies."

because it’s not relevant to this article: it’s about an old (2006) policy paper concerning organized legal migration for work purposes and not asylum seekers. Mentioning it misleads the reader, who may think this article is about immigration in general and not irregular arrivals and asylum seekers in particular. It could be even more misleading if it involuntarily suggests that the current crisis is part of a "strategy aimed at handling certain demographic challenges". It could be included only if reliable secondary sources made an explicit connection between that document and the current crisis, otherwise it’s original research. Nykterinos (talk) 11:37, 1 April 2016 (UTC)


 * I was the one who added this section. I wish to thank Nykterinos for his comments, but I do not agree with his conclusions.
 * (1) On the "old paper" part: I do not know any information to suggest that the EU updated its demographic strategy before the migration crisis started. The 2006 strategy was thus still pretty much followed by the Commission in early 2015. If you know of any substantial changes to this strategy, I think it needs to be documented - please provide a citation or two. UPDATE: This 2012 document on the ageing Europe is not a strategy document, but a report. Nevertheless, it investigates the number of non-European immigrants required to offset ageing - for instance: "The estimation of the net migration necessary to keep the ratios of working-age population to total  population  constant  at  their  2010  level indicates that the EU as a whole would need  significant  net  immigration.  It  would  amount to over 11 million additional inflows over the  period  2010  to  2020." (p. 52). Again, this shows the correspondence between the EU's demographic strategy and EU's apparent initial willingness at the onset of the migrant crisis to accept millions of non-European migrants, whether asylum seekers or not.
 * (2) You claim that the 2006 paper concerns "organized legal migration for work purposes and not asylum seekers" - this is, as far as I can see, not accurate. The EU Policy Plan on Legal Migration (2004) specifically mentions "labour immigration", although it also mentions (§ 1.1) that "political problems and instability in countries of origin [has] contributed to a steady increase in workforce mobility". The specific reference to "labour immigration" is not mentioned or toned down in the 2006 The demographic future of Europe – from challenge to opportunity. As the title suggests, the latter addresses demographic challenges and change in general, not solely US-style "green card" targeted labour immigration. It thus does not exclude the phenomenon of implicit labour immigration by means of asylum seekers/refugees. It does, however, exclude illegal immigration. I think we can agree that the strategy of EU prior to the crisis seems to have been to exploit synergies between helping refugees, creating "diversity" and changing the demography.
 * (3) The fact that large-scale immigration was part of EU's demographic strategy in 2015 is an important piece of background information.
 * (4) I suggest that the headline is changed to "EU's demographic strategy", and that the paragraph is re-added. A few more points, though:
 * (5) I do not agree that the demographic strategy of the EU is irrelevant to the article unless some journalist somewhere has mentioned it specifically. It is never "original research" to point out what is obviously relevant and central to the topic.
 * (6) You say, "It could be even more misleading if it involuntarily suggests that the current crisis is part of a "strategy aimed at handling certain demographic challenges"". Like it or not, the EU's pre-crisis extremely benign attitude towards migrants was to a significant extent based on an explicit demographic strategy which aimed at combatting the ageing of Europe and the corresponding economic stagnation. A few citations from the media emphasising the same point: "But in years to come Europeans will not settle in sufficient numbers to plug all the gaps created by Germany’s ageing workforce and low birth rates. The only answer will be to accept non-European immigrants – lots of them, even millions." "Asylum seekers arrive at Munich railway station. The sudden influx of young migrants could help address the problem of Germany's aging population." "Germany could do with an influx of young migrants to supplement its ageing workforce" "a clear distinction needs to be made between the urgency of asylum claims arising from war zones and other strife, and the longer-term issue of addressing demography and immigration needs. But neither category can be addressed without a common approach." "Chaos at Europe’s borders and waning solidarity between governments have lifted the refugee crisis to the top of the EU agenda. But the real challenge will be absorbing enough immigrants to counter growing labour shortages in an ageing Europe" "These reforms stressed Germany’s need for immigrants and refugees to boost its labour force in light of an aging population and insufficient skilled labourers." Italy: "the  crucial  role  played  by migrants  in  an  aging  society." OECD presentation on the tool of using immigration for addressing demographic challenges: Another FT article, on the migrant crisis as a solution to demographic challenges - "We need a complete rethink in our societies": "There is a demographic problem in Germany (...) We need migration." I could go on and on and on. EU's explicit strategy of demographic change through immigration is a key piece of background information.
 * So, if you agree, I will re-add the section, with a changed title which says "demographic strategy", not "migrant strategy". Narssarssuaq (talk) 12:59, 1 April 2016 (UTC)
 * Narssarssuaq (talk) 12:59, 1 April 2016 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the answer. I’m not disputing that EU policy-makers have stressed the obvious demographic and economic benefits of immigration for EU’s ageing population, and that some have stressed those benefits also to support acceptance of asylum seekers once they arrived in great numbers in 2015. However, the policies you cited did not anticipate or take into account the arrival of large numbers of asylum seekers; on the contrary, the EU has ignored the refugee crisis around its borders for years, offering no resettlement to refugees until they were forced to arrive illegally at great cost (so no, there was no “EU's pre-crisis extremely benign attitude towards migrants” – certainly not towards asylum seekers). You cite a document saying that the EU as a whole would need significant net immigration. It would amount to over 11 million additional inflows over the period 2010 to 2020. As you can read in the background, that’s less than the number of legal immigrants currently entering the EU (1.4 million a year, which by the way is less than 0.3% of EU’s population). People tend to forget that the number of legal immigrants has always been and is still higher than the number of asylum seekers. So, all this information about demographic changes and the EU policy responses to them fits better in the articles about Demographics of the European Union and Immigration to Europe than in this article, which documents the consequences of the post-2011 global refugee crisis in Europe. Those consequences were not anticipated by and were not part of any policy response to demographic changes; that’s why the EU had to develop a new Agenda on migration in April 2015. The “crisis” is specifically due to the fact that the European asylum system was unprepared for the arrival of a high number of asylum seekers, unlike the system for legal migration for work purposes which is adequately managed . If, nonetheless, other editors find this info useful, I propose to add at most a short sentence in the section “Statistics on the EU's foreign-born population prior to 2015”, like this: “Receiving and integrating migrants into Europe is one of the five key policy responses identified by a 2006 EU policy paper to manage demographic changes in the EU (an ageing population, low birth rates, changing family structures and migration).” Nykterinos (talk) 18:14, 1 April 2016 (UTC)
 * Thank you for your response. You continue to make a sharp distinction between "legal immigration" and asylum seekers (again, an asylum seeker is not formally classified as an illegal immigrant). As I have shown, this distinction has been non-existant or at best blurred in the Union's strategy and in the "élite's" discourse. The point with the Background section is to show what the situation, in this case the policy status, was before the crisis started. Quite obviously, the key reason why extreme amounts of immigrants were initially wanted by the EU has to do with demographics (which in turn has to do with economics). Also, when you say 1.4 million "legal" immigrants a year, does this not include refugees, who formally are counted as "legal", and does the figure refer to net migration? What is your source? The idea that asylum seekers/refugees have not made up and do not make up a significant part of the influx to Europe, seems pretty dubious. Let us remember that "legal" immigration through family reunification would be a direct effect of a previous refugee influx in the first place. The European refugee crisis can obviously be regarded as caused in part by EU's demographic strategy - this is one reason why Japan, which does not have such a strategy, has only taken in a handful of refugees (30?). I suspect that you want to make the impression that there was no policy strategy at the onset of the crisis and that all of this happened for no reason at all, which I have proved to be misleading in the above. The reason for the EU's historically speaking exceptionally benign relation to "third-world" non-European immigrants, and EU's explicit strategy which documents this relation, is relevant background information for the migrant crisis. There are concrete, tangible reasons inside Europe why this happened now, and why none of this happened in the 1950s or, for that matter, say, the 1870s. Narssarssuaq (talk) 11:37, 2 April 2016 (UTC)
 * I will not do anything more about this, so someone else needs to advocate reinstating the section. For the record, this feels (yes, I know: ) like a case where a lingering pro-EU bias is the cause of Wikipedia content. Narssarssuaq (talk) 13:44, 3 April 2016 (UTC)
 * Sorry I answer only now. The number of 1.4 million legal immigrants a year in the period 2010-2013 comes from this source (cited in the article), and it explicitly excludes asylum seekers and refugees. Asylum seekers are counted separately by Eurostat (see the immigration database here and the asylum database here). Refugees have never made up a significant part of the influx to Europe: as you can read here, only in recent years “asylum seekers make up an increasing share of migration to the EU, though the share of refugees in the population remains small. In 2013, asylum seekers represented 27 percent of immigration of non-EU citizens overall, and the share is likely to have increased significantly in 2014 and 2015.“ Over the period 2008-2013, only 570,000 asylum seekers were granted protection in the whole EU, i.e. less than 100,000 a year . The increase started after 2011 and is due to the turmoil in the Middle East and North Africa (that’s why it’s happening now, but it has a precedent in the Balkan wars: in 1992 the EU-15 had 672,000 asylum applications). There’s no indication in the documents you cited that EU predicted (or even welcomed) that increase as part of its demographic policies; actually, it placed every kind of obstacle in the refugees’ way to Europe (I don’t see any pro-EU bias in pointing out these facts).
 * I think this discussion has shown that the document you cited is rather complex and not easy to interpret, so we should add it and other documents only citing secondary sources which explain them and their relevance to the current crisis; we should also distinguish projections of the expected immigration from policy recommendations about the amount of immigrants needed for demographic and economic reasons; this is probably too long and complex for the background to this article, but could be added to Immigration to Europe and Demographics of the European Union. Nykterinos (talk) 22:49, 3 April 2016 (UTC)
 * Though "only" 27% are refugees/asylum seekers, I would assume that a further 50% are family reunifications directly caused by refugee influx, which would mean about 3/4 of the non-European immigration. Could be different in different countries, but the Northern European case would typically look like this. Your notion that refugee influx has been relatively low is more than dubious if you take only a brief look at the demographic development in the case of, say, Norway, who in principle do not let in any immigrants from outside Europe, only refugees. Maybe the UK, France or Portugal have very different rules, I don't know. Is nobody else interested in this discussion? I have no time for this. Narssarssuaq (talk) 12:58, 5 April 2016 (UTC)