{"id":22627,"date":"2020-03-16T11:40:42","date_gmt":"2020-03-16T15:40:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/?p=22627"},"modified":"2020-03-16T11:40:47","modified_gmt":"2020-03-16T15:40:47","slug":"turkey-refugee-flood-europe-immigrationreform-com","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/2020\/03\/16\/turkey-refugee-flood-europe-immigrationreform-com\/","title":{"rendered":"Turkey’s Erdogan Opens the Border With Greece to Punish Europe"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
Turkey\u2019s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has recently\n\u2013 in the midst of a global Coronavirus\nepidemic<\/a> \u2013 opened his borders with Greece while encouraging\nand aiding droves of Middle Eastern migrants to flood Europe. Thus, the\nanti-Western Erdogan has done what many unscrupulous leaders have done before \u2013\ncynically weaponized and exploited migrants to further his own political\nagenda. The Turkish president is angry at Europe and is punishing it for what\nhe sees as insufficient support for his policy goals in Syria.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It should be obvious that suddenly opening Turkey\u2019s borders with Europe is extremely irresponsible and reckless in light of the Coronavirus<\/a> emergency. Although, as of this writing, Turkey has two recorded COVID-19 cases, many of Turkey\u2019s Middle Eastern neighbors \u2013 Iran in particular (over 10,000 cases) \u2013 have many more. Since the virus is already present in most European countries \u2013 including Italy, France, Germany, and Greece \u2013 unleashing droves of people onto the continent can have potentially catastrophic consequences by adding further fuel to the fire. After all, many migrants come from places with poor or, at times, even nonexistent, healthcare. The fact that quite a few tend to travel in larger groups further exacerbates the potential for mass contagion. <\/p>\n\n\n\n According to the Associated Press, the Turkish government has been using<\/a> \u201cbuses, minibuses and cars\u201d to move migrants to the Greek border. Some migrants revealed that they were being pushed to go to the frontier zone by the Turks. Moreover, the Turkish police have been firing tear gas at the Greek authorities who attempt to maintain control of their side of the border. Migrants themselves sometimes threw Molotov cocktails<\/a> as they attempted to rush the frontier while Greek farmers, hunters, and other citizens have been assisting their nation\u2019s border security forces. The desperate Greeks have been forced to suspend all asylum applications for a month and summarily deport all illegal border crossers without registering them. As a result, legitimate asylum seekers may be turned away and those who manage to run the gauntlet, and make it into Greece, do not undergo any health screening or national security vetting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The EU has condemned Ankara\u2019s decision to try and unleash\nanother migrant crisis on a continent still reeling from the aftershocks of the\n2015 migrant wave \u2013 after which the EU agreed to pay Turkey billions of Euros\nto keep the refugees\/migrants on its soil. The EU\u2019s border agency Frontex is beefing\nup<\/a>\nits presence in Greece \u2013 509 officers \u2013 with another 100 personnel being\ndeployed to the Greek-Turkish land border, in addition to relevant equipment. <\/p>\n\n\n\n