{"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

Yet, even in the face of such a serious crisis, na\u00efve open-borders\nutopianism is alive and well, just as it is here in the U.S. As Breitbart News reports<\/a>,\n\u201csome European governments, such as Finland\u2019s, have said they believe Greece\u2019s\ndecision to suspend asylum applications and push migrants back is \u2018wrong\u2019 and\nagainst EU law, and the European Commissioner for migration has also suggested\nthat the Mediterranean country must accept migrants who claim to be asylum\nseekers.\u201d    <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why should Americans be concerned about a crisis brewing 5,000 miles away? Because, once Europe becomes overwhelmed with migrants\/refugees, it is likely that pressure will follow for the U.S. to take its \u201cshare\u201d of the \u201cburden,\u201d as was the case under the Obama administration. That, in turn, is likely to encourage new migratory waves to rush America\u2019s frontiers, at a time when the Trump administration has only just succeeded in restoring a measure of control to our border operations. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The U.S. should play a role in helping resolve the crisis, but it should be done primarily by exerting pressure on wealthy Arab states to finally accept refugees\/migrants, even on a temporary basis. This is both because they have the resources to do so and because primarily Muslim migrants \u2013 especially if they already speak Arabic \u2013 will face fewer cultural obstacles in Islamic Arab nations than in the West. It is time to act fast and think outside the box!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Turkey\u2019s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has recently \u2013 in the midst of a global Coronavirus epidemic \u2013 opened his borders with Greece while encouraging and aiding droves of Middle Eastern migrants to flood Europe. Thus, the anti-Western Erdogan has done what many unscrupulous leaders have done before \u2013 cynically weaponized and exploited migrants to further<\/p>\n

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