Of Unintended Consequences, Perverse Incentives & Illegal Immigration

Thanks to Sanjeev for alerting me to this article. From UN convention misunderstood, and it’s not working by Greg Sheridan, Foreign Editor of  The Australian comes this startling excerpt – offered without comment (emphasis mine):

Here is where the unintended consequences and perverse incentives come in. The best book on these issues ever written is Christopher Caldwell’s Reflections on the Revolution in Europe: Immigration, Islam and the West. With a mountain of irrefutable data, Caldwell establishes beyond doubt that the vast Muslim immigration to Europe in recent years is simply a determined illegal immigration, and has almost nothing to do with genuine refugee questions.

He also shows in minute detail how asylum-seekers learn the questions they will be asked, under the provisions of the convention, and what answers will gain them acceptance. He demonstrates how much easier it is to gain such acceptance if you throw away your documents and then tell a story designed to tick the boxes on the 1951 convention criteria. In recent decades, more asylum-seekers have gone to Europe than legally accepted foreign workers. Asylum-seeking thus became a method of immigration.

Continued below…

In saying this, I am not really criticising those people who chose to scam the asylum-seeker process to go and live in Europe. If I were living in North Africa, in any part of North Africa, I would certainly prefer to live in Europe and would pay a lot of money for the opportunity.

But what Caldwell and others demonstrate is that Europe completely lost control of its immigration program as a result of a misplaced sentiment about asylum-seekers, which was operationalised through legalistic adherence to the 1951 convention.

He also demonstrates, incidentally, that uncontrolled Muslim immigration of this kind has been a catastrophe for Europe.

Comments and thoughts welcome, as always.

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