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Will the Crashed Coronavirus Economy Spur a Refugee Avalanche?

Officials warn that the wave of refugees is coming for America and Europe alike.

The shutdown of entire nations over the Coronavirus pandemic has led to worldwide economic devastation – but there’s another problem coming. This financial fallout is likely to lead to a “completely unprecedented” wave of refugee migration to the United States, senior U.S. officials warn.

“You’re going to have millions and millions of Latin Americans out of jobs, with governments too broke to provide even the meager social safety nets they have,” an unnamed senior U.S. official told the Washington Examiner. “How do you measure the number of refugees that come out of that level of devastation? You can’t put a number on it, but it’s reasonable to say that it would be completely unprecedented.”

“If there is economic collapse in a given country, it is only natural that there will be migration flows to places where the economy is more robust,” U.S. Agency for International Development acting Administrator John Barsa explained to the Examiner. “Are we concerned about the economic impacts that this might have, which could lead to migration? Absolutely.”

Beginning of an Invasion

Officials in Europe are equally aware of the situation, citing fears that the Coronavirus’s economic impact could cause food shortages and renewed violence in war-torn Middle Eastern countries as militants take full advantage of the health crisis. “In the interests of early warning and preparedness, national asylum and reception authorities should reflect upon the medium to high risk that the outbreak will eventually take hold in lower income countries which are historically the source of most asylum seekers in the [European Union],” a new report from the European Asylum Support Office states.

E.U. officials planning to revamp the union’s asylum policies seem unfazed by the potential avalanche that may be about to hit them. “Our upcoming pact on migration and asylum … builds on the idea that migration is normal … that we need to manage it rationally by working together,” E.U. Home Affairs Commissioner Ylva Johansson recently announced.

Leading British Brexiteer politician Nigel Farage notes that a record number of migrants have entered the English Channel of late. Some 150 migrants in 10 boats, one packed with 50 refugees alone, were “picked up” in the Channel over a 24-hour period on May 7-8. “As I have predicted, a record number of illegal immigrants have been taken into Dover. All along the coast there are many more,” Farage said in a tweet. “This is the beginning of an invasion.”

Curiously, European pro-refugee forces are rather transparent in admitting that the corporate desire for cheap labor fuels much of this human floodtide, even as they acknowledge that the Coronavirus social fallout has put millions of native-born Europeans out of work. “COVID-19 has paralysed our movements for a few weeks, but only time will tell whether it will affect migratory patterns into and within Europe in the longer term,” Amnesty International wrote in a May 11 paen to refugee and migrant workers in Europe. “If restrictions remain in place for long, and unemployment rates increase dramatically, we may expect reduced movement.”

But the organization stressed that “migration’s main drivers – utter inequality and the human aspiration to improve one’s conditions – are not bound to disappear anytime soon.” Mass unemployment in Europe thus must not be used as justification to shunt these strivers aside. The EU “should create the conditions for refugees to be resettled to Europe, and relocated within Europe, rather than keeping them away at any cost,” AI believes. “And it should start rebuilding systems to govern migration and asylum” that are “able to respond to international obligations, to labour market needs, but also to our shared responsibility to use all available tools – including mobility – to tackle poverty and inequality.”

Only a Depression Can Save Us?

This is the toxic appeal to misplaced charity that has put Western Europe on the very precipice of social and economic collapse. It is hardly surprising that the purveyors of nonstop massive immigration into the formerly Grand Continent would not even blink before turning to it even as the specter of appalling economic distress hovers over the native population.

Must American workers struggling to survive the dire social implications of the Coronavirus outbreak also be sacrificed on this altar of an illogical and illusory equality for all the peoples of the world? According to the anonymous senior U.S. official who spoke to the Examiner, our only hope is a sustained period of profound economic suffering.

“If you’ve got 20% or 30% unemployment in the United States, basically Great Depression levels or worse,” that might reduce the horde of migrants expected from Latin America, the official told the newspaper. “There would be pressure for immigration, but depending on how bad things are perceived to be in the United States, it would be either more or less pressure than you would think.”

Such is the corner a nation backs itself into when it lacks the spirit to proudly profess that it unapologetically puts the best interests of its citizens first. America and Europe cannot possibly bring aspirational bliss to the entire world. It should not take a deep economic recession, or worse, to enable the countries of the West to summon the spine to tell the billions of souls outside their borders that they have no right to stake a claim to anything in sovereign nations of which they are no part.

~

Read more from Joe Schaeffer.

For home study students and young people, Liberty Nation recommends…

All About Immigration

High School: The Story of Immigration and America

Middle School: The Story of Immigration and America

Elementary School: The Story of Immigration and America

All About Coronavirus

High School: The Spread of Coronavirus: How it Works

Middle School: A Scientific Look at COVID-19

Elementary School: Coronavirus: The Science

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