30 Years of Data Shows Asylum Seekers Are Not an Economic Burden

[LiberalArkie]

For the last two years, the Trump Administration has continually cited the burden that undocumented immigrants place on the US economy as justification for its “zero tolerance” border policy. Trump has personally referred to Latin American immigrants as “animals” that want to “infest” the United States. He has repeatedly, and falsely, referred to the influx of refugees fleeing violence in the Middle East as a major problem for Europe as justification for his administration’s hard line stance on immigration in the US.

As recently as Monday, Trump tweeted about a “big mistake made all over Europe in allowing millions of people in who have so strongly and violently changed their culture!” Yet according to new research published today in Science Advances, asylum seekers in Europe have actually positively benefited the economies of their host countries.

The research was jointly conducted by the French National Center for Scientific Research, Clermont-Auvergne University and Paris-Nanterre University, and uses economic data from 15 different Western European countries with the highest asylum application rates between 1985 and 2015.

Throughout the 90s, Western Europe saw a large increase in asylum seekers following the wars in the Balkans. In the last seven years there has been another increase in asylum seekers in Europe as people flee the instability of countries affected by the Arab Spring or the Syrian civil war. At the same time, the researchers note, the flows of migrants have increased as the European Union expanded eastward in 2004.

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https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/ywejb5/30-years-of-data-shows-asylum-seekers-are-not-an-economic-burden

[Quixote1818]

1. This has been at the back of my mind the entire time. They are NOT a problem for us!

This really comes down to racism more than anything.

[Wellstone ruled]

2. It is all about rasicism pure and simple.

[GusBob]

3. I have long thought if w3 worked our foreign policy to improve conditions in their home country

It would be a a win win win

[LiberalArkie]

4. I think most flee crap we start.

I bet if drugs were legal in US the narco gangs would dry up and the violence would subside

[GusBob]

5. I think that's part of it. Reagan caused problems down there

It's political and economic.

I reckon it would cost less to fix the problems within their borders than at our border