Students studying or vacationing abroad should avoid the current political and economic turmoil associated with southeastern Europe, specifically Greece. Greece opened Europe’s door to more than 850,000 refugees — a huge mistake.
The Guardian estimates that over another million refugees will enter Europe this year, many through Greece. For a country with a population of about 11 million, the uncontrollable inflow of refugees is disastrous to Greece and the European Union.
Unfortunately for the EU, Greece is part of the Schengen Area, a group of 26 European countries without passports or border control with each other. Basically, once the refugees are in the EU, no one knows where they will go or which country will be stuck with the consequences.
Some European countries are demanding Greece stop the refugees. Hungary’s prime minister, Viktor Orbán, called for walling off Greece from the rest of Europe. Rumors of other ideas include sinking the refugee boats, imprisoning refugees or imprisoning people helping refugees.
Destroying refugees’ lives should not be an option, but the EU should give Greece an ultimatum: fix the problem or exit the EU. Countries all over Europe are fed up with the violence and economic trouble the refugees bring with them, and should punish Greece for letting them in.
According to The Telegraph, 516 criminal complaints have been filed in regard to a mob attack in Cologne, Germany on New Year’s Eve with migrants being exclusively responsible. Forty percent of the complaints filed were related to sexual assaults. Women were groped, robbed and assaulted by this mob.
If Greece’s government refuses to fix the problem, its people have to take responsibility before ultra-nationalist groups have their way with the refugees. The EU should cut them off financially if they refuse to comply.
The EU and the United States should reject future refugees and remove current refugees. Europe, America and Turkey can work together to build and fund refugee camps in Turkey or other states neighboring Syria.
This will cost the United States millions, but President Barack Obama could afford this humanitarian aide if he’d stop funding the Syrian rebels. The alternative to this plan is the people in Europe becoming so fed up with the refugees that mass murder and human rights’ violations become rampant.
Here in the United States, we already have an illegal immigrant issue. If we take in more Syrian refugees, the consequences will go downhill quickly, as they have in Europe. You don’t need to house people in your country to help them, and helping them in their own country is definitely better.
Greece has not learned this lesson, but the rest of Europe is catching on quickly. But Obama and the next president could be smart and keep refugees out, or they could be stupid and let them in.
Garrett Marcel is a 22-year-old petroleum engineering senior from Houma, Louisiana.