I am still not sure why it is a good idea to let millions get displaced from the ancestral lands, having hundreds of them dying while trying to migrate and then the remaining ones living isolated lives in alien countries with those countries supporting them by spending billions of dollars every year and having culture and way of life changed forever. Compare this to taking on ISIS once and for all which numbers about 30,000 - 40,000 fighters. Wouldn't it be better to spend those billions of dollars and take on some inevitable loss of life and annihilate them forever. From where did we all start believing in the defeatist mentality that world cannot take on ISIS? That land belongs to the Syrians and Iraqis and not to some 7th century cult. The best solution is to return that land to whom it belongs rather than taking millions of refugees and creating problems from them as well as for ourselves. If you want to take in refugees then there is no end to it, billions of ppl would like to move to Europe or USA. Whom are you going to deny and on what basis?
> "The Dalai Lama, who often speaks of humanity's need to acknowledge its "oneness", is a refugee himself. ... From a moral point of view, too, I think that the refugees should only be admitted temporarily ... The goal should be that they return and help rebuild their countries."<p>Well, yes. The former sovereign of Tibet has long wanted to regain control, preferably with full independence, though more recently accepting high-level autonomy.<p>But we can't always get what we want.<p>If the Chinese government refuse to restore autonomous rule to the satisfaction of the exiled government, then what is India supposed to do? Granting citizenship seems the most humane of the possible solutions.<p>If the US government is unable to change the government of Cuba (including the disastrous attempt at the Bay of Pigs and the decades long trade embargo) to the satisfaction of the Cuban exiles in the US, then what is the US supposed to do? Prevent the children of Rafael Díaz-Balart - the exiled majority leader of the Cuban House of Representatives before Castro came to power - from being elected to office in the US?<p>If there is no peace in Syria, so the goal of returning home cannot be achieved, what then?
Refugees by definition are poor (civil war wiped out their livelihood in this instance). They end up relying on the government safety-net, which is better than nothing, but normally still a barely above poverty life-style. This congregates the migrants in migrant only areas; to where they do not experience the culture of the nation which is now their home, in a way a normal immigrant would... Thus there is no real pressure to assimilate and the customs which aren't congruent with western society which are endemic in parts of the Arab world remain(woman's rights, freedom of religion, etc...).