refugees perhaps NOT so desperate

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FROM......http://www.latimes.com/world/europe/la-fg-germany-refugees-20160301-story.html

With a one-way ticket home to Iraq in his hands and seven months' worth of frustration over intransigent German bureaucracy in his heart, Gazwan Abdulhasen Abdulla gave up on his dreams of a better life in Europe.

Homesick and eager to be back with his wife and four small children in Basra, Abdulla was giving up his refugee status as he boarded a crowded Iraqi Airways flight from Berlin's Tegel Airport to Baghdad that would whisk him and 150 other disillusioned former refugees back home in five hours.

He had scraped together his last $325 for the flight to Iraq — a small fraction of the money he had paid to smugglers last summer to get to Germany by foot, bus and boat through Turkey, Greece, the Balkans and Austria.

But now, after more than 1.1 million refugees from troubled lands such as Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan have trekked into Germany over the last 13 months, a small but growing number are heading home.


The reasons are myriad, but include overcrowded refugee centers, exasperating bureaucracy, unfamiliar German food, a lack of jobs and a spreading sense of resentment from Germans who fear their country is being overrun by Muslims.

Many refugees say they are now happy to trade a cold, heartless and lonely life in one of Europe's richest countries for the violence, insecurity and poverty back home. And they say they have realized, rather belatedly, that smugglers had sold them a pack of lies about big houses, well-paying jobs and the life of luxury they would find in Germany.

"I wanted to live in peace with my family as far away from war as possible," said Abdulla, a 37-year-old who had worked as a truck driver in Iraq. "But what I've seen in Europe is not what I dreamed about. It's not what [the smugglers] told me it would be.

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"The food was terrible, so disgusting that not even animals should be fed it. They made us sleep in these cold, empty buildings and when someone said they were sick, they just ignored us. You could feel it everywhere that Germans looked down at us like we were bums. I miss my family and can't wait to get home."

Abdulla, like many of the refugees, had come to Germany on his own and figured his family could follow. But the German government, fearful that the number of refugees could increase fourfold if families were reunited, temporarily suspended the rules last year that allowed refugees to send for their family members.

Now it could take two to five years or more before their families might be allowed to move to Germany — an intolerable wait that is one of the main reasons that hundreds, perhaps thousands, of refugees are giving up on Germany every week, even as up to 3,000 arrive every day.


The Iraqi Embassy in Berlin has issued more than 1,500 one-way travel documents for Iraqi refugees giving up on Germany in the last three months.

"There are a lot of Iraqis going home, but more and more Syrians are also coming in here to buy airplane tickets to fly back home," said Alaa Hadrous, 24, who came to Germany from Iraq as a child and now operates the Golf Reisen travel office next to a refugee center in the heart of Berlin.

"They see the Arabic writing on my storefront window and come in saying they want to go home," he said. "There are a lot of really sad stories."

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Hadrous sees masses of exhausted refugees camped on the street in front of his shop at night — new arrivals who are sometimes forced to wait overnight for their asylum applications to be processed so that they can go to a shelter.

"It's really upsetting to me whenever I see little children outside freezing in the cold," he said, adding that he has often ended up sheltering such shivering families with small children in his small apartment nearby for the night. He said he noticed an increase late last year in the number of refugees coming to him for one-way tickets home.

"They started coming into my store," he said. "They've given up on Germany, even though some have only been here for a few weeks. They had the wrong idea and wrong expectations about Germany. People in Iraq told them they could live a carefree life in Germany."


A Syrian man, who gave only his first name, Abed, had just bought a one-way ticket to Lebanon after spending four weeks in Germany. He said life on his own in Germany was a lot harder than he expected and it was depressing when he found out his wife and daughter weren't allowed to join him.

"I miss my family a lot," he said. "I'd rather take a chance and risk dying with them in Syria than being in Germany without them."

The government's office for migration and refugees reported that 37,220 refugees obtained government financial aid to return to their home countries in 2015. Most of those were from countries in the Balkans and had little chance of being granted asylum. Only 724 of about 122,000 refugees from Iraq went home last year with German government assistance.

The migration agency points out, however, that it doesn't have a complete overview because many refugees pay for their own trips home.

"The numbers of refugees wanting to go home is growing every week — once they discover they can't bring their families here, they give up on Germany," said Ardalan Hassan, the head of the Dania Travel Agency in the Wedding district of Berlin.

"They thought they'd be warmly welcomed in Germany," he said. "Some thought they'd get a lot of money, that the state would give them big houses to live in.... It's only after they get here that they see how poor their prospects to earn a living are."

Hassan said that he tries to tell Iraqis to stay home in the first place, that life in Germany isn't as easy as they think. "But no one believes me," he said. "They have to see it themselves to believe how difficult it is here."
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The increase in the number of refugees returning home could offer some unexpected relief to Chancellor Angela Merkel, who has come under attack for her open-door policies.

Merkel has also subtly changed her message to the refugees from one of welcome in September 2015 — her immortal words of "We can do it" — to a more standoffish view in February.

"We expect that you'll go back to Syria once there's peace there and Islamic State has been defeated," Merkel said. "We expect you'll go back to your homes."

That might not be as far-fetched as it sounds. Germany allowed in 350,000 refugees from the Balkan wars in the early 1990s. By 1998, after the wars had ended, about 70% had returned, voluntarily or otherwise, to Serbia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Kosovo, Albania and Slovenia.

Ahmed, a 24-year-old from Irbil, Iraq, came to Germany hoping to study engineering. But after eight months waiting in vain for his asylum request to be processed, he gave up and flew home in mid-February.

"We came here to Germany to live free but we're not free here," he said before he left. "We've got more freedom at home in Iraq than here.... I'm tired of being treated like an animal, of living in a giant room with hundreds of others and getting horrible food and having to take cold showers. I can't wait to get home."



as suspected...they came for "the benefits" the "big houses"

and are clearly not that much "in fear"....chancers and twisters....

Lord Foul wrote:

aspca4ever wrote:

I'll pose a question for you LordFoul; whose to blame for a man - Any Man for wanting to go somewhere else, where his chance for a better life for his family would have better options?

Seems that in my country; we suffered/worked through many a wave of migrants doing exactly that --- some were highly successful and my country benefited from their work ethic.  Some were treated to the worst racial slurs/horrid housing and pestilence known to mankind...all because of the RUMOR of how much better it was in the USA. 

These unfortunate humans are being 'SOLD' pure make believe BS and hopes by black market human transporters with nothing but a shabby way of bilking money from needy humans!
I'm just finding it rather callous and sad that you'll take this mans disappointment and throw all of the refugees out for a single quotated opinion.

my point is that the lefty's have sold this as "every man is a REAL refugee they should all be given blanket access to everything"

when all along it has been screamingly clear that it aint so....
nor can we afford to give em their dream
also, being brutal.....the lefties told us they were ALL educated, dr's, engineers, teachers etc...

bull shit MOST are ignorant camel jockeys

NOW......if they fell for a scam...just like the plonkers that fall for the nigerian princess type scams....I have little sympathy
they were driven, (obiviously since they are happy to return to it) not from fear of the war, but by greed and the prospect of living the good life courtesy of us.

I really dont see how "this poor mans dissapointment" means anything in those terms

are we now to take in every tom dick and harry because they are a "bit poor" and then spend 3 times or whatever what our own average citizen gets to stop em being "disapointed"??

awww the poor man is disapointed...that disapointed in fact that apparantly being blown up is preferable....

what can one say

Well, since I've no clue what 'LEFTIES' have been telling 'YOU' precisely...I'm really at a loss for verification as to the resumes of those that have fled those warring factions in those long drawn out dreadful regions!

But the man's basic feelings and methods for --- getting out and looking for a better place to bring his family too; would you do any less if you were in his shoes?

Seriously, LordFoul...your statements about 'what this one quoted man was expecting and what he was trying to live through'...well seems quite the wide berth of factual information.

A Syrian man, who gave only his first name, Abed, had just bought a one-way ticket to Lebanon after spending four weeks in Germany. He said life on his own in Germany was a lot harder than he expected and it was depressing when he found out his wife and daughter weren't allowed to join him.

"I miss my family a lot," he said. "I'd rather take a chance and risk dying with them in Syria than being in Germany without them."

He arrived {via his own methods} but once here: to be unable to work, live, be left with whatever means of housing/feeding the Germans were gerrymandering together --- and then being told that there was a 5 {five year} moratorium for any of his family members to be able to join him UGHHHH   That's why he put his life on the line and fled to begin with. 

Not that my heartfelt feelings for this issue has any sway with PM Merkel --- she's not taking my emails/phone calls --- I just can't be mean about a family man's attempt to GET THE HELL OUT and try to find something better.  It's what my country was founded on and by.

Yes - poor old Greece is the first port of call for many of them, and it has its own problems. Now there's a new bottleneck in Greece because of other countries blocking access to too many refugees.

aspca4ever wrote:

Lord Foul wrote:

my point is that the lefty's have sold this as "every man is a REAL refugee they should all be given blanket access to everything"

when all along it has been screamingly clear that it aint so....
nor can we afford to give em their dream
also, being brutal.....the lefties told us they were ALL educated, dr's, engineers, teachers etc...

bull shit MOST are ignorant camel jockeys

NOW......if they fell for a scam...just like the plonkers that fall for the nigerian princess type scams....I have little sympathy
they were driven, (obiviously since they are happy to return to it) not from fear of the war, but by greed and the prospect of living the good life courtesy of us.

I really dont see how "this poor mans dissapointment" means anything in those terms

are we now to take in every tom dick and harry because they are a "bit poor" and then spend 3 times or whatever what our own average citizen gets to stop em being "disapointed"??

awww the poor man is disapointed...that disapointed in fact that apparantly being blown up is preferable....

what can one say

Well, since I've no clue what 'LEFTIES' have been telling 'YOU' precisely...I'm really at a loss for verification as to the resumes of those that have fled those warring factions in those long drawn out dreadful regions!

But the man's basic feelings and methods for --- getting out and looking for a better place to bring his family too; would you do any less if you were in his shoes?

Seriously, LordFoul...your statements about 'what this one quoted man was expecting and what he was trying to live through'...well seems quite the wide berth of factual information.

A Syrian man, who gave only his first name, Abed, had just bought a one-way ticket to Lebanon after spending four weeks in Germany. He said life on his own in Germany was a lot harder than he expected and it was depressing when he found out his wife and daughter weren't allowed to join him.

"I miss my family a lot," he said. "I'd rather take a chance and risk dying with them in Syria than being in Germany without them."

He arrived {via his own methods} but once here: to be unable to work, live, be left with whatever means of housing/feeding the Germans were gerrymandering together --- and then being told that there was a 5 {five year} moratorium for any of his family members to be able to join him UGHHHH   That's why he put his life on the line and fled to begin with. 

Not that my heartfelt feelings for this issue has any sway with PM Merkel --- she's not taking my emails/phone calls --- I just can't be mean about a family man's attempt to GET THE HELL OUT and try to find something better.  It's what my country was founded on and by.

In which case...you can have em....all



you have the room
you are (so your politicos like to say) the richest country going (so you can afford it)
and like it or not at least YOUR citizenry is entitled to defend itself against the less desirable elements ........................unlike ours

in fact from what I've seen you have entire cities that are virtually abandoned......

HoratioTarr wrote:

Lord Foul wrote:PS...I dont mind GENUINE refugees

HOWEVER
will someone PLEASE sort the wheat from the chaff
first of all it was "only a few" terrorists  in their midst
now its only a few economic migrants in their midst
well those "fews are starting to add up to an astonishing number....
and the number of genuine refugees diminishes daily

If sassy and the ilk had had their way we would already have had 3 MILLION of em here...

with nowhere to put em
and nothing to give em

I feel sorry for Greece.

I have complete EMPATHY for everyone: people trying to allow the refugees in - the numerous families trying to get the hell out - the starving ones left behind --- there's enough dire humanitarian problems to carry us all into the 22nd century!

And a huge dose of frustration for WTH and HTH did this get to such a horrid place and no one - not even the United Nations was moving into help those Syrians trying to eek out a somewhat NORMAL life while struggling with all of the terrorists flowing in & out of their neighborhoods! 
Color me FLUMMOXED by it all... but we've ignored this hot-bed of terrorist activities far too long. 

And bombing those refugee boats before they reached all of those landing sights of sanctuary wasn't a option either!

LordFoul replied >>>
In which case...you can have em....all



you have the room
you are (so your politicos like to say) the richest country going (so you can afford it)
and like it or not at least YOUR citizenry is entitled to defend itself against the less desirable elements ........................unlike ours

in fact from what I've seen you have entire cities that are virtually abandoned......

Well...according to our GOP side of our political system; we'll be dumping any and all foreigners the hell out of here ASAP when a Republican come the POTUS.  
BTW --- I've got my copy of my Birth certificate on me at all times --- just in case; one never knows how deeply the paranoia will run!