The refugee crisis: 9 questions you were too embarrassed to ask Updated by Max Fisher and Amanda Taub on September 9, 2015, 11:50 a.m. ET "There have always been refugees: people who are forced from their home countries by conflict or repression or something else, and who must find new homes and new lives abroad. But there is something different about what's happening now. The world is experiencing a crisis more severe than anything it has seen in decades — and we are just beginning to wake up to what that means. "Make no mistake: The current refugee crisis is global. The coverage has focused heavily on the refugees arriving in Europe, and especially on Syrian refugees. But in fact refugees are fleeing countries from Honduras to Nigeria to Myanmar, and they are arriving in wealthy countries including the US and Australia, as well as poorer ones like Turkey and Lebanon. It is a worldwide problem — one whose scale and severity is unmatched since World War II. "What follows is a straightforward explanation of the very basics of the refugee crisis: the key facts you need to know to understand what's happening, how the crisis became so severe, and what can be done to fix it. 1) What is the refugee crisis? UNHCR (UNHCR) "At its most basic level, the refugee crisis is driven by a single fact: There are 19 million people in the world who are currently refugees — a disastrously high number — and they all need to find somewhere they can live in safety. "But when we talk about the global refugee crisis, we're not just talking about numbers. We're really talking about the ways in which nations fail refugees. That happens at four distinct stages — all of them terrible in their own way. All refugees go through at least one of those terrible steps, but the most vulnerable people, if they do ever manage to reach safety at all, are likely to go through all four. "The first step of the refugee crisis is the persecution that forces refugees to flee their homes in the first place. Some are fleeing war, some political persecution, and some other kinds of violence, but all refugees, by definition, experience this. Today Syria's civil war is especially dire. But it's not the only cause of the global refugee crisis, which is being driven by a host of national crises taking place around the globe, many of which are totally unconnected to one another. There are wars in Somalia and Afghanistan and Libya, lower-level violence in Central America and Nigeria and Pakistan, persecution in Eritrea and Myanmar and Bangladesh, and so on. "The second step is what happens to those refugees once they are forced out of their homes: Often, though not always, they end up in camps..." More >>
The bottom line is that many people are from non-war torn countries who are seeking economic benefits rather than safety - they are not refugees.
One thing war does is destroy economies. The people who leave to find a living elsewhere are still refugees.
Tell me about the war that happened in Nigeria. The last war in Nigeria was their civil war that ended in 1970. The people coming from non-war torn countries are illegal immigrants driven by economic benefits - no different that illegal immigrants from Mexico in the U.S. - these individuals are not refugees.
We've always had refugees and migrants. The current crisis is due to a surge in refugees. That doesn't mean the stream of migrants has been cut off. Are there opportunists among the refugees? Undoubtedly. That's life, it's messy. But seeking to split hairs so you (not you) can keep your xenophobia alive is pathetic.