Following a series of “humanitarian” interventions in the Middle East, a true migrant crisis has arisen. Although commonly referred to as the European migrant crisis, the real crisis is in those places where families are being driven from their homes by war. The European element of the crisis has been created, and exacerbated, by the poor decisions of many western political powers. The net result is millions still in dire need of aid around the Middle East, while the governments of Europe try to make plans for the hundreds of thousands of asylum seekers and economic migrants they cannot afford to house and maintain.

The specific issue addressed in this article – is current immigration policy and procedure leading to a migration of the fittest, where characteristics such as speed, stamina and the ability to hide well are more likely to ensure a good quality of aid is received, rather than being bombed out of your own home, injured or orphaned?

The people of Europe have been led to believe that migrants entering into their countries are mostly families displaced by war, but this is not the case. I would like to make clear at this point that the purpose of this article is to increase awareness of the fact that most of the families we envision receiving this aid are not, as they are either still in a war-torn area or are receiving asylum in closer countries such as Turkey and Lebanon. I am making this “disclaimer” now as all too often any rhetoric challenging the mainstream portrayal of migrate demographics is immediately viewed with contempt. Who suffers when this rhetoric is quashed with calls of racist and xenophobe? Those in need of aid without the means to speak up or uproot and access the aid available.

In 2015 the European Commission formally addressed the issue following a string of incidents which claimed the lives of hundreds of migrants attempting to gain access to Europe, mostly by boat, and the numerous reputed abuses by people traffickers in locations such as Libya (another place they helped bomb into its current condition). They announced plans to establish legal means for people to enter Europe in an attempt to quell the tides of illegal and dangerous migration. Although several countries were against the plans, they were pushed through by Brussels, who omitted the usual consensus system causing a wider division between member states.

While good intentions were at play in the creation of the policies that followed and their support from the public, Europe was in fact woefully unprepared for the influx that followed. Recently this has even been admitted by German head of State Angela Merkel, who was one of the key proponents to an open door migrant policy. Although she now concedes that her actions were ill conceived, she maintains that criticism of refugee policy is largely due to prejudice towards Muslims.

To see why there is a legitimate concern, regarding not the religious identity of the migrant demographic, but the demographic none the less, we need to look at where the families displaced by war are ending up in relation to the availability of aid. Another term in frequent use in the quest for acceptance of immigration policy is the “Syrian refugee crisis”, however the majority of Syrian refugees are in Turkey which has the largest community of displaced Syrians, an estimated 1.7 million as of March 2015 , the number is now thought to be closer to 2.7 million. Other nearby countries such as: Lebanon, Egypt, Jordan and Iraq have all taken large numbers of Syrian Refugees. Although these countries strive to provide the best care and accommodation for refugees many countries are stretched to breaking point, in Lebanon some refugees only receive 21 USD aid per month.

The public perception in Europe has been that we are stepping in to alleviate some of the financial and social stress caused in these countries by sharing responsibility for the welfare of some of the millions of displaced Syrian families, but this is not the case. So who is receiving aid from Europe? This information sheet produced by the UN shows that 72% of the migrants entering Europe were male, not families. The second factor to consider is the Syrian element, although it is claimed that the majority of refugees are from Syria, it has also been admitted that there are many refugees claiming to be Syrian who are not, as it grants easier access to the EU, which means any poll claiming to know what percentage of incoming migrants are truly Syrian needs to be viewed with scepticism. If we however take the migrant camp in Calais which has been the centre of much media attention, we see that around a third were from Sudan with others coming from Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Syria, Pakistan and Eritrea.

So what does this mean? That the majority of families displaced in the Syrian conflict are either still internally displaced, estimated to be close to 7 million, or taking refuge in neighbouring middle eastern countries. While there are many Syrian families who have made their way to Europe, their numbers likely pale in comparison to the number of opportunistic single travellers, who have the strength and stamina to make the journey, no children to transport and little to tie them down to life in either a war-torn or an economically deprived environment. The term economic migrant often struggles to be seen as anything but a slur towards those fleeing for their safety or lives, but it is however a genuine phenomenon, which can only be addressed through discussion. Firstly, who can say they would not do the same in that situation? However, allowing all potential economic migrants to enter more affluent countries is not the solution, this is more likely to cripple the newly occupied country than it is to help the migrants, and is comparable to giving the area people are fleeing from a fish rather than a net. How to alleviate the economic pressures of these areas is for another article, more likely a series of books would be required, but how does economic migration affect the general migrant crisis? The knock on effect is that the pool of resources for those in most need is diluted. Instead of being able to send more aid money to places such as Lebanon which are on the front line of the most recent in a series of Western fuelled refugee causing conflicts, the aid goes to anyone who can make it to the border and make a claim for legitimate asylum, the validity of which is often unchallenged. The west has an obligation to aid in the recovery of the nation states which they participated in the destruction of but not through encouraging their indigenous workforce to move to “greener” pastures.

Sadly the poorly constructed migrant policy propounded by the European commission, combined with its complete lack of planning and management, has led to a situation where the middle east is at breaking point caring for the victims of war, while Europe is supporting a migrant population it is unable to quantify in any truly empirical sense, that is likely made up in large parts of economic migrants from all over northern Africa and the middle east looking for a better life in a foreign land…often because we ruined theirs. With a shift in public opinion towards more right wing parties across Europe and a number of elections in key European states such as Germany, Hungry, France and the Czech Republic coming in 2017, it is clear that there will be a number of significant changes to current migration policy. In order to reach the best possible outcome and ensure policy is not high jacked by extremists on either side of the political spectrum, be they racists on the far right or self-destructive regressive on the left, we must listen to all sides of the discussion and not be so quick to label the opposition as either of these two extremes whilst being aware that both do exist.