Europe is showing signs of fatigue from unfettered immigration. With the opening of the borders and a lax immigration policy have come scores of immigrants who are now incapable of finding an occupation and are resorting to crime. A small number of these immigrants never had any intention of finding work in the first place, and have always lived nomadic lives, some governments contend.
What is at stake here is the denomination of these nomadic people, some erroneously called Roma, as 'poverty immigrants'. There is a strong sense that the realization that the approach to immigration and the reproach once bestowed on nations who marginalized nomadic people before the European Union came into effect were both wrong, and the scope of the 'integration' policies dynamics and problems are finally coming into focus.
The bulk of such nomadic people come from Romania and Bulgaria. In their home country they were often put in ghettos, where their propensity to live off of petty crime was somewhat contained, but never stopped. However, the contention that all Romanians and Bulgarians are somehow to be grouped in with these nomadic tribes is discriminatory at best.
Some of these nomadic people have learned that by immigrating to wealthy countries with an established social network of aid for poor people, they can take advantage of government handouts and welfare, without ever having any intention of becoming socially productive.
Germany is stepping into the fray by passing laws that would prohibit entry to those people who are entering the country just to live off of the generous social system they have in place and to bar re-entry for a number of years after extradition.
Some of the immigrants, German citizens say, are actually sent by organized gangs in their country of origin who obtain fake business license to gain entry, only to claim later that their venture has failed and they now need assistance to survive.
This policy however is at odds with the EU statues that grant the right to work and travel throughout its member states.
But statistics do not support such contentions that all Romanians and Bulgarians are out to defraud the state. Only 9.6% of these people are actually unemployed, a percentage at times much lower than the unemployment rate of the indigenous members of the country.
The EU commission is resisting the measure, saying that restricting movement of EU citizens is 'out of the question'.
Partial Source : France 24/ 6.9.13
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