For the hundreds of thousands of people fleeing Syria, Iraq, and other conflict zones, the label "crisis" is appropriate. That is precisely what these refugees (not migrants, though a small number can be categorized thus) are experiencing as they leave their homes in search of safety and security.
However, as Human Rights Watch's Kenneth Roth points out, the news coverage and political discourse in Europe regarding the influx of those seeking asylum is a distortion. Admitting a few hundred thousand refugees is not a crisis and won't bring the EU to its knees. As Roth states:
This "wave of people" is more like a trickle when considered against the pool that must absorb it. The European Union's population is roughly 500 million. The latest estimate of the numbers of people using irregular means to enter Europe this year via the Mediterranean or the Balkans is approximately 340,000. In other words, the influx this year is only 0.068 percent of the EU's population. Considering the EU's wealth and advanced economy, it is hard to argue that Europe lacks the means to absorb these newcomers.
The numbers of refugees being accepted country to country vary dramatically. In 2015, Germany will likely take in a respectable 800,000. The UK, on the other hand, has resettled 216 Syrian refugees; according to a recent headline in the Washington Post, "Britain takes in so few refugees from Syria they would fit on a subway train."
As for the United States, it has been relatively generous with offering refugee aid (about $4 billion). Nevertheless, it has accepted only 1,500 Syrian refugees, a number so small it looks like a typo. According to the Wall Street Journal: "The State Department has received 17,000 referrals for Syrians from the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees since 2011 and resettled about 9% of those who have applied...."
Given the role the United States (with British assistance) has played in (1) destabilizing Afghanistan and Iraq, (2) creating the circumstances in which ISIS was able to thrive, and (3) its exacerbation of and diplomatic negligence on the Syrian issue, this number is lamentable. There are 600,000 Syrian refugees living in Jordan. Lebanon, with a population of 4.5 million (and a GDP of $45 billion; think Panama), has taken in a million.
