Estonia announced that the country may be forced to close its border crossing points with Russia due to increased migration pressures, Estonian Police and Border Guard announced on Feb. 13.
“In recent weeks, Russia has deliberately directed to the Estonian border groups of foreigners lacking the legal right to enter the European Union,” the statement reads. “If these activities continue, we will be forced to close border crossing points to protect national security and public order, as has already been done in Finland due to migration pressure.”
The Estonian government has noted an influx of migrants and asylum seekers from Russia over recent months.
of course they are. The problem I see is that every country has to take care that regugees are properly welcomed and taken care of. They have to get immediatly proper introduction into the country, the language, the common systems of the country, are able to work and contribute (with regards of their strengths and education) and so on, so that they get really fast properly inlcuded and not live for years in some shady, seperated “container homes”.
And to assure this you have to regulate the income, because every country has limited ressources. We just need a proper european solution that every country is forced (looking at you hungary…) to take refugees and care for them properly based on some variables like the wealth of the country and so on.
Yeah, you’re right that there’s a potentially steep initial cost. That’s outweighed by future benefits, though, and I’m pretty sure that both the EU and several NGOs have funds and projects specifically dedicated to partly pay for and ease that transition.
It’s worth a try, at least, when the alternative is turning away refugees.
It is a nonsense problem created to excuse clearly right-wing anti-migrant politics as left-wing, by saying that you care about people so much, that you can’t have them sleep on the street, so better to let them die in a war. Because at that point, that problem is somewhere else, in another country. Better then to see suffering on your own streets.
You are clearly unfamiliar with Estonian winters. The days are below freezing, often in double digits. Anyone not sheltered will freeze to death. And where, pray tell, would we shelter them? Refugee shelters? Full of Ukrainians. Hotels are full of Ukrainians. There’s a Ukrainian family living across the street from me, because a call went out for private residences to house Ukrainian refugees and my neighbor took his family and moved in with his parents. There’s nowhere left.
But please, continue to tell me how we’re not doing enough by giving all the help we had to give to the first victims of this war.
And in Russia it is nice tropical weather /s Are we talking about closing borders just for the winter, of for the summer as well? Are we talking about closing boreders for Russians that cant pay ticket to continue to other coutnries or to all russians? These are nonsense arguments where you pretend to make descision in their best intrerest. Are they too stupid to not be able to make a decision themselves to leave the country if they are under threat of certain death in a war. They would rather live in a tent then in a battlefield under same freezing conditions. How can someone in all honestly believe this clear lie?
And how can someone so unfamiliar with the situation preach, with such conviction, to the uneducated and clearly right-wing xenophobic untermenschen who actually have to deal with it?
You speak as though we’re closing the borders with a giant “fuck you” to the people on the other side. We can’t help them. Can’t. Not won’t, but can’t. We don’t have the resources to help them. You can talk about the EU being rich as fuck all day, but the reality on the ground is that we have nothing left to give to help these people, because all that wealth isn’t here. We’re stretched thin as it is.
You ever heard the saying “Don’t light yourself on fire to keep someone else warm”? Because that’s what you’re proposing.
This article isn’t about welfare to russian citizens, but about actually closing the borders so they are trapped. You are very determined to make it seem like it’s about best intentions and not being able to help, while the reality is that this is a decision to actively forbid any passage through a country. As for the real situation of wealth in Estonia, per capita Estonia is far richer then Russia and if citizens are not able to survive in Estonia, they will not be able to survive in Russia. Russia is also colder and at actual war. So I have no idea how you can pretend that you are doing them a service by actauly actively stopping them from making their own choice to go where they can for search of better life.
You’ll note that at no point did I claim that turning them away is in their best interests. I’d appreciate it if you stopped telling me what I said.
And yes, forbidding them passage through the country is what “closing the borders” means. Very astute of you. Not like they’d get to go anywhere anyway, seeing how they have neither a Schengen VISA nor a EU passport. So all those masses would be ours to deal with. Again, we don’t have the resources to do that. It’s a point you seem intent on ignoring.
You’ll note that at no point did I claimed that you said turning them away is in their best interests. But it is reasonable to assume that you where making a claim that closing borders is because Estonia can’t help them and not because it is not in Estonia’s interests. When you give arguments about not being able to help while discussing border politics, it is reasonable to assume that you are giving a reason for that policy and not just talking for unrelated reason. So if the reason is that borders cant open because you cant help them then borders are closed for allegedly their own good as they will not be helped in Estonia. If it is in their interest to open the borders then that is helping them and therefor Estonia can help. Of course it isn’t much help if you are simply not hurting them by trapping them inside their country, but still. When you frame a comment to be about helping them, it is obviously implied that you are concerned with their wellbeing and therefor their interests.
Simply as you used different wording when you told me that I said that you claimed turning them away is in their best interest, so did I. Communication is based on some assumptions and framing things from your point of view, it hard to communicate otherwise.
Also, I am ignoring that you don’t have resources for helping them, because it is simply not a point of the article. We are talking about not letting them come in, not necessarly do they need help. Maybe they can catch a plain, maybe some do have Visas, it is not impossible. And when talking about human lives during war, we should be more willing to help.
Besides, I understand that there are a lot of already housed migrants and that is great. But also if they have been there for sometime and some migrants haven’t been there at all, would be good to help those already housed reloacate to rest of EU so there is more space for new migrants. After all, I am certain that the rest of EU will more gladly help Ukranin migrants than Russian ones, so focusing on helping them is good. If really the argument is simply not being able to help and etc. The problem is that all of these things are perfectly reasonably solved and that it is clear that intentions aren’t really economical, but political.
It is a weak argument to claim that people must stay in a region where they will be killed, until you are certain that you can allow 100% comfort in nice houses for them to live with. If they want to come to that country and sleep in a tent, rather then die in a war, why not let them in? I understand that right-wing people make racist arguments and are clear on that they don’t like migrants and hate other popluations, but when I hear this from people who consider themselves left-wing, they always make up some nonsense excuses how they are actually letting people die for their own sake.