Yves here. Sonali Kolhatkar is correct to excoriate the open racism in the preferential treatment of Ukrainian refugees, disconcertingly confirmed by too frequent approving comments by talking heads about how European they and their cities are.
And let us not forget that the reason Germany uncharacteristically was willing to accept large numbers of Syrian refugees (and then failed to make remotely adequate measures to help get them assimilated) was that Syria had very high educational standards, and the assumption was they’d make good additions to Germany’s labor force.
Of course, another reason to use bias as a quick and dirty sorting mechanism is there are way too many humanitarian crises in remote parts of the world, and it’s hard to tell who is a bona fide claimant versus what we like to call an economic refugee (putting aside the fact that in parts of Central America that have descended into gang warfare, expecting the locals to be able to earn a safe and reasonable living is a tad optimistic).
Source: Independent Media Institute
