Why refugees are a gift, not a burden, to society: Alexander Betts
Alexander Betts, who is now Director of the Refugee Studies Centre at Oxford University, began working with refugees a couple of decades ago.
His experience and evidence points to an important point about the influx of refugees across borders, an issue dear to Liberal Democrats. The evidence is that refugees do not have to be a cost to the societies which let them in. Rather, welcoming refugees and giving them economic opportunities helps the countries that let them in.
Here is his compelling talk:
Thanks for sharing ; my son is involved in the continuation of this group’s groundbreaking research and analysis – this time working with with the hundreds of thousands of refugees in Ethiopia.
About 10 years ago, I travelled from Paris to Switzerland by overnight train to attend a meeting of a European professional organisation. I suddenly realised that I had entered Switzerland without showing my passport.
I mentioned this to a Swiss colleague and asked why Swiss frontiers were so open while the British are absolutely paranoid about foreign immigrants.
He replied that Switzerland has a low birth rate and needs all the immigrants it can get to feed the staffing needs of hospitals, care institutions, R &D and manufacturing for engineering and pharmaceutical companies. He felt that restricting immigration is a form of national suicide.