Generosity has its downside

At first, the pictures from the borders of the Mediterranean Sea are nothing but heartbreaking.

Streams of exhausted and hungry people, throwing themselves upon the healthy, happy core of Europe as penitents begging a pope for salvation. Seemingly no end to the suffering, as a possible 4 million more wait from Syria alone. Tragedy unlimited!

With the relatively little that we understand now, we know that these gigantic waves of humanity are coming not by boat from Libya, as in earlier wavelets, but almost entirely from Turkey in boats crossing the few miles to the Greek isles. We know that German Chancellor Angela Merkel has more or less waived the letter of the U.N. Convention on refugees, not only to allow into Germany nearly anyone who can walk in, but that she has also given them extraordinary benefits: apartments, food, even language classes.

But we don't really know WHO these people are. The U.N. Convention says that refugees must prove a "well-founded fear of persecution." It also says they are entitled to U.N. protection in the country "closest to their homeland." In effect, if you're from Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Mali, Nigeria or Senegal -- which really ARE the homelands of many of today's refugees -- Deutschland is not exactly next door.

But last month word got out that Germany, and also Sweden, were going to lower the bar for refugees, and boy, are people gaming the system!

From a Syrian migrant, quoted in The Washington Post: "France is no good; you cannot get language classes there." From an Iraqi quoted in The Wall Street Journal: "This is a golden opportunity. It's totally nonsense to stay in Iraq when there is a chance to go." From a Syrian reported in The Financial Times: "Merkel is the mother of the Syrian people. There is a good economy in Germany where you can work."

In Baghdad, meanwhile, travel agents reported to the Journal that airlines had added three more daily flights to Istanbul, on top of five packed flights a day already on their way to Europe.

It has been touching to see how many Germans, in particular, have personally and institutionally greeted the migrants. Individual men and women have taken some into their homes, and personally carried food, water and baby clothes to those jamming the parks. (And the overall good organization in Germany was no accident; it is the result of the so-called Koenigsteiner key, a quota system originally designed to share research projects among the nation's states, now being used to divvy up the migrants.)

But that kindness is today. What about tomorrow?

Americans working on or covering the U.S. border with Mexico long ago voiced a bit of wry and sardonic wisdom about immigrants. "You think you're getting 'immigrants,' but you are getting human beings."

That is why some become nuclear scientists or brain surgeons; some become mothers and schoolteachers; and some become murderers, gang leaders and cartel dopers.

The Somali boys who were sent to a prosperous upper-middle-class life in St. Paul did not warn us that they were going to go back to Somalia at first chance and join the anti-American terrorists. The Tsarnaev brothers, from Chechnya in southern Russia, did not announce to all of Boston that they weren't happy and thus blew up the Boston Marathon.

So, taking in immigrants -- today, in particular, with the violence covering the globe -- is a roll of the dice, although you can tell a lot about the migrant from whence he comes: Anyone from Chechnya is bound to be troubled; ditto, from today's Syria; ditto from Libya. This is not prejudice; this is realism.

Already, Germany's governing coalition is beginning to tighten benefits for migrants. Chancellor Merkel has replaced cash benefits for asylum seekers with benefits in kind, as the country and Europe as a whole becomes more aware that they are largely dealing with simply ambitious men and women, and not with war-torn refugees.

Ben Barber, a foreign correspondent for major papers for many years, wrote this week in The Huffington Post on "Magnetic Migration." He asserts that "the migration insanity playing itself out in Europe now is leading to tragedy and disaster. Western authorities unknowingly created a magnet -- an irresistible lure to hundreds of millions of families -- by suggesting that if only they put themselves at risk in rickety boats, European warships would save them from drowning. ... The longer the magnet is allowed to exist, the more lives will be risked, lost and traumatized on all sides of this issue."

And, I would add, more of Europe as we know it will be irreparably changed.

Previously:
• 07/15/15: Thank you, Donald Trump
• 07/01/15: Immigrant crisis tests Europe's Union
• 05/27/15: Why Iraq will continue to fall --- no matter what the West does
• 05/06/15: For Europe, generosity to turn into nightmare?
• 04/29/15: Both sides must work to end our season of killing
• 04/01/15: Our next president should be a homebody
• 03/04/15: Japan's sun poised to rise on world stage
• 01/21/15: Rumors of a new Cold War have real roots in history
• 01/21/15: It's time to be practical about multiculturalism
• 01/07/15: Tension mounts against Muslim immigration in the West

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Georgie Anne Geyer has been a foreign correspondent and commentator on international affairs for more than 40 years.