The real refugee problem: as the number of migrants goes up, the willingness of host populations to receive them will inevitably go down

Borders will start slamming shut in the countries, mostly in the temperate zone of the planet, where the climate is still tolerable and there is still enough food to eat. And don’t believe the myth that you cannot really shut a border. Sorry to spoil your day.

The picture of 23-month-old Valeria Martinez, tucked into her father Oscar’s T-shirt, pictured on June 24, 2019, both dead face down on the banks of the Rio Grande, has unleashed a similar wave of sympathy in the United States, although it certainly hasn’t reached the White House, writes Gwynne Dyer. Screen capture image courtesy of El Paìs Internacional

Opinion

BY GWYNNE DYER

July 15, 2019

LONDON, U.K.—Every once in a while a photograph of a migrant’s tragic death (usually that of a child) catches the public’s imagination. The image of three-year-old Alan Kurdi, fleeing from the Syrian civil war, dead face down in the surf on a Turkish beach in 2015, triggered a wave of sympath...

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