Sez LA Times in a marvelous clickbait headline
Refugees buying one-way tickets home after finding Germany intolerable
Quote:
The reasons are myriad, but include overcrowded refugee centers, exasperating bureaucracy, unfamiliar German food, a lack of jobs and a spreading sense of resentment from Germans who fear their country is being overrun by Muslims.
Many refugees say they are now happy to trade a cold, heartless and lonely life in one of Europe's richest countries for the violence, insecurity and poverty back home. And they say they have realized, rather belatedly, that smugglers had sold them a pack of lies about big houses, well-paying jobs and the life of luxury they would find in Germany.
"I wanted to live in peace with my family as far away from war as possible," said Abdulla, a 37-year-old who had worked as a truck driver in Iraq. "But what I've seen in Europe is not what I dreamed about. It's not what [the smugglers] told me it would be.
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Now, maybe I'm uninformed at this point, but all this emphasis on smugglers making huge promises to these folks is what confuses me. Why do these smugglers find it important to SELL refugees on the idea of leaving a war zone? Traditionally refugees get out of town because they're going to get killed, not because there's a big house promised to them at the end of the rainbow. And traditional refugees wouldn't go back if you paid THEM. These refugees are paying to go BACK. As the headline says, one-way tickets...!
So what the fuck, people? I was half tempted to put quotes around "refugees". What are they, really?