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Executive Summary for January 10th

We review the latest issues related to refugees, including reports of police confiscating migrants’ blankets in Paris, an IMF statement about the positive economic impact of migration on host countries and the return of 801 migrants to Turkey under the E.U.–Turkey deal.

Published on Jan. 10, 2017 Read time Approx. 2 minutes

MSF: Migrants Face ‘Systematic Police Violence’

Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) has warned that refugees and asylum seekers sleeping rough in Paris are having their blankets stolen by police.

The only reception centre in the city is filled to capacity and many migrants are stranded on the streets in harsh winter weather.

Calling it “systematic police violence,” MSF also reported that French police use tear gas to disperse migrants from public spaces, deliberately disturb them while they are asleep and prohibit them from sitting down when they queue up at the only reception center in the northern Parisian neighborhood of La Chapelle.

“In the heart of winter, public powers should be able to provide shelter for all migrants, as a matter of urgency. Instead, the forces of order confiscate their covers or force them to stay standing in a waiting line for hours, in a ridiculous bid to remove this population in distress from public view. This denial of reality through the use of violence must stop,” MSF program coordinator Corinne Torre told the Independent.

She added that as many as 150 migrants are seen at the entrance to the reception center on a daily basis. Meanwhile, many sleep outside as they wait for an available spot.

French interior minister Bruno Le Roux defended the police officers’ actions. People should stop the “national sport of questioning” police work, he said.

IMF: Immigration Has Positive Economic Impact on Host Countries

The International Monetary Fund’s first deputy managing director David Lipton has stated that immigration has a positive impact on the economies of host countries, Reuters reported.

“We have found that immigration has significantly increased GDP per capita in advanced economies because skill levels … boost labor productivity and because in some places an influx of working-age migrants helps counteract labor shortages arising from demographic developments,” Lipton said.

He stated that the positive impact is “shared across all income groups” and that the entry of migrants into the workforce does not necessarily take away the jobs of middle or lower income groups in the host countries. The economic benefit depended on successful integration of migrants, he added.

Migrants Deported to Turkey Under E.U.–Turkey Agreement

In 2016, the E.U. approved asylum applications for 2,672 Syrian refugees from Turkey while sending back 801 migrants, under the one-in-one-out agreement of the E.U.–Turkey deal, Deutsche Welle reported.

According to an E.U. Commission document released last week, more than half of the deportations occurred within the first two months after the migrant deal was implemented in March.

The document stated that 1,060 refugees have been legally resettled in Germany under the deal.

Meanwhile, critics of the agreement say that the the deal is failing to reduce overall flows into the continent, with the Libya–Malta route becoming a primary point of entry to Europe. Currently more than 175,000 asylum seekers are being housed in reception centres across Italy alone.

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