More than a million migrants and refugees crossed into Europe in 2015, compared with just 280,000 the year before. The scale of the crisis continues, with more than 135,000 people arriving in the first two months of 2016. Poverty, human rights abuses and deteriorating security are also prompting people to set out from countries such as Eritrea, Pakistan, Morocco, Iran and Somalia in the hope of a new life in somewhere like Germany, Sweden or the UK. For years the EU has been struggling to harmonise asylum policy. That is difficult with 28 member states, each with their own police force and judiciary. Championing the rights of poor migrants is difficult as the economic climate is still gloomy, many Europeans are unemployed and wary of foreign workers, and EU countries are divided over how to share the …show more content…
However, UNHCR considers that persons fleeing such conditions, and whose state is unwilling or unable to protect them, should be considered refugees. It is UNHCR’s view that the origin of the persecution should not be decisive in determining refugee status, but rather whether a person deserves international protection because it is not available in the country of origin. Refugees have been the targets of violent attacks and intimidation, largely because they were perceived as “different” from the communities in which they had temporarily settled. Tensions between refugees and local populations have erupted when refugees were seen as competitors for natural and economic resources. Because of the action, clearly refugees need to be seen as a human being who have rights. Most of the rights crucial to refugee protection are also the fundamental rights as stated in the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human