Modeling Refugee Immigration Policies

Background:

With hundreds of thousands of refugees moving across Europe and more arriving each day, considerable attention has been given to refugee integration policies and practices in many countries and regions. History has shown us that mass fleeing of populations occur as a result of major political and social unrest and warfare. These crises bring a set of unique challenges that must be managed carefully through effective policies. Events in the Middle East have caused a massive surge of refugees emigrating from the Middle East into safe haven countries in Europe and parts of Asia, often moving through the Mediterranean and into countries such as Turkey, Hungary, Germany, France, and UK. By the end of October 2015, European countries had received over 715,000 asylum applications from refugees. Hungary topped the charts with nearly 1,450 applications per 100,000 inhabitants, but with only a small percentage of those requests granted (32% in 2014), leaving close to a thousand refugees homeless per every 100K residents of the country. Europe has established a quota system where each country has agreed to take in a particular number of refugees, with the majority of the resettlement burden lying with France and Germany.