The Rising Refugee Crisis and the Limits of Christian Charity

Millions upon millions of people from the underdeveloped world will attempt to flood into our countries during the coming decades. These millions of refugees and immigrants have already destabilized the entire Western world and inspired a populist revolt against our political leaders in the form of Donald Trump, Brexit, Marine Le Pen, and the nationalist parties that have taken power across Europe. Donald Trump, possibly the most hated politician in American history, won the 2016 presidential election by promising to build a massive wall cutting America off from the global underdeveloped south. Global elites hate Trump, the media slanders him nonstop, and yet the people voted for him. Why? Because they have seen uncounted millions flood into their nation, change their neighborhoods, drain resources from their children's schools, drive down property values, increase crime rates, suppress blue collar wages, and capture the political system of California. Neither America nor Europe has ever experienced such a rapid and massive demographic alteration in their histories. The level of change is epochal in scope. 

The waves of immigration and migration America and Europe experienced in the late 1800s and the World War II era primarily involved populations moving within Western Christian civilization. Irish and German immigrants to America were highly similar to the original colonists in both appearance and heritage. Even so, America cut off almost all immigration in the 1920s to allow the newly arrived groups from Europe to assimilate. This process, however, is probably impossible to repeat. We've taken in too many immigrants this time to guarantee they'll ever assimilate. Our culture has become so morally rotted and diversified that new immigrants no longer have anything to assimilate into. The numbers of those seeking entry will continue to increase. The question is whether we will have the heart to reject them.

The populations of underdeveloped countries, the third world, are exploding. The average woman in sub-Saharan Africa is having 4.8 children, the average Iraqi woman is having 4.3, and the average Afghani woman is having 4.5. [1] The African population is projected to grow from 1.25 billion in 2019 to over four billion by 2100, and it is the only region projected to experience continued population growth after 2050. [2] How will these billions of new people be able to sustain themselves on their underdeveloped and unstable continent?

The populations of the developed countries, the first and second world, are dying. There is now no major developed country on earth with a replacement level fertility rate. The average woman living in America and Russia has 1.8 children, the average woman in the European Union and China has less than 1.6, and the average Japanese has 1.4. [1] These numbers are the highest I've seen, and they include the birth rates of the more fertile third world refugees who have settled in those countries since the crisis began. 

The future is already here, and the forces that will shape our coming world are already exerting themselves. The refugee crisis that has rocked North America and Europe over the past decade is just beginning. Africa's billions will fight to escape the raging violence and poverty that is already consuming their continent. Resources will run out, political instability will increase, and nearly everyone will want to leave. Their destination of choice will be nearby wealthy Europe, but Europe's diminishing population will be overwhelmed by the billion or more people who will wish to come.

One of three things is likely to happen. European nationalists will seal the border to save their people from invasion while a billion Africans perish. The Europeans will open their borders and be overrun, Western Civilization's three thousand year history will come to an end, and Europe will be destroyed as we have known it. Or, lastly, the Africans will find another destination, or a combination of destinations, that will be willing to accept them. 

Why does it matter? Why should we not welcome these refugees? 

Firstly, these refugees are not compatible with our cultures. Africans and Middle Eastern Muslims cannot assimilate into Western or Asian cultures. I have personally been involved with hundreds of Islamic students living in China, and the cultural conflicts were immense. Assimilation was impossible, and if it did happen it meant the extinction of a worldview. The Christian and Islamic religions have been at war for over a thousand years, and the competition between them is zero sum. There can be so synthesis without apostasy. America has been incapable of assimilating African Americans into the dominant white society for four centuries, and there is no reason to assume we could assimilate millions of new African refugees. 

Secondly, the added diversity of the new refugees would further diminish our social capital. Social capital is the measure of trust that exists inside society, and it tracks the ability of a society's members to cooperate peaceably. However, social capital diminishes when diversity is introduced. Trust is built by similarities and destroyed by conflict. Diversity creates a situation in which the members of society have less in common and thus enter into more conflict. The fault lines become more visible in fights over limited resources. The culture and educational style of a community school, for example.

Thirdly, the incoming refugees will not be able to sustain our high functioning societies. These billions of refugees lack the skills and abilities to fix both their own societies and ours. The average IQ in sub-Saharan Africa is only 68, and the average IQ in Mexico is only 85, while the average for a European American is 100. [3] Refugees fleeing Africa, and other underdeveloped countries, do not have the skills or abilities to maintain our way of life. No amount of education has been shown to raise IQ, and children are known to track closely to the IQ of their biological parents (after nutrition is accounted for). It's likely that if we welcomed millions of refugees into our communities they would be unable to contribute for generations. Having a low IQ is also a major predictor of criminal behavior, and the refugees currently dwelling in America and Europe have demonstrated higher rates of anti-social behavior. 

How do we handle this from a Christian perspective?

What should Christians do? Do we not have an ethical obligation to help current and future refugees? The question, however, is not about what we should do so much as whether we have the ability to do anything. Western Christians are accustomed to facing challenges we have the capacity to overcome. Absolute poverty, for example, has been drastically reduced in the last few decades due to Western aid. The problem, however, is that our aid has led to a population explosion that now threatens to overwhelm our own societies. We wiped out malaria and starvation, but we also inadvertently allowed for populations to grow out of control. The African population has not been growing because they developed the infrastructure and knowledge to sustain higher populations, it has grown because outside aid is keeping people alive who would not otherwise have survived. Western Christians have not solved the problems so much as created even bigger ones. The underlying causes of starvation and disease are still present, and the moment we stop sending aid is the moment millions of people begin dying. 

If we open our borders and welcome refugees we will overwhelm our own populations, schools, cultures, and welfare systems. American wages have been stagnant for decades while the cost of college and rent has soared. Deaths of despair from suicide and drugs have skyrocketed. My generation, the Millennials, are over thirty percent poorer than my parent's generation at the same age. Our politics are intense and negative. If we add massive infusions of underdeveloped refugees into this toxic mix our societies will collapse. Accepting more immigrants and refugees is not even a real option, it is simply an act of suicide, and if our societies collapse it will destroy the lives of Western people and fail to help the refugees we welcomed. We will have simply ruined everything. 

On the other hand, however, it seems unthinkable to seal our borders and allow over a billion Africans to perish in the inevitable famines, wars, and plagues. One can imagine the horror of turning on the news and seeing millions of Africans suffering from starvation and despair as a new Ebola epidemic swept across the continent unchecked. It remains to be seen whether the developed nations of the world have the moral fortitude to watch such a horror unfold and remain determined to keep their borders secure. 

What would Jesus do? Would he destroy his own society in a vain attempt to help billions of desperate people? Or, would he conclude that maintaining the semi-stable condition of his own people was preferable to destroying everything and helping no one? The problem with the refugee crisis is that there is no solution. Or, at least, the solution remains hidden. There is almost nothing we can do. We have already accepted more refugees than our societies can assimilate. We have already extended our financial aid until we are trillions of dollars in debt, and now we see the new crisis those dollars created.

Perhaps for the first time in centuries Western Christians will have to accept that we are incapable of doing anything, and that our arrogant assumption that we can fix all the world's problems is little more than a delusion. We are merely human, and our capacity to save the starving third world masses has reached its breaking point. Our power and wealth has been increasing for centuries, but our generation finds itself in the undesirable position of being the first in centuries to experience a declining quality of life. We are, just like everyone else, mortal beings who will be forced to watch the horrors of history no matter what we choose to do. 

 

NOTES

[1] Fertility numbers are taken from The World Bank's 2017 data. https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.DYN.TFRT.IN?view=chart (accessed 6/20/2019). 

[2] Population projections are based on United Nation's data. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/06/17/worlds-population-is-projected-to-nearly-stop-growing-by-the-end-of-the-century/ (accessed 6/20/2019) 

[3] These numbers come from work carried out by Richard Lynn, a British psychology professor, and Tatu Vanhanan, a Finnish professor of political science, who conducted IQ studies in more than 80 countries. https://brainstats.com/average-iq-by-country.html (accessed 6/21/2019).