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[Darvi]

There are no cats in America, and the streets are paved with Cheese.

That sounds like an awful place, who would ever want to live there?

[aenri]

Point is, illegal immigrants don't know shit about country they are getting to. They pay gorrilion dollars to traffickers in hope that they will have better life. If they don't die on the way there they are at least swindled out of all their savings and left alone in foreign country. Most of the time they would be better off staying in their home country.

[shadenight123]

Furthermore, they manage to find the money to pay people to traverse them through.
Let's put it this way: if you're living in a hell on earth country, and yet you still manage to scavenge one thousand euros to traverse you, and your family for one thousand euros more each...
Why don't you keep your thousand euros and use them in your country as either savings or ways to improve the situation?
Let's say I was so desperate going to America, I'd put aside savings to reach enough money to buy a ticket. Now, why should I actually go to America, if by working hard enough I actually manage to have savings in the first place?

[scriver]

Because the land you owned, which you can no longer produce enough food to live on from, still has a value on it's own as just a piece of geography and a one-time sale, from which you can get enough money to go someplace better.

And let's not forgive people who get the money by selling themselves into debt to organized crime.

[10ebbor10]

The original statement still holds true. They're going from a situation where they have little to a situation where they have nothing, or are in massive debt. (And eventually send back, once the procedures are through with.) Even if they get to stay, their situation doesn't improve much.

[Dutchling]

The potential situation their children does vastly improve though. It all depends on what happens once they cross the sea of course.

[10ebbor10]

Most of the time it doesn't.  The majority of immigrants are economical refugees, which are not recognized, and often send back at the first opportunity.

And even if they do manage to get recognized, they'll arrive in areas of Italy where unemployment is already high, and the only work they can find is seasonal at best.

[shadenight123]

Not only seasonal, but excruciating and inhuman.
Furthermore, the more they insist on receiving more than what Italy can already give them, the more they protest, the more they revolt, the worse their situation becomes as more and more people start thinking 'What the hell. We're already taking you in, why do you have to rampage around town now!?'
And let's not forget that from the South they move up to the North. Usually Italy is just a stepping stone, from there they either head to France or elsewhere in Europe.
They could go to Greece...but hey, the Greeks hit them and refuse them. Malta opens fire if they come nearby and Spain isn't any better.
Except Italy, who has the stigma of a Fascist past, the rest of the European nations adopt the good old 'Oh! It's not our problem...what, this? No! I wasn't going to shoot the immigrant's boat down! Really...look that way for a while please'.

[10ebbor10]

Spain and Greece also have a facist past, which is just as ugly as the Italian one. It's not often remembered though.

[Loud Whispers]

The immigrants are really better off staying where they are. Literally.

Must I state the obvious? These immigrants are willing to brave the ocean in makeshift rafts and toy rubber boats, and keep doing it after decades with countless of them drowning or dying of exposure in the way. That should give you a hint on how awful it is where they come from.

Those who go the open ocean go by hitching a ride on commercial liners where possible; most will try the short channels into other countries. It literally doesn't matter is on the other side, it'll always be greener for someone anywhere but there and the only difference is the resources the individual has to get to elsewhere. The greatest risk is not drowning or exposure, but instead being sold into slavery by criminals after arriving in a country which has no need and no place for them.

[Sheb]

And well, 20 euros a day for back-breaking labor may not seem cool, but that's like 20 time the GDP per capita in countries like the DRC.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

That doesn't really matter, given that the nation they are now in has higher costs to match the higher pay.

[shadenight123]

Which is why they send the money back home, but the problem is...how? I think there are some guys in the postal offices who see these package arrive filled with money and simply start emptying them.

[Descan]

Y'all are making the classic libertarian mistake, you know. The reason that any free-market will fail without regulation, is also the reason you seem to be scratching your head about "Why are they risking everything to come here, when they'll just be sent back?"

You're assuming that all the migrants are perfectly rational actors who have all the information they need at their fingertips. When, no, not really? Try living hand-to-mouth in a destabilized country with your children starving, and you starving yourself, and try and be rational in that situation. And while the internet is great for information, not everyone has it, and the likelihood of a potential migrant having it or many other sources of information is... low.

Not to mention it seems innate in humans that when the going gets tough in a region, you just... move to a new region. It's only been for the past 5 700 years that we've settled -at all-, and even then it's only been a few areas that have been settled, so there were still whole continents you could roam across. It's only been recently that, no, you -can't- move to a new area if the one you're in is getting bad. At least, not easily!

[Helgoland]

You're assuming that all the migrants are perfectly rational actors who have all the information they need at their fingertips.

That, but also disregarding the utility function - when choosing between living on a dollar a day for all eternity and having a tiny chance at success together witha significant chance of death or worse things, it can be reasonable to pick the second option.