Migrant vs Refugee: what the terms mean, and why they matter
A migrant family wait for a bus that would take them to a temporary holding center for migrants, near the border line between Serbia and Hungary in Roszke, southern Hungary.
Almost everyone agrees that the tens of thousands of people fleeing into Europe from Syria, Afghanistan, and other locations constitutes a crisis. But there's no agreement about the solution: whether they should be welcomed, or prevented from entering.
That split goes so deep that the two sides can't even agree on what the people entering Europe should be called. To those who view them sympathetically, they're refugees; to those who want them kept out, they're migrants.
So which side is right? The answer's complicated. For people in developed countries, there's a big difference between someone who choo...