fact checking

Mostly False: The Belgian labor market does not need immigrant workers

Belgian Member of Parliament Hans Verreyt [of the nationalistic Vlaams Belang party] was quoted saying, “The inactivity rate among non-EU foreigners is 44.2 percent and among women it is even 59.3 percent,” in his party’s official article. These figures are correct. However, Verreyt carries on: “Anyone who continues to argue that migration is necessary to…

Mostly true: Germany has not let only urgently needed specialists into the country

The German right-wing party Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) ranks among the harshest critics of the countries refugee policy. In November 2021, the representative spokesman of the party, Stephan Brandner, released a statement in which he claims that not only urgently needed specialists have been let into the country. We rate this claim as mostly true.…

Mostly true: “After about five years, approximately half of refugees are employed”

In an interview with the German newspaper Handelsblatt, that was published on 7 October 2020 on the website of the Düsseldorfer media outlet, Daniel Terzenbach, board member of the Federal Employment Agency (Bundesagentur für Arbeit), claimed, that after about five years, approximately half of refugees are employed. The claim turns out to be mostly true.…

Mostly true: “Asylum seekers and refugees are clearly over-represented in both sexual assaults and aggression offences”

Does crime increase with migration? German right-wing politicans like Alice Weidel of the right-wing populist party AfD says ‘yes’. The criminal statistics seem to support this claim but the number of suspected criminals is small in all population groups. This quote is an excerpt of a Facebook post Alice Weidel published on 25 March 2019.…

fact-check uncheckable

Uncheckable: “Finland has the loosest family reunification policy of all the Nordic countries”

On 21 January, Finnish parliament member Olli Immonen stated in his blog that “Finland currently has the loosest asylum policy in the Nordic countries when it comes to, for example, family reunification.” Our research shows that norms and practices related to asylum policies are so complex that it is not possible to make a reliable…

Blog: The cost of immigration, a factchecking challenge

From December 11 to 20, our group focused on the issue of immigration. Among the topics we identified, the subject of “the cost of immigration” appeared fairly clearly. Particularly due to the significant number of comments found on social networks, especially Twitter. 1) Our Selection We identified a video released by Damien Rieu on December…

fact checking

Mostly false: “France doesn’t have the means to accomodate more migrants”, according to “Yellow Jacket” Damien Rieu

The signing of the Global Compact for Migration was greeted with many comments. Damien Rieu, an activist with the Génération Identitaire movement, “estimates” that France already spends 4.5 billion euros on immigration. He’s basing his figures on Nadine Morano statement.