We are getting a flow of immigrants because the civil war in Syria did not stop, and instead rage on and on destroying the infrastructure and economy there that is needed to sustain the civilian population there.
We are squeamish because we do not want to send young men and women to die in some godforsaken country, doing god know what for god knows how long.
Remember the last time that happened? Oh yes, the Iraqi occupation that seem to go on forever and forever, draining the blood and treasure of the United States.
The only reason the refugees exist in the first place is some one wants to get rid of Assad for their own self serving objectives, just like Saddam and Gaddafi.
All this while propping up despots in Saudi Arabia who run the most backward extremist regime in the world by far and make the former 3 look teadybearish in comparison.
These upstanding 'allies' are principally responsible for the global spread of wahhabism, extremism and terrorism in both financing and ideology over the last 30 years.
By a strange coincidence SA is also the west's best friend in the region. Ergo since the foreign policy division of the US and EU cannot be in any way or form characterised as naive they are in effect promoting terrorism on one hand and expending billions building the infrastructure for totalitarian surveillance security states on the other.
Millions of lives are being destroyed because of greed. The more things change the more they remain the same.
It's a misconception to think that the current wave of migration is just because of Syria. Or because of war in Iraq.
The people who come on boats to Europe are mostly not Syrians. They are from the vast lands stretching from Senegal to Morocco to Congo to Egypt to Syria to Iraq to Pakistan to India to Bangladesh, and they are not travelling to Europe because one particular place is very bad; they are travelling right now because they realize that it's about the last time to get a foothold Europe before the gates close, i.e. the current asylum process changes.
(I've met dozens and dozens of underage asylum seeker boys when arranging football trainings for them; they started to hang around in the neighbourhood and I realized it's better if they have something to do, so set up some games every week. Only a couple of them were from Syria. Many more were from Afghanistan and Iraq, but the list of source countries is very long. Mostly these boys are from middle-class families in countries that have some war but mostly just a very corrupt government, and the families have selected those who are able-bodied and have better language skills to seek for a future for themselves and possibly for the whole family, through the well-advertised family reunification programs.
The poor don't get to travel; the cost paid to people smugglers is somewhere in $5000-10000 range but the cost has been decreasing as the people-smuggling business commoditizes.)
Syria was the largest of source countries in 2015, with a particularly large number arriving in Germany as well as Sweden, but the migration is not at all restricted to Syrian refugees. E.g. in my country (Finland) Syrians were only 3 % of the applications.
For instance, in Britain, the largest numbers of asylum seekers came from Eritrea, Iran, Pakistan, Sudan and Syria as fifth. In Ireland, the largest groups were from Pakistan, Bangladesh, Albania, Nigeria and India. In Italy, the largest source countries were Nigeria, Pakistan, Senegal and Bangladesh. In France: Sudan, Syria, Kosovo, Dem. Rep. of Congo, Bangladesh.
To the extent the recent actions (or inaction) of the West can be blamed, you can blame it on getting rid of Saddam, or you can blame it on leaving Iraq too early, or you can blame it on policy in Syria. You can't blame it on sticking around in Iraq. Iraq was getting objectively better after the surge -- a (flawed) democracy was emerging, the economy was taking off, violent deaths were way down from their peak.
You can argue that Maliki forced the US out and let the country go to hell (in which case "deposing Saddam" is the Western sin), or argue that the US could have stayed if it wanted (in which case if you're a Democrat you can blame it on "deposing Saddam, because we couldn't stick around forever," and if you're a Republican you can blame it on Obama wanting to get out before the job was done to score political points.)
Other than that, though, you're left with earlier Western actions (Bush I, Sykes Picot...) or Assad or Maliki or every crazy Wahhabi cleric in the region of you want to give Arabs some credit and capacity for self-determination too.
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We are squeamish because we do not want to send young men and women to die in some godforsaken country, doing god know what for god knows how long.
Remember the last time that happened? Oh yes, the Iraqi occupation that seem to go on forever and forever, draining the blood and treasure of the United States.
Either we pay it now, or we pay it later.