I’m a great believer in the Law of Unintended Consequences.  Things just happen that the planners don’t plan on.  Sometimes those consequences are more dire than the problem deemed necessary to correct.  Examples from history  would include the World War that proceeded from the response to the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in 1914, or the rise of Organized Crime in the USA after the passage of the XVIII Amendment and the enforcing law, The Volstead Act.

Right now, refugees are flooding Western Europe and, to a lesser degree, North America, from the brutal wars in the Middle East, principally Syria.   This has not been the only refugee crisis in recent history.  After World War II, there were millions of refugees, Displaced Persons,  in dire need of a new home and a new start.  Present among the refugees, were the very persons who caused this humanitarian crisis,  Nazi war criminals. They used the crisis they precipitated to escape justice, blending in with the refugees.

Fast forward to 11 May, 1960, when an automobile worker, walking home from his bus stop, is kidnapped in a Buenos Aires suburb. His identity card said he was Ricardo Klement, a German immigrant to Argentina.  He was, in fact, Adolph Eichmann, an architect of The Final Solution, the Nazi plan to exterminate European Jewry.  Eichmann and other Nazi war criminals used the refugee crisis to escape justice.  His kidnappers were members of the Israeli security service, Mossad. They smuggled Eichmann out of Argentina on an El Al airliner to Israel where he was tried and executed for his war crimes.

Coincidentally, at the time of the Eichmann kidnapping, a young man was at  seminary in Buenos Aires, studying for the Roman Catholic priesthood. His name was Jorge Maria Bergoglio.  He was the son of an Italian immigrant, an anti-Fascist who fled from Mussolini, to the relative safety and freedom of Argentina.  Today that young seminarian is Pope Francis.

The Holy Father is very familiar with the refugee problem.His personal experience informs him of who benefits from refuge granted.  His upbringing in Argentina also tells him of those who exploited the plight of the refugee to avoid justice.  Today a refugee, sadly, may not be an innocent fleeing a blood bath, but rather a criminal intent on perpetrating more violence. Good judgment on the part of Western governments is critical to protect their countries from those who wish it ill.