The European refugee crisis has gotten out of control as several countries have now implemented unprecedented border controls to stem the largest movement of humanity since World War II. 

Aound train stations in Hungary, Czech Republic, and other European countries, tens of thousands of refugees from the Middle East and Africa are trying to board trains for Germany, France, and Great Britain. Hungary has virtually closed its borders while the Czech government is pulling refugees off trains and arresting them.

The Eurostar train line has been shut down due to refugees riding on the roofs of cars to sneak into England. Italy has temporarily closed its border as has Germany with its neighbor Austria.

It's estimated that at least 5 million people are on the move, hoping to make the Med crossing to land in Greece or Italy. At least 3 million of the refugees are thought to be Syrians fleeing ISIS and the civil war. And most observers in Europe believe its's only going to get worse.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon is beginning to suggest that other nations around the world must step in and take refugees. We eagerly await the day when President Obama declares that the refugee crisis is our responsibility as well and that the US will take in a couple of hundred thousand. The president has a strange way of showing American leadership; he doesn't want to lead in anything important, only issues that will bring praise from the international community.

Meanwhile, the EU is meeting in order to deal with a crisis of "biblical proportions." Not surprisingly, there is more finger pointing than proposed solutions.

Wall Street Journal:

“The European Union can only function if everybody plays by the rules,” Natasha Bertaud, a spokeswoman for the European Commission, the EU executive in charge of upholding the bloc’s laws and regulations, said Tuesday.

The difficulties involved in enforcing those rules became even clearer this week.

Hungary, claiming to be overwhelmed by the many migrants entering from the Balkans, completed a 110-mile fence along its border with Serbia in recent days to stem their flow. On Monday, it also abandoned document checks for people packed on trains to Austria and Germany. Vienna responded by increasing controls on its own borders, while in Berlin Chancellor Angela Merkel warned that the resistance of some countries to share the burden of the migrant crisis more equitably threatened Europe’s open-border policy.

“Europe must move,” Ms. Merkel said this week. “Some will certainly put Schengen on the agenda if we don’t succeed in achieving a fair distribution of refugees within Europe.”

The Schengen Agreement, named after the small town in Luxembourg where it was signed in 1985, abolished border checkpoints among the 26 European countries—including most EU countries and some nonmembers—that have since joined. It is separate from EU rules that guarantee free movement of labor within the 28-member bloc.

Schengen provides for some exceptions—allowing border checks for instance following a terrorist attack or ahead of a big sporting event. But troubles policing the area’s external borders, along with the refusal of some governments to process new arrivals within their own asylum systems, have stretched the agreement to the breaking point.

Before Ms. Merkel raised doubts about the future of Schengen, Germany partiallysuspended another rule that is key to determining the movement of refugees across the EU. Under the Dublin Regulation, first conceived in 1990 at a summit in the Irish capital, migrants have to lodge their asylum claims in the EU country where they first enter the bloc.

But Berlin announced last week that, given humanitarian concerns and the practical difficulties involved, it would no longer apply Dublin to people fleeing Syria. This means it is no longer returning those refugees to their first port of arrival.

Hungary blames the EU for not enforcing its rules, Germany blames Hungary for creating a bottleneck that worsens the crisis, Brussels is angry at Great Britain for not taking their "fair share" of refugees - meanwhile, the refugees demand shelter and asylum.

To say that 5 million - or more - Muslim refugees will change the face and character of Europe is to state the obvious. Ordinary Europeans know this which is why demonstrations and resistance is growing among the populations. But the EU is reluctant to turn anyone away, believing its open borders policy defines them as an organization. 

Unless they can find the will to confront this unprecedented situation, EU policies won't be worth the paper they're printed on.