A woman waves a life jacket to direct a migrant boat ashore as it makes the crossing from Turkey to the Greek island of Lesbos on November 12, 2015 in Sikaminias, Greece.
Civil war and unrest has seen hundreds of thousands of displaced Syrians, Iraqis and others seek shelter in Europe, and the politicians have been slow to react.
While incumbent politicians have dithered over what needs to be done - and how to do it - anti-immigrant sentiment has grown.
Even the unflappable German Chancellor Angela Merkel has been blindsided.
Merkel said last week she wanted to "drastically decrease" the number of refugees entering Germany, signaling a compromise to critics of her open-door policy from within her own conservative party on the eve of a party congress.
Credit Suisse, the Swiss investment bank has two charts in a report on demographic shifts, which sum up this process.
First, here's the chart on the increase in sea-borne migrant numbers, and corresponding deaths of people trying to get to Europe:
Credit Suisse
And here's how people have reacted in Europe - they've become the most anti-immigrant citizens in the world, with over half wanting to see migration curbed:
Credit Suisse