I'm hesitant to call it a downside because I don't think helping fellow human beings is necessarily an act that has a downside but there would obviously be strain on resources etc. but I don't think that means we shouldn't try and accommodate some, not all, of these people.
What riles me up is...
From the very article you've posted:
No, not everyone in the Calais Jungle is fleeing a warzone. Those politicians and journalists whose livelihoods depend on victimising the vulnerable like to point out how many of them are, for example, black Africans, as if Sub-Saharan Africa, by mere virtue...
I'm just trying to get the bloke to realise that a massive civil war in Syria, combined with the rise of ISIS, has displaced millions of people, literally fleeing for their f**king lives. These people didn't just congeal in a gutter in Greece or Italy or Austria or Switzerland and think "oh...