The UK numbers are a good example of why the system doesn't work; roughly 5,000 recognition + resettlement cases last year. The recognized refugees are probably mostly picked from the 7-8 million indisputable Syrian war refugees in Turkey, Lebanon and Greece. It's not even a drop on a boiling hot plate. In theory all these people should have the right guaranteed under international law to get on a plane and fly to a safe place. We hide behind the fiction that these people are possibly not refugees until we have vetted them. Until we have done the thorough vetting process we will punish the airline that gives them their rights. Multiply the British figure by ten and we're talking a couple of centuries on the waitinglist for the vast majority. And then we wonder why people would risk their lives on a rubber boat.
If you don't believe people can be refugees so long, just look at the situation of the children and grandchildren of the people who thought their Arab brothers would 'drive the Jewish entity into the sea'.