Firstly - the difference between a migrant and a refugee. A migrant voluntarily leaves his home nation to move elsewhere, maybe for better employment opportunities, to be with family and so on. The migrant's target nation has no legal or moral responsibility to accept such people, they are dealt with according to the laws of that country.

A refugee however is someone who is displaced from their home country because of persecution, or is at risk because of conflict. (Note that this latter definition ("conflict") is not included in the 1951 UN Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees.) The refugee seeks "refuge", and in theory this is only temporary until it is safe for the refugee to return to his home country.

However, "temporary" in practice becomes "semi-permanent", even lasting across generations.

There are also "Displaced People" and "Stateless People", not addressed in this answer https://www.icrc.org/en/document/protected-persons/refugees-displaced-persons

The UNHCR estimates that there are 22.5 million refugees as at January 2018. http://www.unhcr.org/en-us/figures-at-a-glance.html

How is the world to deal with refugees. Currently most refugees are hosted in refugee camps by relatively poor countries - Kenya, Tanzania for example.

Suppose Italy (population 60 million) decided it had a moral obligation for the 22.5 million refugees, and took them in. Common sense says that such a sitiuation is untenable. But is 10 million OK? 1 million? 100,000? Remember that Italy also has a moral obligation to its own citizens. And the same can be asked for any hosting country. So where is the line to be drawn that is acceptable both economically and socially to the host country?

So rather than ask if there is a moral obligation to TAKE refugees, can we change "TAKE" to "HELP"?

"Help" is currently administered in refugee camps by, for example The Red Cross, with donations from nations around the world. But conditions are dire.

Would it not be possible to create a "start-up nation" of refugees. Disregarding the impact on indigenous populations, history has seen many nations start from scratch - Australia, Argentina, USA, Israel etc. etc.

Could "Hopeland" be created? There is plenty of space in the world. Hopeland would initially be subsidised by the international community with the intention of it becoming a self-sufficient nation state. The notion of "temporary refugees" would disappear. Maybe "Hopeland" could become a new USA!

The arguments surrounding countries taking in refugees are often hotly debated either for or against. The natives of many countries see only negatives arising from the situation and these usually incorporate financial impacts and the increased possibility of crime or terrorism.

Unlike migrants, refugees are people who have been forced to flee their native homeland. Most do not want to stay permanently in another country and they wait for the day when they can return to their homes. Some countries are, supposedly, legally obligated to accept refugees because they signed the 1951 Refugee Convention and the 1967 protocol which amended the convention to include refugees not only from Europe but also around the world. The moral debate does though even touch these countries, particularly when they rescind the signed agreements as Hungary did when erecting a fence at the Serbian border to prevent refugee access.

The moral obligations however are where the national community steps in to help those from nations who are under threat. In itself this could be considered a moral obligation although founded in humanitarian legal concepts. The numbers of refugees are also often cited as a mitigating factor as to why refugees should not be accepted by host countries. However Turkey, a country similar in size to France, accepted around 2 million refugees in light of the problems experienced in Syria and Iraq.

It should perhaps be remembered that, for the majority of refugees, their search is only for a temporary sanctuary and when problems are resolved the influence is unlikely to negatively affect host populations in the long term.