Frustrated with the lack of job opportunities, especially for the growing number of people with college degrees, El Yassami, 25, fled the country in hopes of finding work in Europe. He studied industrial refrigeration at a vocational college but wasn’t able to find a secure well paid job in that field at home.

“It makes for political instability,” said Michelle Mittelstadt, director of communications and public affairs at the Migration Policy Institute, a nonpartisan think tank. “You have all of these young people who are sitting there who are unable to utilize their college degrees, unable to get stable work, which makes for a lot of pressure.”

But Greece has closed its doors to immigrants from Morocco. The tourist island of Lesbos has become a hot spot for refugees in North Africa and the Middle East to seek asylum, but authorities are overwhelmed. The small island, with a population of 86,000, saw 4,500 refugeesin July 2015 alone.