Immigration security

E.U. votes to distribute 120,000 asylum seekers across Europe

With Europe’s refugee crisis escalating, European leaders on Tuesday approved a plan to spread asylum seekers across the continent over the objection of Central European nations.

The plan to distribute 120,000 migrants across Europe is a first step toward easing the plight of the men, women and children who have been shunted from one European nation to another in recent weeks, a grim procession of human need in one of the world’s richest regions.

But the decision to override the dissenters means the European Union will be sending thousands of people to nations that do not want them, raising questions about both the future of the ­28-nation bloc and the well-being of the asylum seekers consigned to those countries.