The majority of leaders in Europe and the United States, also on the left, are moving to confront or pretend to confront migration, an issue with many complexities and few easy answers. Often, these are costly, ineffective and risky measures.
Feijoo avoids supporting refugee deportation centers like those in Meloni that the European PP supports
The result of opinion polls on migration that are partly influencing European policy on deployment this Thursday In Brussels it often depends on the way you ask.
In Spain, the CIS survey in August showed an increase in concern about migration It was based on a questionnaire full of questions who pointed to the issue as a problem. As Paco Camas explained welldirector of public opinion research at the polling firm Ipsos, “the design of the questionnaire determines the response.” In any case, beyond the CIS, the panorama portrayed by the polls often seems contradictory.
A Eurobarometer survey before the European elections showed that public opinion was more concerned about povertythe lack of jobs, defense against Russia or climate change than due to migration. But in July, in another Eurobarometer Irregular migration appeared as the second most cited issue in line with another poll in spring for the Euronews network in which the fight against irregular immigration appeared as a priority for the majority of the population in almost all countries, including Spain. At the same time, in surveys where details are asked, the impression is different: for example, the vast majority of Spaniards believe that migrant minors who arrive alone in Spain should be welcomed and integrated, according to another September survey for elDiario.es.
Now the majority of leaders in Europe and the United States, also on the left, are moving to confront or pretend to confront an issue with many complexities and few easy answers. Often, these are costly, ineffective and risky measures, such as sending asylum seekers to another country. In the case of Italy, it’s to albania; the failure of UK Conservative Party era to Rwandaand Netherlands has suggested Uganda.
On the more moderate spectrum on the left, we also see politicians who want to limit the arrival of foreign workers to give priority to local ones, something that Labor’s Keir Starmer is now defending in the United Kingdom and that unions and unions have also supported for years. other sectors of the left of his party.
It is not true to reality to characterize migration or the challenges it poses for specific places as a mirage or an invention of the right. But at the same time, it is clear how populist politicians use the people who arrive, especially the most desperate, with fewer resources and a different skin color or religion than the local population. In a world changed by technology, the climate crisis, global mobility and security threats from increasingly aggressive autocratic regimes, it is easy to blame those who do not vote and can easily be identified as rivals.
Donald Trump is the most extreme case and it is difficult to find another contemporary politician who accuses immigrants of being “murderers” and having it “in the genes” and insist on the lies that “they eat pets” and “they attack towns” despite the denials even from his Republican colleagues.
Kamala Harris would never characterize people not born in the United States (or non-white, that’s what Trump’s rhetoric is about) that way, but she also defends a stricter policy at the border, including making it a crime to cross irregularly.
Trump has been very effective in leading his party and the Democratic Party towards the toughest positions against regular and irregular migration in a context where it is true that arrivals of people have increased who try to cross the southern border at all costs (although not so much as Trump says).
In the United States, it has skyrocketed the percentage of people who say there are “too many” migrants in the country, according to Gallup. But once again, if we go into detail, the population aspires to integrate those who arrive to the country: for example, in that same survey, 80% of the population in the United States continues to think that minors who arrived irregularly should be able to become US citizens if they meet some requirements, and more than 70% say the same about any migrant regardless of their age.
Denying the difficulties posed by the unexpected arrival of migrants in specific cases only serves to feed the most extremist, who often represent the opinions of a minority. But turning the rejection of migration into a flag and political promise is the most dangerous path that a country can take: it usually begins with calls to stop irregular migration, progress towards limiting legal migration and end in the rejection of any non-legal person. born in the country or with ancestors from others. A world from another time.
#easy #answers
