Atlantic Sentinel

Tag: Migration

  • Rutte Calls Early Election After Failed Push to Reform Asylum

    Sigrid Kaag Mark Rutte
    Finance Minister Sigrid Kaag and Prime Minister Mark Rutte of the Netherlands listen to a debate in parliament in The Hague, September 21, 2022 (ANP/Sem van der Wal)

    Dutch prime minister Mark Rutte announced the dissolution of his fourth cabinet on Friday after two days of negotiations that ran deep into the night on Thursday failed to unite the ruling parties behind a plan to reform asylum law.

    Rutte’s center-right VVD (of which I am a member) and the Christian Democratic Appeal (CDA) had demanded reforms to reduce immigration, which reached a record 400,000 last year. The Christian Union and left-liberal D66 would not support stricter rules for family reunification.

    Rutte tendered his resignation to King Willem-Alexander, who returned from holiday in Greece, on Saturday. He stays on as caretaker prime minister until a new government can be formed. Elections are expected to be held in November.

    Rutte’s VVD is neck and neck in the polls with the right-wing Farmer-Citizen Movement. It won the provincial elections in March. (more…)

  • The Repeal of Title 42 in Context

    Joe Biden
    American president Joe Biden makes a speech in the East Room of the White House in Washington DC, February 15, 2022 (White House/Cameron Smith)

    American president Joe Biden has stopped sending migrants back to Mexico under Title 42. His Republican predecessor, Donald Trump, invoked this public-health statute during COVID-19 to close the southern border for immigration.

    The repeal has triggered an increase in border crossings, prompting Biden to send troops.

    But it isn’t the only reason immigration has increased since Biden took over from Trump in 2021. The Democrat relaxed more policies, and toughened others. (more…)

  • Italy Narrows Right to Asylum After Boat Arrivals Quadruple

    Mediterranean Sea migrant boat
    Migrants are rescued by Red Cross in the Mediterranean Sea, August 18, 2016 (Italian Red Cross/Yara Nardi)

    The Italian Senate has voted to raise penalties for human traffickers and narrow the eligibility criteria for asylum.

    The reforms are part of Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s policy to bring down immigration. They have yet to be approved by the lower house, but her government has a majority there as well.

    Meloni’s next step will be convincing other European leaders of migration reform. There is not much more Italy can do on its own to stop arrivals by sea, which quadrupled in the first three months of this year. (more…)

  • Meloni’s Asylum Plan Gains Support

    Mark Rutte Giorgia Meloni
    Prime Minister Mark Rutte of the Netherlands is received by Giorgia Meloni of Italy in Rome, March 8 (Palazzo Chigi)

    Giorgia Meloni may get her wish.

    When the Italian conservative party leader, since elected prime minister, proposed to fund asylum centers in North Africa, she was called a xenophobe by the left in her own country and abroad.

    Now it is part of a tentative EU agreement to manage asylum applications, which are approximating the records of 2015 and 2016.

    European migration ministers have agreed that transit countries like Tunisia could be paid to shelter asylum seekers. The same countries would need to take back illegal migrants who crossed the Mediterranean Sea by boat.

    Such boats regularly capsize, killing an estimated 1,200 migrants last year.

    Ministers also discussed trade sanctions for countries that do little to stop irregular migration. (more…)

  • Joe Biden’s Border Policy, Explained

    Joe Biden
    American president Joe Biden visits Customs and Border Protection in El Paso, Texas, January 8 (White House/Adam Schultz)

    Immigrants who enter the United States illegally may soon be disqualified from applying for asylum.

    President Joe Biden proposed the change after a record illegal border crossings were counted in the fiscal year that ended in September: 2.4 million, up from 1.7 million a year earlier.

    By refusing asylum to some immigrants altogether, Biden would go further than his Republican predecessor. Donald Trump returned applicants to Mexico, where they had to wait for months or even years while their asylum request was reviewed.

    Biden would also speed up deportations of illegal aliens who have not applied for asylum.

    Unlike Trump, the Democrat is at the same time making it easier for specific groups of refugees to come to America. (more…)

  • Why the Netherlands Is Calling for EU Asylum Reform

    Roberta Metsola Mark Rutte
    Roberta Metsola, the president of the European Parliament, speaks with Prime Minister Mark Rutte of the Netherlands in Prague, Czech Republic, October 7, 2022 (European Council)

    Dutch prime minister Mark Rutte is arguing for stricter European asylum rules and finding a listening ear in Brussels.

    “What you see is that everyone fell asleep a little during corona,” he said after meeting with European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen, whose proposals match his own. “At the time, the asylum figures were very low.”

    An increase in applications after COVID overwhelmed the Dutch immigration system. Several hundred asylum seekers had to camp and sleep outside the application center in Ter Apel, where there weren’t enough beds free. (more…)

  • Europe’s Asylum Crisis, Explained

    Asylum center Ter Apel Netherlands
    Application center for asylum seekers in Ter Apel, the Netherlands (IND)

    Europe is the throes of another asylum crisis. The 27 countries of the EU plus Norway and Switzerland, which have open borders with the bloc, received some 98,000 asylum applications in September, the most in six years. Figures for the first nine months of 2022 suggest that most, and possibly all, member states will match the records of 2015, when 1.3 million people applied for asylum in the EU.

    Some 548,000 asylum seekers are waiting for a decision on whether they can stay.

    The figures include few Ukrainians, who can remain in the EU for up to three years without applying for asylum.

    I’ll take a deep dive into the numbers before looking at how three member states are coping with the high influx: France, Italy and Netherlands. (more…)

  • Meloni’s Plan for Asylum Seekers Makes Sense

    Giorgia Meloni
    Brothers of Italy party leader Giorgia Meloni makes a speech in Cagliari, September 2 (Fratelli d’Italia)

    Giorgia Meloni’s call for a “naval blockade” of illegal immigration across the Mediterranean Sea has got plenty of attention, but the likely future prime minister of Italy has another, more humane idea: create European asylum application centers in North Africa, so migrants — many don’t qualify for asylum — don’t attempt a futile and perilous sea journey.

    Italy receives an unusually high (for Europe) share of asylum seekers from safe African countries: Ivory Coast, Mali, Morocco, Nigeria, Senegal, Tunisia. Unless they fear persecution in their home country for their political beliefs, religion or sexuality, those asylum seekers are usually sent back.

    That doesn’t mean they leave. Immigration authorities don’t have the manpower to escort every rejected asylum seeker back home. Some countries refuse to take their people back. A share — we don’t know how many — remain in Italy illegally. Others try for asylum in another European country.

    Since illegal aliens cannot legally work, many end up either exploited or as criminals, and often homeless. (more…)

  • Why Dutch Asylum Centers Are Full

    Ter Apel Netherlands asylum seekers
    Asylum seekers board a bus in Ter Apel, the Netherlands (ANP)

    Dutch immigration authorities are desperate. Asylum applications have nearly doubled in the last year, to 4,200 in March and 3,200 in April. There are currently 40,000 asylum seekers in shelters, which is up from 26,000 a year ago.

    There are plenty of stories about the consequences: asylum seekers sleeping on floors and in tents, local governments furnishing emergency shelters. (Here is a good one from de Volkskrant.)

    There has been less analysis of the causes. I looked into the numbers, and spoke with experts, for Wynia’s Week. You can find the full story in Dutch here. What follows is a summary in English. (more…)

  • How Germany Turned Its Refugee Crisis into Success

    Cologne Germany
    Skyline of Cologne, Germany (Unsplash/Eric Weber)

    Migration is back on the European agenda after a fire in the Mória refugee camp on the Greek island of Lesbos left some 13,000 without shelter.

    EU home affairs commissioner Ylva Johansson has called for “mandatory solidarity” from member states, but not all countries are willing to accept asylum seekers. The Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia resist proposals to distribute migrants proportionately across the EU.

    With xenophobia hampering an effective migration policy, it’s worth taking a look at the country that has admitted the most refugees: Germany. Its “we will manage” attitude could be an example to its neighbors. (more…)

  • Democrats Are Not Talking to Swing Voters

    Bernie Sanders
    Vermont senator Bernie Sanders gives a speech in Manchester, New Hampshire, October 30, 2015 (Michael Vadon)

    Imagine you’re an American swing voter and you listened Tuesday and Wednesday night to the twenty Democrats vying for their party’s presidential nomination. What did you hear?

    • Three of the four highest-polling candidates want to abolish private health insurance and replace it with a single government program.
    • Virtually all candidates would decriminalize illegal entry into the United States and all of them praised immigration.
    • Many would give free health care to undocumented immigrants.
    • Some, like Bernie Sanders, would even give them a free college education.

    This is not a winning program. (more…)

  • Common Sense Unlikely to Prevail in American Immigration Debate

    United States flag
    Flag of the United States in Washington DC (Unsplash/Chris Hardy)

    The two parties in the United States compromised last week to pass a $4.6 billion bill to relieve the crisis at the southern border.

    The left wing of the Democratic Party had resisted the deal, fearing that some of the money might be used to fund President Donald Trump’s family-separation policy. But House speaker Nancy Pelosi argued that the children — some of whom have gone without medication and even basic sanitation while separated from their parents — must “come first”.

    At the end of the day, we have to make sure that the resources needed to protect the children are available.

    It’s a fair compromise. Don’t expect more of it. (more…)

  • Loss of Control: What Moderates Get Wrong About Migration

    Hungary migrants
    Red Cross workers provide first aid to migrants in Hungary, September 4, 2015 (IFRC/Stephen Ryan)

    Immigration into Europe and the United States is down, yet the far right continues to monopolize the debate.

    The EU faced a one-time surge in asylum applications from Afghans, Iraqis and Syrians in 2015-16 as well as four years of high numbers of mostly African migrants (PDF) trying to reach Italy by boat. The numbers are down, yet the far-right League is the most popular party in Italy.

    In the United States, asylum applications from Central American countries plagued by violence are up, but Mexican immigration is down. Donald Trump nevertheless won the 2016 election on a virulently anti-immigrant platform.

    Fake news and media echo chambers are part of the problem. It is difficult to expose voters to the facts when they can find “alternative facts” just a click away. But this does not fully explain the appeal of the populist message. The bigger problem is that moderates do not have a coherent migration policy to fix systems that are obviously broken. As a result, they do not have a strong story to tell. (more…)

  • Spanish Right Takes Harder Line on Catalonia, Immigration

    Pablo Casado
    Pablo Casado greets members of the executive committee of Spain’s People’s Party in Barcelona, July 26 (PP)

    The new Spanish conservative party leader, Pablo Casado, is making good on his promise to move the People’s Party to the right.

    • In talks with Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, who leads a minority left-wing government, Casado refused to support dialogue with Catalan parties that want to break away from Spain.
    • Separately, he argued Spain cannot “absorb millions of Africans who want to come to Europe in search of a better future.”

    Both positions mark a hardening from those of Casado’s predecessor, and the previous prime minister, Mariano Rajoy. (more…)

  • Far-Right League Gains Most from Governing in Italy

    Italy’s far-right League is benefiting the most from the government deal it struck with the populist Five Star Movement earlier this month.

    • In municipal elections on Sunday, the League captured the former left-wing strongholds of Massa, Pisa and Siena in the region of Tuscany.
    • Nationally, the League is tied with the Five Star Movement in the polls. Both get 27-29 percent support. In the last election, the Five Stars got 33 percent support against 17 percent for the League. (more…)