Diplomats who shape Western foreign policy are preoccupied with Russia and China. But the international issue that worries their political masters the most is immigration. As a close aide to President Joe Biden put it, “If we lose the next election, it will be over the southern border, not Ukraine.
The political pressure generated by migration is expected to intensify in the United States this week with the expiry of Title 42 – a pandemic-era policy that allowed for the rapid deportation of undocumented migrants on public health grounds. US authorities are preparing for as many as 13,000 potential migrants to cross the Mexican border every day, more than double the current number.
The White House sends troops to the border to demonstrate its determination. But Biden is also bracing for a political beating from Republicans.
The issue of refugees and migrants is also burning in Europe. Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni campaigned on a promise to curb flows across the Mediterranean. But the number of landings in Italy is currently 300% higher than in the same period last year. Nearly 40,000 have crossed so far this year and the number will increase with calmer summer seas. As in the WEthe end of pandemic-related restrictions plays an important role in the influx of migrants.
In Britain, a promise to ‘stop the boats’ of refugees crossing the English Channel is one of the government’s top five priorities promises for the year. The numbers may be tiny by US standards, with 45,000 arrivals to the UK last year, but they still grab headlines.
War, social breakdown and poverty are the main factors that push refugees. But bitter experience in countries like Libya, Lebanon, Mali and Afghanistan has made Western countries increasingly reluctant to commit troops to try to stabilize failed states. No one is likely to suggest foreign intervention in Sudan as civil war engulfs the country.
The reality is that most refugees from countries like Sudan, Syria, Venezuela or Myanmar will likely end up in neighboring countries rather than in the US or the EU. The arrival of millions of refugees fleeing war or economic collapse can then destabilize the host country. Lebanon’s near-collapse as a state was partly driven by its struggle to absorb 1 million Syrian refugees in a country of 5.4 million people.
Emphasizing that poorer countries bear the main burden of hosting refugees is unlikely to help Western leaders win the political argument at home. The pressure to “do something” is enormous; as is the lack of realistic solutions.
The right insists on walls and deportations. The left tends to talk vaguely about economic development and “safe and legal pathways” for migration. Development is much easier to ask than to talk about. Safe and legal pathways for migration are clearly desirable, but the number of potential migrants is still likely to exceed the number of visas on offer.
Governments on all sides are trying to cut quiet deals with countries that might agree to act as unofficial refugee enclosures – like Turkey, Mexico or Libya. In doing so, they increase the burden on these countries and give enormous political clout to leaders they are often worried about, such as Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
But there is little evidence that more punitive solutions work better. donald Asset has been much more successful in reducing legal immigration than illegal immigration. Australia’s radical policies inspired the British government. But Australian pushback depended on the cooperation of much weaker neighbors such as Papua New Guinea and Nauru. France will not be so accommodating.
The same societies that demand radical solutions often recoil from their consequences. In the United States, lawyers are still struggling to find the parents of 545 children separated from their families under Trump’s “zero tolerance” deportation policies.
When a country succeeds in implementing tough refugee policies, it often simply displaces the problem. Hungary’s harassment of refugees in 2015 is part of what persuaded Germany to open its borders. A visit to France by the Italian Foreign Minister has just been canceled after a dispute over immigration.
Rather than bickering, countries absolutely need to cooperate. To have a chance of working, it must involve countries of origin, countries of transit and countries of destination. And it needs a mix of liberal and conservative measures. Law enforcement and intelligence services have an important role to play in the fight against human traffickers.
And even if talking vaguely about development is of no use to anyone, targeted projects can work. Kamala Harris, the US vice president, is often accused of failing to resolve the problem on America’s southern border. But she helped create Public-private partnershipswhich have led to billions of dollars of investment in Central America – giving some would-be migrants a reason not to leave their country.
Reducing the number of refugees in a humane and effective way requires a careful combination of diplomacy, law enforcement and targeted development. Deportations and walls make better headlines, but worse politics.
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