Leftists love to point to Europe as a model of tolerance and enlightenment. “We should try to be more like the Europeans,” they sigh longingly. Socialism, centralized control, politicized free speech restrictions, and stunningly generous benefits to immigrants make them swoon.
I wonder how they’ll feel when they get a load of what the EU is doing now?
First, a little background. How many of you remember President Obama’s much-vaunted “Arab Spring” policy? Claiming to be an agent of democracy, the Lightbringer set about merrily toppling governments, backing radical militia-backed groups, and empowering terrorist organizations. Where once existed a backward yet diverse and stable region, he created a bloody crucible of civil war, retaliation, and terror.
Soon, millions of refugees and plain old opportunists were on their way to Europe, where Obama’s globalist peers flung open the gates and welcomed them. The EU’s Schengen area, initially established in 1985 to facilitate ease of travel and commerce between member nations, became a handy conduit for distributing millions of destitute, culturally illiterate new residents all about the continent. Protest was denounced as racist, xenophobic, neo-Nazi, or whatever the meanest, lowest character defamation was at the time. Sound familiar?
Well, beginning last fall, the EU got into a beef with their non-member neighbor, Belarus. Belarus, which shares borders with Russia, Ukraine, and the Schengen area, is uniquely positioned to cause trouble. The EU and its allies have been cranking up sanctions on Belarus, which has responded by recruiting a stream of migrants that it then dumps inside its EU neighbors’ borders. And now, the European Commission has gone full-xenophobe-racist-white-supremacist and proposed measures that would — the horror! — strengthen its borders.
Related: Should We ‘Live More Like Europeans’? Of Course Not.
In a 50-page proposal released today, the Commission admitted what many of us have known for years: high levels of illegal, chaotic immigration are a threat to the well-being of target countries.
First of all, immigration can spread disease, and we’re in the middle of a global pandemic:
The COVID-19 crisis has shown that the current rules are not sufficient to respond to crisis situations linked to diseases with epidemiological potential. The global character of COVID-19 required ad hoc measures at the external borders to slow down transmission across borders. In March 2020, the Commission proposed a coordinated decision on applying travel restrictions on non-essential travel from third countries into the Schengen area. This led to the adoption of a Council Recommendation in June 20204, with the objective of facilitating a unified approach when it comes to restricting access to the European Union of travellers coming from countries with a highly problematic epidemiological situation.
Secondly, lawless mass immigration is a political and safety threat:
[The] ‘instrumentalisation of migrants’ refers to a situation where a third country instigates irregular migratory flows into the Union by actively encouraging or facilitating the movement of third country nationals to the external borders, onto or from within its territory and then onwards to those external borders, where such actions are indicative of an intention of a third country to destabilise the Union or a Member State, where the nature of such actions is liable to put at risk essential State functions, including its territorial integrity, the maintenance of law and order or the safeguard of its national security;
With the recognition of these existential threats, the EU goes on to propose a framework for allowing member countries to toughen up their borders against the weaponized flow of illegal aliens. Yahoo! News reports that “The number of border crossings where people register for asylum could be reduced. The registration of applications could be delayed for four weeks, instead of 10 days currently. People could be held in temporary shelters at the border for up to 16 weeks while their applications are processed. … Fast-track deportations would be permitted for those not allowed in.”
Predictably, the hue and cry have arisen from the Euro open borders crowd. Tineke Strik, a leftist EU lawmaker, says the proposed updates “are tantamount to endorsing the illegal, immoral and life-threatening practice of pushbacks.” She went on to add additional hyperbole: “The commission has caved in to far-right pressure from the Polish government and blackmail from the Belarusian dictator, and thrown European values to the wayside.”
European Trade Union Confederation Confederal Secretary Ludovic Voet (my goodness, such a title!) opined that the EU should be facilitating the migrants’ journey rather than discouraging their progress with “the deployment of border guards, walls and razor wire, and their detention or deportation.”
Overall I’m impressed, though: The European Commission not only admitted that unlimited immigration is a threat to public health and safety; it even called out another nation for using migrants as political weapons. Here in the United States, our leaders can’t even bring themselves to admit the (painfully obvious) fact that mass immigration is a problem and have never shown even passing interest in sanctioning or condemning whoever is behind the systemic massive influx of aliens.
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