The EU’s Migration Plan Feels Like a Sick Joke

The European Union has a groundbreaking new plan to stop illegal immigration—legalising it. European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen announced this week that Brussels intends to “open more safe pathways, legal pathways, to Europe.” The goal is to streamline the process for migrants outside the EU, setting up a so-called talent pool of non-European workers and matching them with European employers. In particular, the EU is keen on developing greater connections with India, going so far as to open an EU office there. The proposal was initially presented in 2023, as part of the Skills and Mobility Package, but is yet to be adopted into law. A plenary vote is due in March of next year. 

It’s almost impressive how tone-deaf this scheme is. At the same time that the continent is crying out for stricter border controls, the EU decides that the solution to mass migration is more migration. It doesn’t seem to have occurred to the supposed experts in Brussels why so many people are so angry in the first place. 

The EU is trying desperately to frame the debate around migration as one centred on illegal smuggling gangs and modern slavery, as if these are the issues that most concern ordinary European citizens. Speaking on Wednesday, von der Leyen lamented, “When people cross borders illegally, they do not just risk their life, too often they fall prey to labour exploitation afterwards. With no rights and no protections. This is a form of modern slavery, and we must do more to fight it here in Europe.” According to this logic, the EU’s priority must be in “[preventing] the illegal journeys offered by smugglers” and “[warning] people about the risks of illegal crossings.” Not necessarily by beefing up border control, but by making it easier to arrive in Europe by legal means. 

Of course, no one wants to see migrants come to any harm, illegal or not. But if Brussels really cares about keeping them out of danger, the focus should be on removing the incentives to come here at all. It should be made clear that any and all migrants who enter Europe through improper channels will be swiftly deported. 

In any case, by and large, the kinds of people arriving in small boats or in the backs of lorries are not the kinds of people Europe should want to attract. There are plenty of legal pathways available for those with the skills and agency to move abroad. We should be more comfortable asking why those who pitch up illegally, often without documents, have chosen not to take those sanctioned routes. It is perhaps tempting to imagine that the average illegal migrant is driven to make these dangerous, potentially deadly journeys through some great hardship—war, famine, persecution—and is left with no other choice but to flee. But we now know this is not always the case. Many of these are young men, plenty of them fleeing from legal justice in their home countries, seeking economic opportunities in the West. 

There is an unwillingness among the European political classes to recognise they have created the pull factors that incentivise illegal migration and make it worthwhile for smuggling gangs to operate. If so many Western European nations were not prepared to accommodate such large numbers of asylum seekers, the smugglers’ business model would collapse. It is only because we take in, feed, house, and routinely fail to deport migrants regardless of how much of a drain they are, that smuggling remains a viable option. 

At the core of this issue is a fundamental misunderstanding of why people are so upset about mass migration in the first place. Illegal immigration is bad, first and foremost, because it breaks the law. But making illegal migration legal does not mean that large swathes of the public will suddenly be in favour of it—especially if countries continue to attract the same sort of people that would have arrived illegally either way. Rather, growing numbers of European voters are unhappy with mass migration in large part because of the people that end up in their nations. Receiving hundreds of thousands of largely unqualified, unmotivated newcomers who are unwilling to assimilate into the native culture is always going to be a tough sell for any population. Combine that with the sheer number of arrivals, and there is simply no way to make this model sustainable. Even if every asylum seeker or small-boat migrant really was a doctor or engineer, as the classic claim goes, countries would still buckle under the volume. 

Europe’s political establishment is either unable or unwilling to understand these kinds of complaints. The only way they can understand the public’s concerns about open borders is to reframe them in quasi-humanitarian terms. The assumption is that people are not upset that the towns and cities they grew up in look and feel different, or that their taxes go towards paying for economically unproductive migrants to mill about doing nothing, or that these newcomers appear to be committing a disproportionate amount of crime. No, say our politicians, people must be turning towards the anti-migrant populist Right because they are concerned about smuggling gangs. 

A perfect example of this is the UK government’s bizarre response to this summer’s protests against the migrant hotels. Towards the end of August, the Home Office appeared to have registered the British public’s anger at asylum seekers being held in hotels. Locals didn’t want young men, often troublemakers, hanging around near schools. It was a burden on smaller towns. Communities hadn’t been consulted. The solution? Place migrants in houses instead. Of course, the Home Office wasn’t actually listening to these very valid concerns. Protesters were angry over the migrant hotels, the logic goes, so we must close the hotels. As usual, there was no understanding of or reckoning with the actual objections. People were not upset over the use of hotels per se, but with the fact there were so many asylum seekers entering the UK at all. 

Now Europe is adopting this same strategy. Is it ignorance or malice? Perhaps the more charitable explanation is that the EU genuinely believes that Europeans’ main objection to mass migration is the fact that it happens illegally. Politicians in Berlin, Paris, Brussels, and London are so self-absorbed and out of touch that they assume being pro-open borders is the de facto position—and that anyone who is against it is either ill-informed or hateful. The more cynical explanation is that they know why people are angry, but that they simply don’t care. They have decided that if voters will not explicitly consent, then they can at least be managed and placated for a while longer.

The last thing Europe needs is more migrants, illegal or legal. It needs proper borders—and leaders willing to defend them.