Current Affairs

Illegal migration is not a new argument, the US and Europe have been struggling with arguments concerning illegal migration for generations, but the mass movement of people has intensified the political and national arguments of states. Britain, a country with a large migrant population is determined to find an argument that challenges the illegal migrants own voyage to the state. There is of course the Bibi Stockholm, a support platform, that now houses migrants, but the core of the argument is whether Britain can expel illegal migrants to Rwanda or not.

So far the argument has cost the British tax payer £500 million to stage the argument of whether Rwanda will accept its illegal migrants. It has been the central block of an argument by four home secretaries and has split the ruling party between those who want it and those that don’t. It is also likely to be an issue in the upcoming general election that has to be fought by November 2024, but the issue is also a European argument, who view illegal migration as a problem for the demographics of their own communities. Britain is being watched closely, especially if the argument is won in the high courts. Immigration lawyers and Human Rights NGOs are fighting the British government tooth and nail legally. But it is the decision of the High Court that seems to be the central cog in the governments plan to fly those arriving in the United Kingdom to displacement hotels in Rwanda, which has held up the process of dispatching illegal immigrants to Rwanda.

Britain is spending £1.5 billion on housing asylum applicants. The home office argues that this is the most that Britain has ever spent. Suella Braverman, the previous home secretary argues that the government has not gone far enough in changing the law for illegal migrants, she argues that Britain should enforce the law by leaving the European Court of Human Rights, and this would enable the United Kingdom to set its own statutory human rights arguments. This is of course an extreme argument that would prove very difficult to replicate in the British Parliament, but it is an argument that is popular within the ruling party. The British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Home Office minister James Cleverly have come up with a compromise, which passed through parliament on the 12^th December, which they believe will enable the flights to Rwanda, if the High Court passes the argument that they have put forward.

Of course the argument of illegal immigration is a catalyst to the extreme, and arguments of who and what are acceptable arguments is commonplace in the homes and work places of most of the population of hosting countries. But there is a harder line of argument that has been elected, not just in Europe but also in the United States. The United States has taken only one percent of the Ukrainians who lost their homes during the Russian invasion of Ukraine. It is in the midst of electioneering for the Presidency of the United States and it has become an electoral argument that has caused mayhem in the Congress. Rather than pass bills that affect the United States directly in the realm of its foreign policy, the American congress has become hamstrung by arguments of illegal migration. Both Ukraine and Israel require decisions now, they also require ratification of a bill that provides military aid to Ukraine and Israel. The failure to bring military aid to Ukraine challenges the very fundamentals of where Europe will begin and end. NATO membership has been promised the Ukrainians, so it is a bigger argument that is affecting not just Ukrainians but also allies in NATO.

Marc Rutger, has been elected in the Netherlands and has a hard fundamental approach to the argument of migration. Whether his argument will come into fruition is a question for parliament, but with the Hague Convention on human rights just miles away from the Dutch parliament, he will be challenged by the fundamentals of the Hague. Hard arguments on migration are beginning to have a monopoly on the arguments of the Europeans. Arguments of Burka bans have always been in the headlines of France’s constitutional arguments, but the movement to right wing arguments is coming to the fore in many European countries. The electoral victory of Meloni in Italy, is not a surprise as most illegal migrants come through Italy into the rest of Europe. But the success of the AfD in Germany is worrying the liberals who hold seats of power across Europe and it is these types of success’ that is most affecting the thinking of the Liberal elite that holds power in the European Union.

There have been sporadic acts of violence against migrants, especially through WhatsAP, Facebook and Twitter, both platforms used by the ultras to spread their messages of hate. But a riot in Dublin was the most serious argument that took place, rumours surfaced that a migrant had attacked a family and stabbed a mother and two children. But the rumour in WhatsAp, Facebook and Twitter was that it was an illegal immigrant who had attacked the family, they sited that this had been a terrorist act by an Islamic fundamentalist who had only arrived in Ireland a few weeks earlier. This led to riots across Dublin by white supremacists who argued against any form of immigration, which proved not to be true.

It is true that there have been problems with immigration, France has by far seen the worst of it in Europe. But there are countries that have made it very difficult for migrants to make a new life in their country. Austria and Hungary have taken a fundamentalist approach to their arguments, making it impossible for migrants to cross through their territory or to claim asylum. Greece, that had a wave of illegal migrants passing through it has set up internment camps, which hold the immigrants until they can be processed by EU officials. But further north especially in Serbia and Croatia, there are stories of beatings and return of the migrants to the Greek border or a border that they had passed through before entering Serbian or Croatian territory.

There have been desperate attempts to enter Europe, not forgetting those that were asphyxiated in the back of trailers, or small trucks, which have been left on the side of the road. There have been crashes where twenty to thirty illegal migrants have been killed and there are rumours that illegal migrants have frozen to death trying to cross Poland’s forests next to the Belarusian border. Each terrible but also a political tool that is invigorating the right wing that borders are porous and that immigration is out of control. The populous vote is gaining traction not just in Europe but also the United States, and countries such as Britain whose ruling party is banking on electoral success through controlling the migration question, has come to the forefront of newspaper headlines and political argument. There are questions as to the humanity of any decision that maroons migrants thousands of miles away from their intended destination, which should be of some importance to the decision makers, but it is the black market that at the moment is king to those trying to enter the UK and Europe illegally, so whether the decision is to maroon the migrants in Rwanda, is also a decision that is keenly debated, not just in the UK, but also right across Europe.