{"id":22359,"date":"2020-01-02T18:57:26","date_gmt":"2020-01-02T23:57:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/?p=22359"},"modified":"2020-01-02T18:57:27","modified_gmt":"2020-01-02T23:57:27","slug":"mass-immigration-policy-europe-immigrationreform-com","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/2020\/01\/02\/mass-immigration-policy-europe-immigrationreform-com\/","title":{"rendered":"A Warning From Europe"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Although it was published in 2017, Douglas Murray,’s <\/a>The Strange Death of Europe: Immigration, Identity, Islam<\/a><\/em> is as relevant now as it was three years ago. A British journalist and Associate Editor of The Spectator<\/em>, Murray is also openly gay and considers himself a Christian atheist. He thus undoubtedly brings a unique perspective to the immigration debate, one that we should pay attention to lest we commit mistakes that Europe has already made.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A casual and superficial observer might conclude that\nmodern-day Western Europe\u2019s self-destructive immigration policies \u2013 Angela\nMerkel\u2019s open arms invitation to more than a million migrants in 2015 in particular\n\u2013 are something new and recent. In fact, Murray reminds us that, like Rome, and\nlike the United States\u2019 current-day dysfunctional immigration system, they\nweren\u2019t created in a day. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Following the Second World War \u2013 during which much of\nEurope was destroyed and millions of Europeans killed \u2013 Western European\nnations established guest worker programs to fill temporary labor shortages. This,\nfor example, is how West Germany acquired a large Turkish population after the\nwar. Economic factors were also coupled with post-colonial guilt as growing\nnumbers of Western Europeans felt morally duty-bound to accept increasing\nlevels of immigration from their former colonies (e.g. the British from the\nIndia and Pakistan, and the French from North Africa).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since postwar immigration was seen primarily as a\ntemporary economic fix, it was assumed that the migrants would eventually\nreturn home. Thus, there was little emphasis on assimilation. Yet, it quickly\nbecame evident that the guest workers and immigrants grew to appreciate higher\nWestern wages and living standards and had no intention of returning home. With\ntime, the numbers of new arrivals grew larger and larger \u2013 in spite of\noverwhelming opposition on the part of Western European publics. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The average European\u2019s skepticism towards high levels\nof mass immigration \u2013 and the demographic and cultural shifts which it entailed\n\u2013 was either ignored or condemned by politicians, journalists, and other\nmembers of the elite. When silence or minimizing the issue didn\u2019t work,\nEuropeans were either lied to by politicians who talked tough on immigration\nduring elections, but did nothing to lower numbers or deport illegal aliens, or\nwere simply shouted-down as \u201cracists\u201d and \u201cxenophobes.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As Murray points out, however, Europeans have become\nmuch more vocal about mass immigration in recent years. Much of this was driven\nby immigration from Islamic countries \u2013 which constitutes much of Europe\u2019s\nimmigrant population \u2013 and radical Islamist violence and terrorism. Many\nEuropeans were shocked by such instances of Islamist intolerance as the\nassassination of Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh by a Muslim extremist of\nMoroccan descent in 2004. Parties opposed to mass immigration, and what they\nsaw as the future \u201cIslamization\u201d of Europe, sprang up or increased their\npopularity throughout Western Europe. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Perhaps the greatest shock to the system came in 2015,\nas hundreds of thousands of migrants from the greater Middle East and Africa\nflooded Europe. Poverty, war, and chaos in the migrants\u2019 homelands certainly\ncontributed to the exodus, but there is little doubt that German chancellor\nAngela Merkel\u2019s na\u00efvely optimistic open-arms policies (\u201cwe can do this!\u201d) also\nserved as a huge magnet (interestingly, only five years before Merkel publicly\nacknowledged that multiculturalism had \u201cutterly failed\u201d because many immigrants\nwere simply not assimilating). As Murray shows, the ensuing wave of sexual\nassaults and terror attacks by migrants saw anti-mass-immigration sentiments\nand political movements grow throughout the continent \u2013 much to the chagrin of\nthe political establishment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The book is useful to Americans not only because it\noffers a comparative insight into immigration policies in Europe, but also\nbecause the author succinctly and skillfully dismantles the main arguments of\nthe pro-mass-immigration lobby. Thus, in Chapter Three (\u201cThe excuses we told\nourselves\u201d), and elsewhere, the book tackles talking points that we are\nall-too-familiar with here in the United States.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But Murray does not only lament the very strange fact\nthat Western Europeans are pursuing self-destructive and harmful immigration\npolicies. He also offers solutions. For instance, refugees and migrants should\nbe helped closer to home, in neighboring safe countries, where the aid can be\nadministered much more cost-effectively and where cultural barriers are less\npronounced. Paying them to work in neighboring countries could complement such\na policy. He also recommends processing asylum claims outside of Europe as well\nas implementing a policy of temporary <\/em>asylum\n(given how TPS has turned \u201ctemporary\u201d quasi-amnesties into permanent ones, the\nlatter solution seems problematic). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

All of these solutions are inspired by a perspective that\n\u201chowever greatly you might wish to benefit from an endless supply of cheap\nlabor, a wider range of cuisine or the salving of a generation\u2019s conscience,\nyou still would not have the right to wholly transform your society. Because\nthat which you inherited that is good should also be passed on.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Although it was published in 2017, Douglas Murray,’s The Strange Death of Europe: Immigration, Identity, Islam is as relevant now as it was three years ago. A British journalist and Associate Editor of The Spectator, Murray is also openly gay and considers himself a Christian atheist. He thus undoubtedly brings a unique perspective to the<\/p>\n

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