The stunning victory of anti-Muslim Dutch politician Geert Wilders suggests that the notion of a proposed “Muslim ban”, tamping down on immigration from Islamic countries, is no longer outside the realm of political discussion. This movement can only gain steam given the sometimes openly anti-Semitic protests by Muslims in support of the Hamas pogrom.
President Donald Trump’s crude tactic of using immigration policy to stop the migration of anti-American terrorists and their supporters into the United States has already established a precedent of sorts. Trump’s initial executive order included seven predominately Muslim nations — Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen — and later was expanded in 2020 to include Venezuela and others.
Trump’s ban was quickly dismissed by President Biden, but the drive against increasingly uncontrolled immigration is clearly gaining popular support, particularly in Europe. Left-of-center politicians like Biden are clueless about the political evolution taking place throughout the West. Rather than looking for ways to impose greater scrutiny over immigrations. Biden’s only discussion of a ban has been aimed at sometimes violent nationalist Israeli settlers: looking at what is happening on campuses and the streets, hardly the biggest threat.
There are economic ramifications, of course, such as the cost of housing and caring for poor refugees forcing some cities, like New York, as well the UK to look for ways to send them elsewhere. But culture also plays a role. This has been made painfully clear during recent mass pro-Hamas demonstrations on college campuses, and on the streets of London, New York, and Paris. These protests were driven largely by Middle Eastern immigrants and students from the Middle East whose hatred of Israel and Jews in general has been incubated by universities.
Universities may need more tuition to pay their exploding bureaucracies but sovereign nations still have a choice on who to allow to reside or emigrate. We would be loath, rightfully, to allow white racists from South Africa, neo-Nazis, or operatives of North Korea into our countries.
We already have to deal with citizens who share sometimes nasty views. Do we need to invite and nurture more people with hateful and violent attitudes?
The Muslim issue is a difficult one. Most are like all other immigrants seeking opportunity and an escape from repression. But some also condone Islamic leaders who share little love for a liberal pluralistic society. There have been open calls for attacks on “Zionist aggressors” by a Montreal Imam, Adil Charkaoui, similar in tone to Britain’s radical UK Islamist preacher Anjem Choudary.
Of course, any restriction would be attacked by both the left and open borders conservatives. But political leaders will have to acknowledge the massive pushback against uncontrolled immigration worldwide. In America the uncontrolled border plays straight into Donald Trump’s re-election drive, and is boosting his popularity even among legal immigrants.
Read the rest of this piece at Telegraph.
Joel Kotkin is the author of The Coming of Neo-Feudalism: A Warning to the Global Middle Class. He is the Roger Hobbs Presidential Fellow in Urban Futures at Chapman University and Executive Director for Urban Reform Institute. Learn more at joelkotkin.com and follow him on Twitter @joelkotkin.
Photo: Kyle Flickr, under CC 2.0 License.
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