The World Is Waking Up to the Consequences of Mass Migration. Will America?

December 5, 2023

By William Davis

Something is happening as the consequences of mass immigration fuel outrage amongst the global population.

Many Western elites were stunned when conservative firebrand Javier Milei was elected the next president of Argentina a few weeks ago. Milei’s platform included restrictions on low-skilled immigrants, as well as a ban on criminal aliens entering the country. Milei’s victory could have easily been dismissed as an aberration until a few days later, when Geert Wilders’ Party for Freedom won the most votes in the recent Dutch elections. While the Dutch system of government requires Wilders to form a coalition government that may eventually block him from becoming prime minister, his victory sent a clear message about the declining appetite for mass immigration in the Netherlands and across Europe.

Wilders has made waves in recent decades for his staunch opposition to illegal immigration, and for his threats to have the Dutch leave the European Union due to mass migration policies imposed on the country by Brussels. Wilders campaigned on closing the Netherlands’ borders and pausing migration into the country. He has come under fire for his staunch opposition to migrants from the Islamic world entering Europe. 

Yet, when the Dutch went to the polls a few weeks ago, a strong plurality of the historically left-wing country chose Widlers’ party to lead their nation into the future. While Wilders may not be able to put together a coalition to become prime minister, his party’s victory will reverberate around Europe for years to come. 

As Argentinians and the Dutch made their voices heard at the ballot box, the Irish took to the streets over the Thanksgiving holiday to make their opposition to mass migration known.

Mass demonstrations—many of which turned violent—broke out in Ireland late last month after an Algerian migrant allegedly stabbed several people—including children— in broad daylight outside of a school. The demonstrations were the culmination of more than a year of protests in Ireland as migration into the country has skyrocketed by 50 percent. 

While political violence should never be celebrated, it’s hard not to sympathize with the concern many Irish citizens are expressing. Ireland is currently facing a crisis of soaring housing costs and stagnant wages, yet the government continues to prioritize influxes of foreign nationals over the needs of its own citizens. If this sounds familiar, it’s because the same thing is happening in the U.S.

While Americans have been devastated in recent years with historic inflation, the effects of the COVID pandemic and escalating housing costs, the U.S. federal government and many state and local governments throughout the nation have repeatedly placed the needs of foreign nationals over those of their own citizenry. Since the Biden Administration came to power in January 2021, millions of illegal aliens have crossed the U.S. southern border unencumbered, while the White House continues to demand Congress award foreign nationals who have violated our laws with a pathway to citizenship. 

Meanwhile, New York City is preparing to spend billions of dollars to take care of illegal aliens while affordable living remains out of reach for so many of the city’s residents. A similar situation is unfolding in Chicago where hundreds of demonstrators gathered last month to protest the city’s extravagant spending on housing for illegal aliens. The revolt against mass immigration we’ve seen in countries such as Ireland, the Netherlands, and Argentina could soon be coming to the U.S. as well.

Poll after poll has shown the American people strongly disapprove of the anti-border policies being pushed by the federal government, and the protests we’re seeing in major cities bears out this reality as well. People across the globe have become increasingly fed up with out of touch elites neglecting their sovereignty and forcing their utopian beliefs on them. 

Just as Irish citizens demand that  leaders put their interests first, Americans have every right to demand the same of their political leaders. Every citizen of every nation deserves a government that operates with their interests above all others. This is the essence of the social contract that citizens enter into with their government. 

We are a welcoming and compassionate country, but we are still a sovereign nation. People across the globe are waking up to the reality that sovereignty and mass migration cannot co-exist. It’s only a matter of time until Americans do as well.

William J. Davis is a communications associate for the Immigration Reform Law Institute, a public interest law firm working to defend the rights and interests of the American people from the negative effects of mass migration.

Also published at Townhall, December 5, 2023.