We should fear tyranny not migrants

Fears about migration are being fabricated to impose authoritarianism around the world

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Left: Soldiers install razor wire at the US-Mexico border Right: Polish soldiers patrol the border wall on the Poland-Belarus frontier

The world is getting smaller. As more and more countries veer towards militarized borders and migration crackdowns, walls restricting our movement are being erected everywhere — legally, metaphorically, and literally. Anti-migrant hysteria is sweeping wealthy nations across the world, and as it does so it leaves behind social devastation and ruined civil rights in its wake, for both migrants and native-born alike.

Countries are increasingly adopting stricter visa laws, carrying out domestic crackdowns based on racial profiling (that often sweep up not only migrants but also natural-born citizens), and using a host of excuses to dismantle the right of refugees around the world to seek asylum. Many countries are also enacting “deterrence” migration policies, which are designed to make migration as dangerous as possible so that fewer people attempt it.

Crackdowns in the United States are the most visible, with heavily armed masked men snatching adults and children alike from streets, classrooms, churches, and even their own beds. But it is far from alone. The European Union continues a relentless march towards becoming “Fortress Europe”, tightening asylum laws, over-policing racialized migrant communities, and enacting policies designed to make sea crossings into the continent more deadly.

“Migrants, asylum seekers, and refugees face violence, illegal pushbacks, and even death as a result of the EU’s focus on deterrence and externalization policies,” Human Rights Watch deputy European Director Benjamin Ward wrote in a December report on the trend.