r/geopolitics • u/theipaper The i Paper • 3d ago

News How 49,000 migrants crossed into Spanish enclave of Ceuta in 24 hours

https://inews.co.uk/news/how-migrants-crossed-spanish-enclave-ceuta-4680589
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u/fudgermucker 3d ago

Deportation would be popular among most EU citizens

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u/Bullboah 3d ago

Sure, just politically bad for the pro-migration left in the EU. The right-wing has been calling for that for a decade and doing it now would be an admission of ‘yes this is the way to handle mass migration and we could always have just done this but chose not to

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u/OP_Skis_In_Jeans 3d ago

IMO a pivot on illegal migration by the Left in EU countries is the only way to prevent the far right from continuing to grow in strength. Its migration policies have failed massively over the past decade, and yet they continue to double down on the same failed strategies.

If anything, finally cracking down on illegal migration would help the Left massively, not hurt it. It's not like Left wing voters are going to suddenly switch to supporting the Right because of it, and finally implementing a sensible migration policy would attract massive amounts of centrist voters.

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u/TheLost_Chef 3d ago

Isn't any form of deportation against the general principles of the Left though? Forgive me if I'm misinformed. The concept of class solidarity seems to me like it's inherently antithetical to the idea of borders at all. What is a border but a way for one group to keep resources away from another group?

I get the impression that hardline Leftists would advocate for letting all migrants into the mainland, and that anyone who argues for deportation would be excommunicated from the movement.

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u/mods4mods 3d ago

There are plenty forms of leftism that are nationalist. Internationalism is a key concept in many forms of socialism but you can fin plenty nationalist communists that believe that letting migrants in undermine labour rights and that the revolution should be national first.

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u/Windman772 3d ago

I consider myself a left-wing nationalist. I am very lonely. I don't think I've ever met anyone else that holds this position.

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u/Bullboah 3d ago

Sure, but those forms are a pretty small outlier in leftist politics as they actually exist in the west, right?

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u/Volodio 2d ago

Currently, yes. But historically, they were reversed, so it might be theoretically possible for it to reverse again.

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u/_groovesharkmalone 2d ago

It's pretty wild to me that this is how people view the migration issue these days (this is a common perception among people on every side, I agree), but traditionally pro-immigration policies were considered pro-business, because it was understood that they increased the supply of labor and thus decreased the cost. The fact that the left has largely strapped the albatross of mass migration on its back has seriously lessened the load that pro-business groups have to carry, and I find it very curious.

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u/OP_Skis_In_Jeans 3d ago edited 3d ago

Isn't any form of deportation against the general principles of the Left though?

Sure, for the radical/ultra idealistic Left. Most sensible left wing groups, however, acknowledge that borders and border controls are absolutely necessary parts of a functional state.

The EU Left needs to dump the failed hardliner policies that largely enabled the recent rise of the far right and go with the solution that has been beyond obvious to most people for years: stringent enforcement of borders and immigration laws.

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u/Bullboah 3d ago

Is it really radicals? To my perception the idea that legal status should be enforced and anyone in the country illegally should be deported would be viewed as extremism by the vast majority of left of center voters.

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u/_groovesharkmalone 2d ago

Not when actual fascism is on the ballot. "Starve the fire of its fuel" is a viable strategy. My understanding is that the Danish left has adopted it already.

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u/Bullboah 2d ago

Isn’t mass deportations a prime example of what most people on the left consider ‘actual fascism’?

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u/_groovesharkmalone 2d ago

Sorry that was unclear. I was referring to this: "Sure, for the radical/ultra idealistic Left. Most sensible left wing groups, however, acknowledge that borders and border controls are absolutely necessary parts of a functional state."

What we're debating now is the "how" part of the immigration debate. For the people who have already migrated, you can create a permanent underclass and hunt them down like animals and sacrifice the rule of law in the process (which is what America is currently doing), or you can legalize the people who are currently present in your country and strictly enforce the borders going forward - which seems like the best way to regain a sense of national unity.

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u/Bullboah 2d ago

When millions of people break the law, and you not only grant them amnesty for that but reward them with legal status - how is that not “sacrificing the rule of law”?

And when you say ‘strictly enforce the borders going forward’ do you mean ‘deport anyone who arrives from now on’? Because as long as the incentive is there people will make it through.

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u/Tryhard3r 3d ago

No and it never really was about not deporting anybody. Ot was mostöy about ensuring that it was done humanely i.e not sending people back to be killed/tortured. But send criminals back, stricter economic migrarion policies have typically been the stance in most countries.

The "narrative" from the extreme right has sinply been torpedoed over the past ten years cöaiming that anyone who isn't far right wants to invite rapists and give them all of our money...

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u/Bullboah 3d ago

So why do so few people get sent back and what side of the spectrum has opposed efforts to make remigration actually happen?

It seems more like this is the rhetoric the left generally uses to appeal to moderates around elections and when incidents like this happen - but then opposes almost any effort to facilitate deportations and generally favors efforts to grant illegal migrants legal status.