‘Tsunami’, ‘invasion’, ‘landings’, ‘the great replacement’: recent years have seen an increase in the alarmist language in Europe about the arrival of migrants and asylum seekers from the countries of the South.
Faced with a threat that many studies have shown to be imagined, the policies adopted by many governments consist intightening the entry requirements for migrants and asylum seekers from the South. One of the arguments used to legitimise this policy is to claim (without any evidence) that regularising the status of undocumented migrants and improving the conditions for receiving asylum seekers are ‘migration pull factors’ that would encourage others to migrate.
The alarmist discourse of certain media and politicians has a strong impact on the way European citizens view immigration. It shapes and propagates an image of immigration that is far removed from reality.
The general public significantly overestimates the demographic weight of the immigrant population living in their country, for example.
Round 7 of the European Social Survey, conducted in 20 European countries between 2014 and 2015, shows that, on average, the British, Estonians, French, Hungarians, Lithuanians, Dutch and Portuguese believe that the immigrant population living in their country is twice as large as it actually is. Even more striking is the exaggerated view of the number of immigrants in Poland: the public perceives it to be five times higher than it actually is.
As a result, many European citizens say that they are in favour of very restrictive immigration policies, especially with regard to certain categories of people.
A ban on Muslim immigration
In one of my research studies, I found that 54 per cent of Czechs and 51 per cent of Hungarians support a total ban on the entry of Muslim migrants to their countries. Relatively smaller but still significant proportions of Estonians (42 per cent), Portuguese (33 per cent), Spanish (20 per cent), Belgians (19 per cent) and French (13 per cent) also support a total ban on Muslim immigration to their countries. On average, almost one in four Europeans (24 per cent) want to see a ban on Muslim immigration to their country.
The study also shows that racism and xenophobia are key factors in Europeans’ opposition to Muslim immigration.
Another key finding was that high proportions of those who wanted a total ban on the immigration of Muslims were also in favour of banning the immigration of Roma (84 per cent) and Jewish people (42 per cent) as well as people from poorer non-European countries (52 per cent), poorer European countries (40 per cent), people of a different ethnic origin to the majority of the country’s inhabitants (39 per cent), and people of the same ethnic origin as the majority of the country’s inhabitants (23 per cent).
European immigrants: amnesia?
For centuries, Europeans migrated by the millions to the New World – the Americas and Australasia. According to a widely accepted estimate, between the year 1820 and World War One, 55 million Europeans left the continent. The preferred destination was North America (for 71 per cent of them).
Historian Adam McKeown has estimated that the total number of transcontinental migrants between 1846 and 1940 was around 180 million. This figure does not include international migration into Europe (from inside and outside Europe), which is substantial, according to various estimates. In Italy, for example, in the 1890s, more than half of all Italian emigrants went to other European countries.
Historian Donna Gabaccia also points out that the number of international migrants who chose Europe as their destination certainly matched, if not greatly exceeded, the number of Europeans who went to the Americas.
These figures on migratory movements remind us that international migration has always been part of our history, including the emigration of Europeans in significant numbers, something we seem to have forgotten.
Migration: more of a stream than a tsunami
It is true that there has been an approximately 3.7-fold increase in the number of international immigrants, both women and men, between 1960 and 2020, from 77 million to 281 million. But during the same period, the world population grew from three billion to almost eight billion. Despite the increase in absolute terms, the number of international migrants is still a very small fraction of the world population: 3.6 per cent in 2020, compared to 2.5 per cent in 1960. This means that 97 out of every 100 people in the world today still live in their country of birth.
It is important to note that the break-up of the former USSR, the former Yugoslavia and the former Czechoslovakia had an impact on both the total number of international migrants and the share of migrants in the world population. Their dissolution led to a change in the status of people from internal migrants within states to international migrants.
According to a UN estimate, the break-up of the former USSR into 15 independent states increased the total number of international migrants by about 27 million, as their place of birth became part of the national territory of another country. A person born in Uzbekistan and residing in Russia, for example, was considered an internal migrant during the time of the Soviet Union. After its dissolution, that same person was classed as an international migrant.
Taking this into account, the share of migrants in the world’s population was no more than 2.4 per cent in 2000 and 3.3 per cent in 2020. This is far from a massive wave, a flood, a torrent or a tidal wave of migration: on a global scale, international migration is more like a gentle stream.
