Europe grasps for ways to stop the migrant surge

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Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. BERLIN—Governments across Europe are raising new barriers to immigrants, aiming to curb near-record inflows of people from poor countries that are triggering a surge in support for nationalist populist parties. The biggest swing in sentiment has been in Germany, long a proponent of generous policies toward refugees.

Pressure has been building in recent years as the nation absorbed millions of immigrants, weighing on the welfare system and municipal services. Migration was a key theme in Sunday’s closely watched regional election in Brandenburg, where the governing Social Democrats narrowly beat the far-right Alternative for Germany party, or AfD. Last week, the coalition government in Berlin reintroduced limited border checks to all neighboring countries, after a knife attack in late August by a failed asylum seeker killed three people in the city of Solingen during a festival to celebrate its 650th anniversary.

The attacker was a 26-year-old Syrian with links to Islamic State who had evaded deportation for more than a year after losing his asylum case. Days after that attack, the AfD won its first ever state election in Thuringia and placed second in Saxony. Since the pandemic ended, governments across the continent have struggled to cope with rising numbers of asylum seekers and are grasping for ways to stem the flow, from curbing taxpayer-funded benefits to asylum seekers to striking deals with non-EU countries to temporarily or permanently house would-be refugees.

Europe’s shift echoes recent moves by the Biden administration to contain a record surge in arrivals at the U.S. southern border, fueled mostly by people claiming asylum. In both cases, incumbent governments face