How to detoxify the politics of migration
Gaza, where nearly 2m Palestinians have been forced out of their homes. Even larger numbers have been displaced in Congo, Sudan, Syria and Ukraine. Most people feel compassion when they see fellow humans fleeing from bombs, bullets or machetes.
But many also experience another emotion: fear. Seen through a screen, the world can seem violent and scary even to residents of safe, rich places. Many worry that ever-swelling numbers of refugees and other migrants will surge across their borders.
Nativist politicians talk of an “invasion". Fear has curdled rich-world politics. A man who once advocated banning the Koran could be the next Dutch prime minister.
Britain’s Conservative Party is trampling on constitutional norms to try to send asylum-seekers on a one-way trip to Rwanda. Donald Trump tells hollering crowds that unlawful immigrants are “poisoning the blood of our country". Some perspective is in order.
The vast majority of people who migrate do so voluntarily and without drama. For all the talk of record numbers and unprecedented crisis, the share of the world’s people who live outside their country of birth is just 3.6%; it has barely changed since 1960, when it was 3.1%. The numbers forcibly displaced fluctuate wildly, depending on how many wars are raging, but show no clear long-term upward trend.
The total has risen alarmingly in the past decade or so, from 0.6% in 2012 to 1.4% in 2022. But this is only a sixth of what it was in the aftermath of the second world war. The notion that refugees pose a serious threat to rich countries is also far-fetched.
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