“I don’t need them in our nation. I’ll be sincere with you, OK. Anyone will say, ‘Oh, that’s not politically appropriate.’ I don’t care. I don’t need them in our nation. Their nation is not any good for a cause …”
That is what United States President Donald Trump needed to say about Somali migrants on the primary day of an immigration crackdown focusing on their neighborhood. He insisted that Somali migrants have turned the US state of Minnesota, the place some 2 % of the inhabitants is of Somali descent, right into a “hellhole” and must be “out of right here”. Then, directing his ire at his vocal critic, Ilhan Omar, a Somali-born Democratic consultant from Minnesota, Trump mentioned, “She’s rubbish. Her mates are rubbish. These aren’t individuals who work. These aren’t individuals who say, ‘Let’s go, come on, let’s make this place nice. ’”
After all, none of that is new or stunning. Hatred of migrants and asylum seekers has at all times been the glue that holds Trump’s MAGAverse collectively. Who can neglect that, earlier than his cordial assembly with Trump on the White Home, a number of MAGA Republicans made severe efforts to revoke the US citizenship of New York Metropolis mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani. Since Trump’s rise to energy, hostility to migrants has turn into not only a mainstream part of up to date politics in america however a governing precept.
However the rise in anti-migrant sentiment, and its validation and promotion by these in positions of energy, shouldn’t be unique to Trump’s more and more insular America. Comparable rhetoric and techniques are gaining floor elsewhere, revealing a worldwide pattern that extends far past america. Denmark is one such instance.
Beneath its long-cultivated picture as a progressive, humane and orderly society constructed on common healthcare, Lego, extremely habitable cities and minimalist designer aesthetics, Denmark has lately turn into one in every of Europe’s most restrictive states on immigration and asylum. Through the just lately concluded native elections, Islamophobic rhetoric was on full show, and within the lead-up to the 2026 nationwide elections, the ruling Social Democrats have positioned their dedication to tackling the so-called drawback of immigration on the centre of their marketing campaign.
Throughout the pond, in the UK, the supposedly progressive Labour authorities appears desirous to comply with the Danish instance. Below strain from the far proper and Reform UK’s enduring rise within the polls, Prime Minister Keir Starmer is raring to persuade folks that he could be trusted to take again management of our borders and shut the guide on a squalid chapter of Britain’s immigration coverage. He has warned that the UK dangers turning into an island of strangers except immigration is sharply lowered, and has promised that his authorities’s reforms will be certain that migration will fall. That could be a promise. Most strikingly, Residence Secretary Shabana Mahmood just lately despatched officers to Denmark to review its immigration and asylum regime, a gesture that underscores how dramatically Labour’s stance has hardened.
Xenophobia can be on the rise exterior the Western world. It’s a staple of coverage and apply from Libya to South Africa, a reminder that anti-migrant politics is now a worldwide instrument of governance.
Europe-bound migrants in Libya face horrific ranges of violence and abuse. In response to Amnesty Worldwide, they’re subjected to extended arbitrary detention, enforced disappearances, torture, rape, illegal killings, extortion and compelled labour. These abuses happen inside a system successfully underwritten by European governments, which have funnelled funding, coaching and tools to Libyan coastguard items tasked with intercepting migrants earlier than they attain worldwide waters. Eager to stem the move of migrants throughout the Mediterranean, European Union states have outsourced border management to Libya regardless of realizing the implications, supporting the authorities’ capability to proceed with measures the United Nations says might very seemingly quantity to crimes towards humanity.
Additional west, in Tunisia, Black African migrants have confronted sporadic violence for years. In early 2023, President Kais Saied claimed there was a legal plan to alter Tunisia’s demographic make-up by way of irregular migration, turning it right into a purely African nation that has no affiliation to the Arab and Islamic nations. His remarks triggered a surge in mob assaults on Black migrants, college students and asylum seekers. There was additionally a rise in arrests, and the police gave the impression to be focusing on Black African foreigners primarily based on their look. These detained included undocumented migrants, registered refugees and asylum seekers, in addition to migrants with legitimate credentials, a stark demonstration of how state practices can shift as soon as xenophobia is given political sanction.
Equally, xenophobia focusing on migrants from different African nations has been a relentless function of life and politics in post-apartheid South Africa. In response to Xenowatch, a mission hosted by the College of the Witwatersrand that tracks xenophobic discrimination and violence, there have been 1,295 recorded incidents since 1994, together with displacement, looting of migrant-owned companies and killings. Deaths peaked in 2008 with 72 fatalities and 150 incidents. In 2025, whereas 16 individuals had been killed, the general variety of xenophobic incidents once more reached 2008 ranges, underscoring the persistence of the disaster.
Through the COVID-19 pandemic, the federal government systematically ignored migrant communities, excluding many from reduction programmes and framing safety of South Africans because the precedence. The state additionally constructed a 40-kilometre fence alongside the border with Zimbabwe to dam contaminated or undocumented individuals, regardless of Zimbabwe having solely 11 confirmed COVID-19 instances on the time in contrast with South Africa’s 1,845. Politicians bolstered current myths about foreign-owned companies posing well being dangers. When saying that spaza outlets might stay open, the then-Minister of Small Enterprise Growth, Khumbudzo Ntshavheni, declared that solely South African-owned, managed and run outlets would stay open.
South Africa has additionally seen the rise of explicitly anti-immigrant mobilisation. The Put South Africans First motion, a coalition of civil society teams advocating the mass deportation of African migrants, organised a march to the Nigerian and Zimbabwean embassies on September 23, 2020, claiming that foreigners contribute to South Africa’s social ills corresponding to medication, human trafficking and baby abductions.
The vigilante group Operation Dudula emerged from this motion in 2021, following the imprisonment of former President Jacob Zuma. Though it claims to handle crime and drug use in Gauteng communities, its identify, Dudula – which means “drive out” in isiZulu – captures its true focus. The group is healthier recognized for calling for mass deportations, blocking migrants from accessing hospitals and clinics, and raiding or shutting down foreign-owned companies.
After all, I might maintain going, from growing restrictions in nations like Colombia, Peru, Chile and Ecuador aimed toward stemming the inflow of Venezuelan migrants, to Indian authorities forcibly expelling ethnic Bengali Muslims to Bangladesh with out due course of, home ensures and worldwide human rights requirements, claiming that they’re undocumented. Xenophobia shouldn’t be confined to any area or ideology; it’s now woven into the political life of nations throughout the globe.
Why are we so eager to provide in to xenophobic narratives and insurance policies? Partly as a result of they’re handy. They permit governments and societies to externalise home failures, providing a straightforward rationalization for issues which might be much more advanced and sometimes rooted in political and financial mismanagement at house, in austerity, deepening inequality and precarious work reasonably than within the arrival of strangers.
On this logic, the migrant turns into a ready-made scapegoat, a determine onto whom we mission all of the ills we consider threaten who we’re or what we stand for. It then turns into easy to say that migrants subscribe to harmful ideologies, pressure nationwide sources, carry ailments or kind a part of some insidious plan to change the nation’s demographic or cultural material.
Notion turns into actuality. Blaming these past our borders permits us to think about the menace lies elsewhere, reassuring us that we’re not the issue. The tragedy is that the dysfunctions and corruptions embedded in our personal programs stay untouched. And scapegoating the supposed outsider does nothing to make our societies fairer, safer or extra humane; it merely buys time for leaders unwilling to confront the crises they helped create.
The views expressed on this article are the creator’s personal and don’t essentially mirror Al Jazeera’s editorial coverage.
