First, we need to change the discourse away from the moralization of migration. A lot of the left-wing discussion goes: borders are arbitrary, freedom of movement is a basic right, why can’t people move freely? It’s conducted at such a moralistic level that it’s hard to distinguish the liberal defense of migrants from the left-wing one.
Migration is only a problem when it happens in asymmetrical power relations, as from the Global South to the Global North. Nobody worries about migration from Canada to the United States or from Australia to Great Britain. We only worry about migration when it reflects broader asymmetries of power. And those asymmetries are themselves the result of war, economic crisis, and environmental breakdown.
Migration is a consequence, not a cause. If you really want to solve the problem, you have to intervene at the level of its causes. And that’s where the Right doesn’t have an answer. “We must make our own country great again at others’ expense” can only result in more war, more crisis, and more disaster around the world — and, consequently, more migration.
It’s also really important to bring out the class dimension. Borders have never been more open for some people and more closed for others than they are now, even in places where the Right is in power. When Trump was posting those images of people in chains being deported, he was simultaneously boasting about how easy it was for Russian oligarchs to get investor visas.
The golden visas, the citizenship-by-investment programs — the Right has been completely willing to open borders for the wealthy. So if the concern is really about cultural mixing and integration, why does migration become so easy for some people and so difficult for others who come from the same cultural background? Migration is a question of class, not culture.
Auteur: Lea Ypi
