How Europe can escape the migration deterrence trap

European leaders seem to have lost interest in any hint of taking a rational approach to migration policy. As a result, Europe is squandering the possibility of dealing with irregular migration in a safer, more orderly, and more humane way, and is instead simply aiming to increase border security, hold up refugees and asylum seekers in transit, and rapidly deport those not eligible for protection. 

Last summer saw a surge of far-right parties in elections to the European Parliament, France’s National Assembly, and German regional parliaments (and anti-immigration riots in the UK). Then, in November, Donald Trump was re-elected as US president, running on a virulently anti-migrant, asylum seeker, and refugee agenda, which he is now rapidly enacting. 

Europe’s centrist politicians have grown conspicuously quiet about creating legal pathways for refugees and asylum seekers to reach the continent, or implementing evidenced-based policies to manage migration in ways that could produce better results for both people on the move and the countries they are aiming to reach. 

Instead, in word and deed, they are following right-wing populists like Hungary’s Victor Orban and Italy’s Giorgia Meloni, and are falling into the migration deterrence trap: By doubling down on the idea that irregular migration is best controlled by the preventive, physical force of the state, they are raising public expectations that they will not be able meet.

Deterrence can achieve short-term successes, but if employed alone, it always fails in the longer term. This usually leads to calls for more and harsher measures – and new waves of support for the far-right, for whom they never go far enough.