“Camps” for those targeted for deportation

John Ganz comments on the incoming Trump Administration’s signals on mass deportations:

In The New York Times yesterday was another one of those stomach-churning articles you grow accustomed to in our benighted era: “Trump Confirms Plans to Use the Military to Assist in Mass Deportations.” This was once the stuff of nightmares, the worst-case scenario fantasizing of hysterical liberals back in 2016. Now, it’s just the news: “President-elect Donald J. Trump confirmed on Monday that he intended to declare a national emergency and use the U.S. military in some form to assist in his plans for mass deportations of undocumented immigrants.” The plan involves the construction of “vast holding facilities,” in other words, camps. [my emphasis] (1)

Expect the Republicans to cynically dance around the nature of these “camps.”

This reminds me of an incident from 2018 involving Herbert Kickl, the current head of Austria’s far-right Freedom Party (FPÖ), who at the time was Austria’s Interior Minister, the national police agency. His party got the largest vote in the 2024 national election, though well short of a majority. The President (head of state) Alexander Van der Bellen took the unusual step of not asking him to lead the first coalition talks with other parties.

Kickl was Interior Minister from December, 2017 until May 2019. When that government fell apart over an FPÖ scandal, Van der Bellen stated that he would never appoint Kickl to be a cabinet Minister again. (The executive has to approve Ministers recommended by the ruling coalition before they can take office.) Presumably that means also that he would never approve him as Chancellor (head of government), either. Because other government would be reluctant to share any intelligence information with Austria if he were Chancellor. Van der Bellen’s suspicion on that point was established by Kickl’s performance as Interior Minister.

A month into his term as Interior Minister, Kickl in early 2018 came up with the kind of nudge-nudge-wink-wink provocation that rightwingers everywhere seem to love. He wanted to deport some foreigners, which is also part of rightwing identity politics everywhere that I know of. He suggested Austria should build some new special centers where immigrants could be “concentrated.” (You know, centers or something where foreigners could be concentrated, git it? Ha, ha!)

A new regulation is also needed [according to Kickl in 2018] for basic services - namely centers in which asylum seekers are to be accommodated together. Kickl speaks of "basic care centers". He could not understand the excitement about the topic. "Not every place where many people live together is a mass quarter. ..." He said that keeping those who are waiting for an asylum procedure "concentrated" in one place should ensure that the procedures are shortened. … According to him, the fact that he uses the word "concentrated," of all things [because of the echo of the Nazi concentration camps is not a provocation. "This accusation alone can be seen as a provocation," he says in response to questions from journalists. [my emphasis] (2)

That Kickl, he’s a man after Stephen Miller’s own heart! No word, though, on whether those two would consider each other worthy of being considered part of the Herrenrasse.

One of the many things about expulsions of immigrants that xenophobic demagogues like to avoid talking about is repatriation agreements. If you are going to send “illegal” immigrants to another country, even the country they came from, it requires the receiving country to take them. Normally, this is regulated by repatriation agreements. That’s a not-particularly-secret aspect of the “third-country solutions” European politicians use as a way to look like they are doing something substantive about unauthorized immigration. It’s also the reason they typically don’t work. Except as a short-term political stunt.

The idea is that an asylum-seeker wants to come to Country X (US, Germany, Italy, wherever). According to current international law, if someone comes to a country, with or without a visa, and requests asylum, that country is required to legally process the asylum request. The xenophobes make maximum rhetorical use of this fact to declare asylum seekers “illegal” because they entered the country without a legal visa. But the international asylum laws, largely based on the post-Second World War experience in Europe, require that the country to which they come and request asylum to accept their residence in the country as legal during the time the asylum request is processed. So someone who crosses the border into the US “illegally” and requests asylum is then legally in the US during that processing period.

The “third-party solution” is based on the idea that asylum-seekers would be sent to a third country for the processing of their asylum claims. If the claim is rejected, theoretically would deport them back to their country of origin. But even if it is done in such a way that doesn’t technically violate international refugee law, it doesn’t work if there aren’t solid repatriation agreements inn place. There can be effective third-party solutions, at least on a temporary basis, like the one the EU concluded with Turkey in 2016 that ended what was (rather hysterically) called the “refugee crisis” of 2015-16. But even that arrangement only functioned that way for a few years, because no practical, formal long-term solutions were put into place. The Deutsche Welle report below relates how it largely fell apart in 2020.

Britain’s Tory government pulled one of these crackpot schemes with their plans to export unwanted refugees to Rwanda. It had the short-term advantage of sounding like they were both rejecting the non-white refugees that ethnonationalists hate and of punishing and degrading them. Because to most American and British voters, Rwanda is a place somewhere deep in Black Africa – and far away from Europe - where there was a bloody genocide 20 or 30 years ago. The current Labour Prime Minister Keir Starmer had the good sense to shut that program down. In fact, “No asylum seeker was ever sent, with the first flight cancelled after legal challenges in June 2022.” (3)

The Labour leader [Starmer] said he would end the "gimmick" of deporting migrants arriving in the UK illegally to Rwanda, which was established by the previous Conservative government.

Labour campaigned on a manifesto pledge to scrap the scheme, which has already cost around £310m, promising a more effective approach to tackling illegal immigration to replace it.

At his first press conference since entering Number 10, Sir Keir told journalists: "The Rwanda scheme was dead and buried before it started."

He argued the scheme has "never been a deterrent" as it would only deport "less than1%" of small boat arrivals. (4)

The EU itself is currently running a similar scam with an agreement with Tunisia to house asylum-seekers. Eve Geddie of Amnesty International EU explained in 2023:

It seems no lessons were learned from the EU’s cooperation with Libya, where the bloc’s support for Libyan security forces has made it complicit in an infrastructure of abuse against migrants and refugees, including torture, rape, enforced disappearances, unlawful killings and arbitrary detention. A recent U.N. investigation found that this may even amount to crimes against humanity.

… the EU’s agreement with Tunisia also risks legitimizing Saied’s assault on rule of law and his ever-increasing repression of dissent. In the lead-up to the deal, European leaders grew increasingly silent as the Tunisian president dismantled nearly all institutional checks on executive power, issued decrees restricting free speech and granted himself powers over the judiciary. The Tunisian authorities subjected scores of critics, opponents, lawyers, journalists and judges to arbitrary criminal investigation and restrictive measures, or jailed them. (5)

Of course, for European ethnonationalists, the cruelty and death are a feature, not a bug. When immigrants and refugees are framed as “invaders” presenting a mortal danger to the receiving country, the brutality of it is satisfying to hear about, though usually it’s couched in terms of unfortunate but grim necessity. Centuries of colonialism have provided a lot of practice in practicing respectable callousness.

This Deutsche Welle report features Austrian migration expert Judith Kohlenberger of the Wirtschafts Universität in Vienna. (6) Don’t miss Meloni in female Mussolini mode in this video.

Italy’s “post”-fascist Prime Minister Giogia Meloni worked out such an “third-party” arrangement with Albania, It was (shamefully) backed by European Commission President and conservative German politician Ursula von der Leyen.

Just a month after the much-publicised opening, only 24 asylum seekers have been sent to Albania, and none remain there now; five spent less than 12 hours in a detention centre, while the rest stayed for just over 48 hours.

All were transferred to Italy after Italian judges deemed it unlawful to detain them in Albania prior to repatriation to countries, such as Bangladesh and Egypt, considered “safe” by Rome. In doing so the judges were upholding a 4 October ruling by the European Union’s court of justice (ECJ) that a country outside the bloc could not be declared safe unless its entire territory was deemed safe.

Italy’s embarrassment over the scheme, attacked by opposition parties as a “complete failure” that will cost about €1bn (£830m) over five years, has sparked a row between the authorities and the judges, who have been accused by far-right parties of obstructing the project. (7)

No one should be naïve about the fact that the cruelty involved is intentional. And the illegality is intentional. Refugee hysteria is currently the single most salient issue the far right in Europe and the US are using to undermine the rule of law. Which is why it’s foolish and irresponsible for center-left or center-right parties to try to practice xenophobia-light. A message of “We hate the foreigners, too, really! We hate them even more than the righttwingers do!” has consistently over the last decade resulted in strengthening the far-right’s xenophobic and anti-democratic message.

Very sadly, the US Democratic Party, from the Obama Administration to the Biden Administration to Kamala Harris’ Presidential campaign tried to do just that. That’s one major reason that Donald Trump will become President again in January 2025.

By the way, Meloni’s Albania scheme isn‘t that popular: “As it looks likely to face further legal challenges, however, the deal is becoming a fiasco. According to a recent poll, 55% of Italians dislike it.” (8) Maybe if the Italian center and left parties start fighting for an actual liberal-democratic approach to the problem, they might win more of the votes of that 55%.

The German sociologist Oliver Nachtwey, who has researched the phenomenon of political authoritarianism, comments on Meloni’s stunt:

When people, as is now the case in the USA, are so indifferent and cynical towards their democracy and also towards individual freedom, I think it is incredibly worrisome. The tones in the migration debate in Europe are also disturbing. This desire for camps at the external border! The Italian head of government Giorgia Meloni is effectively building a concentration camp in Albania - and that is then also welcomed throughout Europe? This inhumanity, this regression from civilizational standards, should concern us all. [my emphasis] (9)

Another German sociologist, Wilhelm Heitmeyer, uses the term “respectable callousness” (rohe Bürgerlichkeit) to describe this kind of attitude to which Nachtwey refers. Heitmeyer considers rohe Bürgerlichkeit to be especially common among self-conscious authoritarians, i.e., people who have a strong desire to boss other people around. (10)

Racist and xenophobic demagoguery cannot be defanged with me-too imitations. They have to be opposed with reality-based politics. No, that does not mean advocating “open borders,” which nobody but a few crackpot libertarians support anyway. It means insisting on honesty, legality, and practicality in approaching immigration issues. Mimicking Donald Trump’s sleazy and dishonest rhetoric about immigrants (“They’re eating the dogs! They’re eating the cats!”) is never going to be a strategy to diffuse xenophobia. The real world of politics doesn’t work that way.

And for those serious about defending liberal democracy, including the essential rule of law, have to fight for basic human rights and legality. The Trumpistas and Orbánists of the world want to destroy them.

One last time: the EU’s “Tunisia” plan is not just a cruel one but also a phony solution. Reality-based policies look very different.

Wolfgang Münchau’s Eurointelligence reported in 2023:

Kais Saied, Tunesia’s president, is a believer in the great replacement theory, and is keen to preserve the Arab-Muslim nature of his society. His xenophobic views and actions prompted African leaders to organise repatriation operations for migrants who felt in danger. In Europe, few leaders even noticed what was going on, too focussed [sic] on finding solutions to their own migration problem. …

Saied can also use the situation to pressure the EU into giving him the money without any conditions attached. He does not want to reform the government, nor abolish subsidies on certain products as the IMF has requested. We always warned that deals like the ones the EU struck with Turkey, and now with Tunisia, are a pact with the devil. They invite devious behaviour on both sides without solving anything. As long as Europe’s governments feel trapped between losing out to the far-right in their home countries and making deals with autocrats that make it look like they are doing something to deter migrants from coming towards Europe, this will remain Europe’s Achilles heel. [my emphasis] (11)

As noted above, the EU agreement with Turkey did function more-or-less well, as far as it went, for four years. But it was not replaced with a solution that would work well over a longer period without the kind of drawbacks deals like the one with Tunisia have.

Notes:

(1) Ganz, John (2024): The Plot Against Citizenship: The 14th Amendment in Danger. Unpopular Front 11/19/2024. <https://www.unpopularfront.news/p/the-plot-against-citizenship> (Accessed: 2024-19-11).

(2) Hagen, Lara (2018): Kickl will Flüchtlinge "konzentriert" an einem Ort halten. Der Standard 01/11/2018. <https://www.derstandard.at/story/2000071880249/asyl-fpoe-kickl-will-fluechtlinge-konzentriert-an-einem-ort-halten> (Accessed: 2024-19-11). My translation from German.

(3) Bullen, Poppy & Bartram, Naomi (2024): Rwanda Plan explained: Why the UK Government shouldn’t be sending refugees anywhere. International Rescue Committee UK 07/19/2024. <https://www.rescue.org/uk/article/rwanda-plan-explained-why-uk-government-should-rethink-scheme> (Accessed: 2024-20-11).

(4) Francis, Sam (2024): Starmer confirms Rwanda deportation plan 'dead'. BBC News 07/06/2024. <https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cz9dn8erg3zo> (Accessed: 2024-20-11).

(5) Geddie, Eve (2024): In Tunisia, the EU is repeating an old and dangerous mistake. Politico EU 09/21/2023. <https://www.politico.eu/article/eu-team-europe-tunisia-president-kais-saied-ybia-refugee-migrant-crisis/> (Accessed: 2024-20-11).

(6) How the EU is selling out on migration. DW News YouTube channel 06/01/2024. <https://youtu.be/ZJxpEqrMuGc?si=UjO4jEjbx38cCbMD> (Accessed: 2024-20-11).

(7) Hollis, Jennifer & Gizani, Tarak (2024): Asylum-seekers: Is EU-Tunisia like UK-Rwanda? DW News 04/26/2024. <https://www.dw.com/en/asylum-seekers-is-eu-tunisia-like-uk-rwanda/a-68932703> (Accessed: 2024-20-11).

(8) Tondo, Lorenzo (2024): Italy’s Albania asylum deal has become a political disaster for Giorgia Meloni. The Guardian 11/14/2024. <https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/nov/14/italy-albania-asylum-deal-complete-failure-giorgia-meloni> (Accessed: 2024-20-11).

(9) Nachtwey, Oliver (2024): „Sie wollen die Demokratie in Flammen aufgehen sehen” [“They want to see democracy go up in flames.”] (Interview). Der Spiegel 47 (10.11.2024), 18-20. My translation from German.

(10) Heitmeyer, Wilhelm (2018): Autoritäre Versuchungen, 87. Berlin: Suhrkamp.

(11) Tunisia's double game. Eurointelligence 09/20//2023. <htps://www.eurointelligence.com/> (Accessed: 2023-25-09).