The European Union is pushing for countries to deport more migrants who are deemed ineligible to stay in the bloc, with a top commissioner noting that only 21 percent of such migrants are actually sent home.
During a news conference on Tuesday at the European Parliament in Strasbourg, EU Home Affairs Commissioner Ylva Johansson, who is well known for her pro-migration views, urged more deportations.
“Last year we had a return rate of only 21 percent of those who are not eligible to stay, those who are not in need of international protection. And when we fail to return people, this hampers our system and erodes trust. To protect the right to apply for asylum, we have to show that we are appropriately dealing with those who do not qualify for international protection,” she said.
However, the EU has mostly paid lip service to the issue. Many migrants have arrived in Europe due to poor border security and Brussels’ refusal to support the policies of countries like Hungary that advocate a series of reforms to strengthen Europe’s immigration system.
Nevertheless, Europe’s left-liberal establishment is worried about growing anti-immigration sentiment, which has seen conservative governments come to power in Sweden and Italy.
Johansson does not say that the EU should slow migration, but instead argues that the bloc needs more legal migration while deporting those migrants deemed problematic or deemed ineligible to stay in Europe. One of the key problems has been countries outside Europe, known as “third countries,” refusing to take back their migrants.
“We need to have better cooperation with third countries to improve these rates, and we are improving in several of (the) third countries, we are seeing better cooperation, and we are stepping up on the returns. But we can also do much better on our own side, in member states and together with the (European) Commission and our agencies. And you all know that we need migration, but it has to be in a legal and orderly way.”
Johansson has long been an advocate for mass immigration into Europe, saying Europe “needs” more immigrants. In a speech from 2020, she said, “We need fewer irregular arrivals and instead have more regular arrivals. That’s why we have to focus on legal pathways both for migrants to come to contribute to our economy and for refugees that need international protection.”
She is pushing for the EU on Migration and Asylum, a plan that National Rally parliamentary leader Marine Le Pen has labeled “the suicide of Europe.” It would add up to 75 million non-European migrants to Europe each year.
Many of the African and Middle Eastern migrants flowing into Europe over the last decades have become a major source of crime, poverty, and in some cases, also terrorism. French President Emmanuel Macron admitted last year that half the crimes in Paris are committed by foreigners, and some experts argue that figure is actually much higher. This same trend is playing out in Germany, Switzerland, Spain, Sweden and many other Europe countries.
Johansson and many left-liberal leaders in Europe, and even some conservative parties, such as the Tories in Britain, are pushing for more skilled workers from countries like India and China — the same type of workers who are quickly replacing White Europeans in medical, accounting and computer science jobs in countries like the United States, Canada and Australia. However, even as the EU demands hundreds of thousands of these types of workers, the irregular migrant flows show no sign of slowing down, which has put pressure on Europe’s housing market and driven citizens in welcoming countries like Germany to sour on more arrivals.
In fact, the situation regarding deportations appears to be growing worse — not better. As Remix News reported in 2020, the data showed then that only 38 percent of migrants slated for deportation were actually deported from Europe. Johansson herself says that in 2022, it was only an astounding 21 percent.
If she truly wants more deportations, she is also likely to be disappointed. Even in countries like France, where anti-immigration sentiment is sky-high and national-conservative parties are only growing in popularity over the issue, there has been little done to ramp up deportation. After 13-year-old schoolgirl Lola was found stuffed in a suitcase after being raped, tortured and murdered last year by an Algerian migrant, the data showed that only 0.2 percent of rejected Algerian migrants were actually sent back home. Macron and the French government, responding to public pressure, said they would suspend visas to North African countries that refused to take back their migrants, only to quietly drop this scheme mere months later.
