Putin’s “migration bomb” didn’t work: here’s why – breaking latest news

Vladimir Putin’s Migration Bomb Didn’t Work: refugees from Ukraine have had no destabilizing effect in Europe. Nor did the waves of famine migrations that were to invade Europe from the southern hemisphere materialize.

Perhaps the issue of immigration will lose some of its explosive potential even in the next US presidential campaign? In fact, Joe Biden, while praising Poland for its reception of Ukrainian refugees, at his home renews Donald Trump’s restrictive measures. Biden’s bet is this: to demonstrate that immigration can be controlled, regulated and maintained within the observance of the laws. Moreover, in recent years, the reduction in migratory flows to the United States has coincided with a marked improvement in workers’ wages, also to the benefit of ethnic minorities such as African Americans.

The latest news about the war in Ukraine, live

Putin wanted an encore in 2015 and more votes for sovereigns

Let’s start with the migrants that Putin had to throw at us to destabilize us. One of the scenarios explicitly evoked in 2022 by Russian geopolitical experts was this: the war in Ukraine would have created a shock wave of refugees as collateral damage, with destabilizing effects on European governments, similar to those that occurred in 2015 with the mass arrivals from Syria and Afghanistan.

The sudden influx of millions of Ukrainian refugees was supposed to create reactions of rejection, and move votes in favor of national-populist parties which, among other things, are also pro-Putin. Ditto for the side effects on the southern hemisphere. The war in Ukraine, by creating food shortages and hyperinflation, was to generate famine, new mass misery, and another migratory shock wave from Africa to Europe, also with destabilizing political and social effects on democracies. None of that happened. Now we can add the demographic bomb to the list of many doomsday prophecies that have been blatantly denied by the facts. There

Welcoming Poland: two million Ukrainians

Migratory pressures from the South of the planet have not increased substantially during 2022. As for the Ukrainian refugees: yes, there have been, but without provoking rejection reactions. The emblematic case is Poland, because it is the country that has welcomed the largest number.

During 2022 almost ten million refugees crossed the border between Ukraine and Poland, a very high number also in proportion, given that Poland has only 38 million inhabitants. For the data on border crossings between the two countries include multiple transits, and many of those refugees returned to their homes as soon as possible. At the end of 2022, there were… only two million Ukrainian refugees in Poland. This provides a first explanation as to why Putin’s population bomb has not had the political effects he hoped for.

Receiving countries such as Poland perceive immigration from Ukraine as a temporary emergency, because to a large extent it is. Ukrainians are fleeing Putin’s bombs and missiles but want to return to their country and rebuild it as soon as possible. As for those who remain, even the two million Ukrainians still in Poland have not triggered reactions of rejection. Here the factor of cultural affinity weighs. Compared to Syrians or Afghans, Ukrainians integrate and are accepted more easily. Not that there is no shortage of problems: the Second World War has left a legacy of terrible memories of the atrocities committed by Ukrainian troops on Polish soil. But today’s Ukrainians appear culturally homogeneous, Europeans ready to accept the rules and values ​​of the host country. The integration between similar is easier, it’s normal that it is. Migrants from Islamic countries, on the contrary, were often bearers of incompatible systems of values ​​- just think of the role of women – or of ideologies openly hostile to the West. Putin’s calculation did not work, and this despite the fact that in Warsaw there is a conservative government, anything but favorable to immigration.

Biden at home: semi-closed borders?

Biden praised the reception capacity of the Poles (in the photo: in Warsaw with President Andrzej Duda). But that earned him quite a bit of controversy at his home. The left of the Democratic party accuses him: you applaud the Poles but you close the borders. I am referring, for example, to a letter signed by four senators from the Democratic party (Bob Menendez and Cory Booker of New Jersey, Alex Padilla of California, Ben Ray Lujan of New Mexico) who contest Biden’s latest decisions on immigration. Indeed, these reveal a continuity with Donald Trump’s policy.

Apart from the construction of the Wall with Mexico, a mostly symbolic operation (and already started by Democratic President Bill Clinton a quarter of a century earlier), Trump’s most effective action to contain illegal immigration was the Title 42 rule. It was a decree that allowed the expulsion with a very direct procedure of those who illegally crossed the border into the United States. To win the appeals and overcome objections of unconstitutionality, Title 42 had been motivated by the pandemic: it was a question of preventing the entry of any Covid carriers, and this cut short the legal objections by invoking the government’s authority in health emergencies.

Now that the pandemic ended, Title 42 could not continue. Biden replaced it with essentially identical legislation: allows expulsion with a fast procedure of those who cross the border illegally without having first notified an asylum request. It is an attempt to stem the boom in illegal entries that occurred in 2022, and which according to the Republicans was encouraged by the lax messages of the Democratic party on the subject of immigration. Last year there were two million illegal border crossings, according to data from the Border Patrol, the border police.

Biden wants to defend himself against the accusation of having created chaos at the borders and of having contributed to a new invasion of undocumented foreigners, with all the problems that entail. With the pre-existing procedures, i.e. with the normal rules on the right of asylum in force before Title 42, many illegal immigrants once they reached the territory of the United States lost track of them, became untraceable while waiting for the appropriate courts to dispose of the procedures and controls on their cases. Whenever the conditions for asylum were found to be lacking, expulsions were rarely carried out, because those concerned had disappeared.

Legal immigration resumes

Meanwhile for Biden he is trying to reactivate regular migration flows. During 2022, your Administration issued 7.3 million visas, from temporary work permits to open-ended Green Cards. Legal immigration back to pre-Trump levels. Biden’s challenge is to demonstrate that migratory flows can be governed: in order to balance the needs of the labor market with that of legality, order, the sense of security of citizens.

There is tremendous pressure from the corporate world to increase visa concessions. The labor market close to full employment, unemployment fell to 3.4% of the workforce, the lowest level in 53 years. Entrepreneurs complain of the difficulty in filling vacancies: for every unemployed person there are two job offers available. For the competition among employers to recruit workforce has a beneficial effect: the highest wage increases for forty years, concentrated above all in the lowest segments i.e. workers in the tourism-hotel sector, restaurant waiters, delivery boys, bricklayers in the ‘building.

The entire working class, both traditional and new, reaps the benefits of reduced immigration. These jobs rewarded with the highest pay rises are heavily represented by ethnic minorities such as Blacks and Latinos. Two electoral constituencies that in recent years had seen a hemorrhage of votes for the Republican party, and which Biden hopes to recover.