Courtesy of Daniel Pipes:

The illegal immigration of non-Western peoples, I predict, will become an all-consuming issue in every Western country.

As Western birth rates plummet, as communication and transportation networks improve, and as radical Islam increasingly rears its aggressive head, Europeans, Americans, and others worry about their economic standards and the continuity of their cultures. After ignoring this issue for decades, reactions in Europe especially have sharpened of late.

* The French lower house of parliament passed a tough new immigration law. * Austria’s interior minister, Liese Prokop, has asserted publicly that 45% of her country’s Muslim immigrants “cannot be integrated,” and admonished them to “choose another country” in which to live. * The Dutch minister of immigration, Rita Verdonk, has withdrawn citizenship from Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a Muslim-born immigrant who became renowned as a critic of Islam.

But the most dramatic, agonizing, and consequential developments for immigration to the West are taking place along the remote west coast of Africa. The area has emerged as a main springboard for would-be emigrants to access the riches of Spain and then all Europe.

West Africa’s role is a new one. Until late 2005, emigrants gravitated to Morocco, in part because, separated by the Straits of Gibraltar, it is a mere eight miles away from Europe. Also, they could easily sneak into the Spanish enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla. At worst, they could reach the Canary Islands, a Spanish territory 70 miles off the coast of West Africa. All of these served equally well as a gateway to all of Europe.

read more...

Sphere It