Immigration policy and far-right rhetoric are increasingly linked across Europe. In recent months, several governments on the continent have approved or are weighing stricter laws for migrants and asylum seekers that echo far-right principles, even where such parties do not govern. The trend forms part of a broader model of what some describe as a Europe-wide pattern. Yet some laws still fail to deter those seeking a better future, and studies suggest this trend normalizes and legitimizes extreme-right propositions, potentially thickening their electoral support.
In the United Kingdom, the Conservative government under Rishi Sunak proposed measures to speed up deportations, including the controversial plan nicknamed the “Bibby Stockholm” floating prison. Asylum seekers would wait longer for decisions, and the government introduced an emergency law to move migrants to Turkey or Rwanda after earlier court defeats. In Germany, the Social Democrats under Olaf Scholz pursued rapid deportations and expanded preventive detention for irregular migrants from ten days to twenty-eight. In France, debates in the National Assembly were set to ease deportations, tighten asylum rules, and enforce stricter conditions for family reunification.
These measures join a longer history of efforts to limit irregular migration through fences, detention facilities that resemble prisons, and the outsourcing of border controls to third countries. Countries like Tunisia, Libya, and Turkey are repeatedly cited, where concerns about human-rights protections are raised.
The long arc of policy alignment
The alignment of immigration policies with far-right agendas dates back more than thirty years, tracing to the rise of such parties in the 1990s. Tjitske Akkerman, a researcher at the University of Amsterdam, notes in the CIDOB Migration Yearbook 2018 that far-right parties have influenced migration policies across the EU, with traditional parties often responding to the electoral appeal of hard-line positions. The question persists: what do ultras think about their electoral victories?
In Spain, scholars argue that restrictive measures predate the far right’s ascent. Blanca Garcés of CIDOB points to the Melilla fence and the Africa Plan of 2006 as early experiments in externalizing borders to regulate flows from sub-Saharan Africa. The pattern of copying extreme approaches gained momentum after the 2015 refugee crisis when about a million people fled conflict in Syria, Afghanistan, and Iraq. Eastern Europe, in particular, adopted harsher rhetoric and legislation. Germany, previously known for openness under Angela Merkel’s slogan Wir schaffen das, gradually tightened controls as part of this broader shift. Today, Berlin and neighboring capitals show similar restrictive dynamics.
A visual reminder appears in photo captions such as the image of a fence at the Belarusian border, underscoring the ongoing securitization of migration.
Fight for the narrative
Experts observe that the far right has won the battle of storytelling, casting immigration as a threat to values, the economy, and culture. This framing makes migration feel like a crisis that must be halted. HRW’s EU-focused defender of human rights, Claudio Francavilla, argues that many government experts across Europe see this assimilation of extreme ideas in both traditional right-wing and some newly formed left factions. Sahra Wagenknecht’s break from Die Linke embodies the complexity of left-right shifts on asylum policy. Francavilla critiques the EU migration and asylum pact and related agreements with Libya and Tunisia, suggesting they prioritize expediency over human rights guarantees. MSF’s Xavier Crombé highlights rising violence in transit countries, where migrants report abuse, sexual violence, and dangerous detentions. Felix Braunsdorf from MSF Germany regrets that past accords did not include robust protections, warning that the EU again appears complicit in rights abuses when such deals are pursued.
Questionable results
The outcome of these policies often does not reduce arrivals. Frontex data for the first ten months of a recent year showed an 18 percent rise in irregular border crossings at the EU’s external frontiers, the highest such increase in that window since 2015. In the UK, irregular crossings rose by about 17 percent between mid-2022 and mid-2023. HRW cautions that when people face desperation, barriers do not stop them from trying to reach Europe. On the other hand, legitimizing harsh far-right proposals tends to normalize them in public life, potentially turning them into vote-getters for traditional parties as a way to project toughness rather than effectiveness.
A Cambridge University study published in 2022 by Werner Krause, Denis Cohen and Tariq Abou-Chadi shows that tougher immigration policies do not guarantee a reduction in far-right support. In fact, such measures can reinforce demands to curb immigration and ultimately normalize the broader far-right discourse. Francavilla, Crombé, and Braunsdorf advocate changing the anti-immigration narrative, urging a return to positive messages about immigration and more reasonable, humane policies. As a humanitarian organization, MSF emphasizes the burden of rising human suffering and calls for policies that protect life and minimize health risks for migrants.