Trump’s Tough Stance on Colombia Deportation Flights Galvanizes Anti-Migrant Momentum in Europe

President Trump didn’t exactly send a memo on immigration management to France and Germany, the two countries at the heart of the European project, but they just got one anyway — via Bogotá. While it is too soon to say whether Mr. Trump’s hard line on Colombian illegals will be replicated elsewhere, there are early indications that it might be.On Sunday, according to the White House, Colombia’s president, Gustavo Petro, had acquiesced “to all of President Trump’s terms, including the unrestricted acceptance of all illegal aliens from Colombia returned from the United States, including on U.S. military aircraft, without limitation or delay.” The statement added that “the visa sanctions issued by the State Department, and enhanced inspections from Customs and Border Protection, will remain in effect until the first planeload of Colombian deportees is successfully returned.”If Europeans were riveted by the election campaign, they are now watching almost breathlessly as the Trump agenda unfolds at a rapid pace, with the issue of illegal immigration one of the most relatable issues for citizens of Western Europe. The showdown between Washington and Bogotá over deportation flights was over almost as quickly as it started — but in terms of the impact on how things might get done in the near future in some countries where immigration dominates national politics, the fuse has been lit. In remarks to reporters on Monday, the president of France’s National Rally, Jordan Bardella, said that the French should be “taking inspiration from what Donald Trump did with Colombia,” adding that “We have been struggling to resolve the Algerian question for 30 years. In a few hours, Trump resolved the Colombia question through a policy of diplomatic firmness which allows American interests to be respected.”Since Algeria gained independence from France in 1962, relations between the two countries have often been fraught. In the latest chapter, French authorities expelled an Algerian social media influencer who they said was inciting violence, but after only a few hours back in Algeria, the Algerian authorities sent him back to France. The French interior minister, Bruno Retailleau, accused Algiers of seeking to “humiliate” France. Sarah Knafo, a member of Éric Zemmour’s rightist Reconquête (Reconquest) party, stated on X, “By forcing Colombia to give in to its refusal to take back its criminals, Donald Trump achieved in two hours what France was unable to achieve in 20 years. These pressure measures are in the Reconquest program. Let no one tell us that it is unrealistic!”The French political class is increasingly fed up. The president of the rightist Union of the Right for the Republic (UDR) party, Éric Ciotti, asked on X, “What is the government waiting for to make Algeria bend? We can freeze visas, stop treating their leaders, choose other gas suppliers, repeal the 1968 Franco-Algerian accords…political will means changing things.”Things are changing faster in neighboring Germany, where a federal election is less than a month away. The leading candidate for chancellopr is the conservative Friedrich Merz of the Christian Democratic Union. Herr Merz has been a fierce critic of the meek Social Democrat and current chancellor, Olaf Scholz, even though the latter has in recent months taken a more assertive stance on illegal immigration. For many Germans, though, Herr Scholz didn’t go far enough. At a rally near the Danish border on January 20, Mr. Merz told his audience that “Das werden wir nicht schaffen” — “We can’t do this” — a clear rebuke of Angela Merkel’s declaration, at the height of the Syrian refugee crisis in 2015, that “we can do this.”Two days after he spoke an illegal immigrant killed two people, including a two-year-old child, in a knife attack at Aschaffenburg, in northern Bavaria. That attack followed many other knife attacks in recent months in which the assailants were identified as illegal immigrants, and it happened while memories of the Magdeburg Christmas market attack are still fresh. Little wonder then that, following the Bavarian incident, Mr. Merz called out “the damage of 10 years of misguided asylum and immigration policy in Germany.”These are some of the nuances to the German election campaign that might be lost on outsiders like Elon Musk, who has come out swinging, perhaps prematurely, for the hard right AfD party. The reality is that Mr. Merz is steadily pushing the German center to the center right. That is where a majority of voters, thirsty for change, are likely to be when ballots are cast on February 23. There is no doubt some big changes are coming Berlin’s way — after that, Paris and its fellow Euro confrères will not want to be left behind. This is der Trump-effekt, and it’s just getting started.

Trump’s Tough Stance on Colombia Deportation Flights Galvanizes Anti-Migrant Momentum in Europe

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