Immigration, it turns out, is not just a U.S. issue.
In recent years, Germany and the U.K. both experienced the biggest surges in immigration in their history. The share of residents born outside Germany rose from just over 15% in 2017 to a record high of 22% in 2024, according to government data.
Most European immigrants now come from majority-Muslim countries in the Middle East and North Africa. They arrive with separatist religious and cultural values antithetical to the very places where they seek refuge. Many are anti-Western everything and have no interest in assimilating.
The result is countries that have become unrecognizable and increasingly unstable. Native-born citizens suffer as housing, infrastructure, healthcare and government budgets are overwhelmed. Violence and crime have surged. Citizens are fed up and ready to punish the ruling elites who have allowed this to happen.
“Populist Right-Wing Parties Lead Polls in Europe’s Biggest Economies: Surge in immigration and weak economic growth spark voter backlash in France, the U.K. and Germany“
Far-right and anti-immigration parties are already part of the government in countries such as Italy, Finland and the Netherlands. But this year, they are ahead in opinion polls in Europe’s biggest economies at the same time.
In France, which has the largest Muslim minority in Europe, the anti-immigration National Rally (RN) has evolved from a fringe protest movement to the country’s largest single party in the National Assembly, France’s lower house of Parliament.
In the U.K., the anti-immigration Reform UK, led by the former Brexiteer Nigel Farage, has surged and is now comfortably ahead in polls of both the ruling Labour Party and the opposition Conservatives.
In Germany, the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) has been neck-and-neck with the ruling center-right Christian Democratic Union in polls since the start of the year.
Trump and the MAGA movement have led the way. They have given European citizens hope and, more importantly, courage to ignore liberal accusations of xenophobia and actively defend the cultures they love.