Immigration skepticism goes mainstream in Europe

Immigration is the most vexing political problem in Europe these days and guess what: It’s no longer a preoccupation only of the so-called far right. This weekend centrist Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk became the latest European leader to try to slam the Continent’s gates shut.

Mr. Tusk announced that Poland soon will stop accepting asylum applications from new border crossers. Several thousand migrants, often from the Middle East and Africa, attempt to enter Poland every month. Yes, the same Poland that is nowhere near the Middle East or Africa.

Many of these are economic migrants. But once on Polish soil they can short-circuit the normal process of obtaining a work visa while still in their home country by applying instead for asylum. Claiming persecution in home countries triggers a long and expensive legal process to evaluate the claim during which they can stay in Europe, often at taxpayer expense.

Mr. Tusk is especially concerned that Belarus, in thrall to its patrons in the Kremlin, is encouraging migration flows to destabilize a stalwart North Atlantic Treaty Organization member. He’s right. The Belarusian regime of Alexander Lukashenko, presumably in cahoots with people-smuggling gangs, actively ushers migrants to the Polish border. Finland this year also has cracked down on such “weaponized migration” across its border with Russia.

Partly this is a tale of Russia’s harassment against NATO, but the bigger problem is that a growing segment of the public no longer supports European asylum law. Those rules were developed after World War II to ensure the democratic world would never again turn its back on the world’s vulnerable people, as too many countries turned away Jews and others fleeing the Nazis.

Yet asylum law is becoming a route to circumvent the normal rules for immigrants seeking economic opportunities rather than fleeing persecution. Existing laws, and the advocates, bureaucracies and judges that enforce them, are too slow and ineffective at separating genuine asylees from economic migrants.

Pointing this out used to be the preserve of the insurgent right. The concern has gone mainstream now, as centrist politicians realize voters are serious about the issue. Berlin last month reimposed checks at Germany’s previously unguarded borders with other European Union countries in order to “further limit irregular migration.” France, Austria, Italy, Sweden and others have done the same. A particular problem is migrants forum-shopping asylum applications.

Mr. Tusk is the centrist politician who displaced the right-wing Law and Justice Party in elections last year to European Union applause. Brussels criticized his announcement, citing “international and EU obligations,” but Mr. Tusk answers to Polish voters now.

Those voters, and their neighbors around Europe, are losing patience. A Europe of shrinking and aging populations needs more economic immigration, but voters will never support it as long as their governments can’t enforce the rules that currently exist. Even members of the EU’s elite political club such as Mr. Tusk are starting to figure this out.