Coming to America: African Mass Migration and Open Borders
Mass migration from Africa poses several challenges and costs for Western countries. Europe has been the traditional continent of choice for Africans, given its greater proximity to Africa and its generous welfare states.
Throughout 2023, over 150,000 people entered Europe illegally from Africa. However, the European Union (EU) has taken action to try and stem the tidal wave of African illegal mass migration. This has included deals with third countries such as Tunisia and Libya, and wide-ranging policy changes agreed upon in late 2023 on speeding up removals of failed asylum seekers. This has been coupled with the election of parties that dramatically seek to reduce immigration, such as Geert Wilders’ party in the Netherlands. There is also strong polling for migration restriction parties for this year’s continent-wide European Parliament elections. As Europe begins to crack down on African mass migration, African migrants have turned their eyes to America.
Until very recently, African immigration to America has been relatively light compared to Europe. In the year 2000, just 600,000 African-born immigrants lived in the U.S., barely 0.2 percent of the then-total population. However, the current open borders crisis in America has meant that many African would-be illegal immigrants have seen a golden opportunity to enter our nation illegally. Mexican immigration authorities counted over 50,000 Africans in their territory in 2023, with nationals of Senegal and Guinea being the largest groups. These migrants bide their time in Mexican border towns before crossing the U.S. border. As in Europe, many of the African migrants are intent on making bogus asylum claims. In Europe, 73 percent of asylum applicants from Guinea and 81 percent of asylum applicants from Senegal are rejected. This seems to confirm that these nationalities have no realistic claim to asylum, but invoke it anyway to take advantage of the significant benefits offered to applicants.
The number of African migrants has shocked America and caused issues in border towns like Lukeville, Arizona, which has seen huge surges in African migrants, most of them reportedly military-aged males. Their prospects of integration in America, if the experience of integration of illegal African immigrants in Europe is anything to go by, is not encouraging. Some Senegalese migrants in Spain have turned to selling counterfeit goods. Europe’s tourist sites have seen aggressive and sometimes violent harassment by illegal African vendors, and guides show tourists in Italy how to avoid this. In France, tourist sites such as the Eiffel Tower have seen a series of rapes against tourists by migrants from Africa. In Britain, an asylum seeker from Niger was jailed for burning down a hostel when he felt his asylum claim was not being processed to his liking. In Sweden, over 19 percent of rape convictions between 2000 and 2015 were African migrants. While these are extreme examples, and most migrants (African and otherwise) do not behave this way, this European experience of mass illegal African immigration does not sound overly optimistic for America, and is worthy of public examination and debate.
In August 2023 in Buffalo, New York, an asylum seeker from the Democratic Republic of Congo, Kindu Jeancy, was charged with rape. Also in New York, a Senegalese man with links to terrorism was arrested in New York, but only after he had been initially released into America after illegally crossing the border in October 2023. In January 2024, leaked documents from U.S. Border Patrol showed illegal aliens from Guinea were using fake passports, editing their dates of birth so they can claim to be minors and exploit loopholes for immigration related to minors.
Africa faces many problems, and the international community continues to try and help, with mixed results. Mass migration of Africans to Europe and America cannot be any kind of solution to the continent’s many problems, and frequently serves to simply export those problems to our own shores while conveniently serving as pressure valves to relieve socio-economic discontent for many corrupt governments throughout the world. There are many Africans who have made America home legally, and who make a positive contribution. However, the current wave of illegal mass migrants will not be good for Africans or Americans.