Time for Some Myth-Busting About Immigration

Immigration is now a major political issue. And one of the obstacles to a proper, transparent public debate about this issue is a series of myths about immigration that are perpetuated by the political class and by many journalists. So in this video, I'd like to bust six myths about immigration.

Myth #1: It’s better to hand control over immigration to a transnational authority.

The first myth is that it's better to hand control over immigration to a transnational authority. And this myth is particularly commonplace in Europe. You'll hear it said that it's going to be chaos if we don't have a central coordinating authority. But of course, there's an ambiguity here, because it's one thing to say that we need some kind of international coordination, and quite another thing to say that nations should be handing decisive control over immigration to a transnational authority that would decide exactly how many migrants they should take, under which conditions, and so on.

That is essentially what we have with Europe's migration pact. But national governments must retain the prerogative to admit or not admit migrants, because the conditions in each country are unique and distinctive, and the people of each country deserve a say over who gets to come in and who doesn't get to come in, and which criteria should be applied, and whether their public services and their housing infrastructures are prepared for the numbers of migrants who are coming in.

Myth #2: Any filter applied to the admission of migrants is a form of unjust discrimination.