ITALY'S recent decree making it easier to expel illegal immigrants has produced storms of protest and some strange political alliances in Rome. Dissident members of the ex-communist Democratic Party of the Left have teamed up with some Roman Catholic hierarchs to oppose the crack-down. The dissidents' colleagues have found common cause with the federalist Northern League and the League's arch-rivals, the post-fascist National Alliance: they support the bill. Erminio Boso, one of the League's senators, wants the government to take "footprints" of immigrants, says the police who have to deal with them should use rubber bullets and thinks expelled immigrants should leave on military aircraft because they smell and might rape the stewardesses on commercial airlines.

Views like these may not be widespread in Europe (though Jacques Chirac, before he became France's president, also once complained about immigrants' "smell"). But similar rows over immigration have taken place just about everywhere.

In Britain, the government has been seeking to send back asylum-seekers from Nigeria and wants to fine employers who hire illegal immigrants. This proposal has led to accusations of racism and snooping, though every other West-European country has similar laws. France's interior minister, Jean-Louis Debré, wants to make erring employers bear the cost of sending illegal employees home and pay hefty fines. His government has stuck to its predecessor's aim of "zero immigration" and has refused to implement the Schengen agreement stipulating passport-free travel among its signatory countries.

In once-liberal countries, the gates are clanking shut. The Swedish government wants a bill (not yet published) to make it harder for the huddled masses from the grimmer parts of the world to find a haven. Holland has brought its laws into line with other European countries. It now allows in virtually no new immigrants, except relations and asylum-seekers. It is also sending back migrants from countries which the Dutch claim are free of political repression. These countries include Iran. And in not-liberal Austria, Jörg Haidar's populist Freedom Movement, which could hold the balance of power after this month's parliamentary election, has just said it wants to ban all immigration. In short, migrating to practically every country in Western Europe has become a lot harder in the past few years. It looks like becoming harder still.

Fear of fear

One reason is fear of "economic migrants" coming either from ex-communist countries in Eastern Europe, or through them from countries farther east. This is amplified by fear of Islamic fundamentalism, especially strong in France, where terrorist bombings have killed seven people and wounded more than 170 since July.

The other reason is mutual distrust among West European countries themselves, particularly the nine signatories of the Schengen accord. The French are refusing to implement the agreement because, they say, terrorists might escape the vigilance of some of their co-signatories; Greek and Italian frontiers, in particular, have been notoriously porous. (In truth, France's hostility predates its latest experience of terrorism and owes more to the right-wing National Front's criticism, on racist grounds, of Schengen.)

Germany, which has steadily tightened its immigration laws, is still trying to plug its eastern borders. Last year more than 43,000 people from 74 countries were caught trying to slip in illegally through the Czech Republic alone. Tens of thousands of others probably made it. Estimates for the number of illegal immigrants run to over 4m just for France, Germany, Britain and Italy.

Roughly speaking, about a third of migrants to Western Europe in the past decade or so have been asylum-seekers, a third have been economic migrants, and the rest have been relations following along. Since Yugoslavia broke up, the number of asylum-seekers from the Balkans has soared. So tighten-ing up asylum laws has been one way to curb immigration. The European Union's members recently agreed to narrow the definition of who may qualify for asylum. Even the 800,000 or so people who have fled to the EU from former Yugoslavia may soon be under pressure to go back.

An alternative is to bribe migrants to stay at home, by giving aid to the countries that send their job-seekers to Europe. That is one justification for France's determination to prop up Algeria's shaky government. It is also how Spain, prodded by France, has managed to stem the flow of north-bound Moroccans.

Italy's new decree is the kind of measure increasingly taken when this sort of policy is not enough. Boating over from Albania to Italy, then proceeding north to Switzerland, Austria and Germany, has been a popular route to the rich employment fields of northern Europe for people from the Balkans and the Middle East. Those caught have usually been freed pending their return home, whereupon they have headed north even faster. Of the 36,000 immigrants served with expulsion orders in the first nine months of this year, only 4,000 are known to have left the country. Now they will be kicked out more promptly. Asa sap to immigrant-helping charities, illegals will have four months in which to show that they are, or have recently been, gainfully employed. They may be granted residential status, provided that employer and employee pay a backlog of social-security payments. Otherwise, out. It is a message being beamed from all over Western Europe.