The issue of “immigration” has now reached a critical mass on both sides of the Atlantic, with Latin Americans marching on the U.S. across the southern border and mostly Muslim “migrants” trekking to the European version of El Norte — France, Germany, and England — for the same reason: because that’s where the money and the free stuff is. The media is presenting what amounts to a slow-rolling invasion of the hemispheric North by the South as a “crisis,” and it is, just not the way they’d have you believe. In the greatest concerted propaganda exercise in history, newspapers, television outlets, and the internet in both America and Europe are filled with pictures of crying children separated from their “parents” (maybe), and Africans bobbing helplessly on dinghies in the Mediterranean — as if some great natural disaster had occurred.

It has. Under the buzzword cloak of “migration” — a word especially chosen to remind Americans of their legal immigrant forebears, and Europeans of their collective lack of “diversity” — is a relentless assault on national sovereignty and political borders. It’s cudgeled by “racism” and blessed by “tolerance” in order to achieve the Left’s goal of One Worldism in its purest form — a cultural-Marxist endeavor to improve the self-esteem of the Third World by bringing the industrialized, civilized First World down to its nasty, brutish level. In the meantime, they mean to swamp the legitimate immigration and asylum systems of both continents, render them helpless, and break them. Structures that had been put in place to deal with individuals, or with persecuted groups of people, have suddenly been targeted as the soft underbelly of Western compassion — the Cloward-Piven strategy writ large.

In the U.S., the long, porous border with Mexico, once a point of pride (as the undefended border with Canada is today, although that too is changing), is now a sore spot, as the social, religious, and cultural disintegration of our neighbor to the south has destabilized not only Central America, but the American southwest as well. The States have become a primary source of Mexican income, in the form of remittances, and it was only a matter of time before other failing and failed states like El Salvador and Honduras, would start exporting their problems north. As the Left became culturally ascendant in America, and the social welfare benefits expanded accordingly, the great American magnet grew ever stronger, luring not only those fleeing the dysfunction and corruption of their own countries, but a sizable criminal element as well, symbolized by the lethal presence of the MS-13 gang — Salvadorean, by way of Los Angeles — on Long Island.

In Europe, Angela Merkel’s disastrous decision three years ago to allow (beg for, really) more than a million Muslim “migrants” into her country has put the Old Continent’s postwar certainties to the test, and has pitted its secular liberalism and social-welfare system against a group of largely inimical cultural aliens, whose “faith” has been challenging once-Christian Europe for more than a millennium, and which now sees a way to accomplish by infiltration what it never quite could by force of arms. Only in Eastern Europe, with its long experience of Islamic occupation and, more recently, Soviet communist occupation, was there a realization from the start the future of Europe depended on keeping Muslims on their side of their bloody borders. Otherwise, there will be no Europe.

I spent a week in Budapest recently, and during my conversations with members of prime minister Victor Orban‘s circle, I was impressed at how seriously the Hungarians are taking their age-old duties as Christian defenders of Europe’s eastern borders, and how determined they and the other members of the Visegrád Group are not to fall for the “refugee” scam, nor to have their manifest Christianity challenged by bogus claims of “tolerance” and “compassion” for people who, over the centuries, have shown them neither.

Their resolve is now paying off: with no stake in the future, the communist-raised, childless Merkel is a spent political force. She rode the wave of post-World War II German self-loathing, and imported an army of technologically backward layabouts into a country whose workforce has long been distinguished by its high level of education and its willingness to work hard. The results, to any student of history, have been entirely predictable — and now, thankfully, Merkel is finished.

Merkel may, by now, regret standing for re-election last year. There was a suspicion that she only did so to put things right in Euroland and ensure the history books would commend her open-door policy towards refugees. If so, that was a catastrophic misjudgment. The tide has now turned on migration — in Germany and across Europe. Those making the case for an open Europe are haunted and chastised. They are losing elections. Italy’s new coalition of left- and right-wing populists is a fiesta of political contradictions, but they share one simple goal: to stop the migration population from growing. They have little sympathy for Merkel and feel no obligation to offer help in her hour of need. As far as the Italians can work out, the verdict is in: Merkel was wrong and she’s lost. Until recently, it was assumed that Merkel would last until the next German elections in three years’ time. Now, many are betting that she won’t even make it through the summer. Merkel asks for patience, but the CSU can’t afford to be sanguine given that it represents Bavaria, where frustration with her migration policy is at its greatest. Merkel says that Seehofer’s plans to turn back any migrant who has claimed asylum elsewhere in Europe would hurt EU solidarity. But Seehofer says he is certainly acting in solidarity, with Italy and Austria. There are now two kinds of European solidarity now: the Merkel type and the Kurz type. To survive, Merkel must find a way to reconcile the two, but she is perhaps the only leader in Europe who thinks that is still possible. The last few years have underlined the growing importance many voters place on the nation state and its borders.

*****

The weapons wielded by the Left against the nation-state — which is the repository of patriotism — are primarily linguistic, beginning with the very word “immigration.” They’ve removed, for example, the distinction between legitimate immigrants and illegal aliens. The former come here as individuals and small families, through legal channels, desirous of becoming Real Americans, casting off the old ways and raising their children in the new culture; the latter arrive in invasie waves, intent on violating our laws from the moment they first set foot in the United States, and then either disappearing into “sanctuary” cities and states, or claiming “asylum” not from religious or cultural persecution but from the messes they left behind. In Europe, Merkel’s “welcoming society” deliberately thumbed its nose at the EU’s policy mandating that “asylum seekers” seek asylum in the first EU country in which they arrive.

That has meant places like Hungary and Italy, where fleets of non-governmental organization (NGO ) vessels ply the Mediterranean water just off the coast of old Roman Africa, ready to “rescue” alleged refugees practically from the moment they set out to sea. For now, it appears that merely the wish to partake of German or British welfare is enough to get you ferried gratis across the Mare nostrum — or at least it was until recently.

Italy is seeking to have seven boats carrying roughly 1,000 migrants needing rescue off Libya taken back to North Africa, according to a Spanish aid group. Proactiva Open Arms, which has rescued thousands of migrants in the Mediterranean, said the Italians want the Libyan coast guard to conduct the rescues and return the migrants. Proactiva said in a tweet that Italian coast guard authorities who coordinate rescues sent out advisories to all ships in the area but told the aid group: ‘We don’t need your help.’ In a tweet on Sunday, hard-line interior minister Matteo Salvini said: ‘It’s right that the Libyan authorities intervene, as they’ve been doing for days, without having the NGOs interrupt them and disturb them.’ It comes days after Salvini refused to let a rescue boat with 224 migrants on board dock in Italy, saying those on board ‘will only see Italy on a postcard’. Salvini said the ship, operated by German aid group Mission Lifeline, had loaded the migrants in Libyan waters against the instructions of Italy’s coast guard.

Meanwhile, in Austria, the country’s youthful new chancellor, Sebastian Kurz, has announced new policies to deal with the unwanted presence of large numbers of radical Muslims within the Gates of Vienna:

Austria’s new government, which includes the far-right Freedom Party, has started a clampdown against “political Islam”, announcing the closure of seven mosques and plans to expel up to 40 imams from the country. Chancellor Sebastian Kurz announced the move at a joint press conference with leaders of the Freedom Party in Vienna on Friday, saying it followed the abuse of Austrian laws prohibiting the foreign financing of religious communities, as well as other violations of basic values. The steps will affect imams who receive financing from Turkey, according to the government. Four out of the seven mosques targeted are in Vienna. Mr Kurz said Austria took pride in its cultural diversity but warned that “parallel societies have no place in our country”. He became chancellor in December after striking a coalition agreement with the Freedom party, which is one of Europe’s most established nationalist and Eurosceptic political movements.

Meanwhile, here in the States, the Trump administration is riding high with the Supreme Court’s upholding of the “Muslim ban,” and the increasing aggressiveness of ICE’s enforcement actions. In fact, Border Patrol agents are even conducting random checks of cars and inquiring about citizenship. This, of course, has brought howls of outrage from the usual suspects, among them CNN:

Far from ground zero in the Trump administration’s crackdown on illegal immigration along the southern border, US Customs and Border Protection checkpoints on highways in Maine and New Hampshire are catching the eye of civil liberties groups. On Interstate 95 near the remote northern Maine town of Lincoln this week, the Border Patrol said it made nine drug seizures and two arrests for immigration violations during an 11-hour checkpoint operation in which agents asked motorists about their place of birth and citizenship status. The federal agency — one of several at the center of a growing humanitarian crisis involving 2,300 children separated from their parents at the Mexico border — said in a statement that Wednesday’s checkpoint in Maine was “a means of preventing smuggling organizations from exploiting existing transportation systems to travel to the interior of the United States.” Customs and Border Protection says the US Supreme Court has affirmed the agency’s ability to ask motorists’ citizenship status, even if they have no suspicion. Agents use training and questions to make decisions about a traveler’s citizenship or residency, it said.

Which is the way it should be, given the concerted effort by those who wish the U.S. harm — including home-grown agents provocateurs who bear little love for their own country — to flood the nation with “immigrants” for the sole purpose of rearranging the nation’s ethnic balance and to recruit hordes of new Democrat voters. Our northern border is as porous as our southern, and Canada already has a surfeit of radical Muslims happy to come south for a short stay. Maine and New Hampshire are not “far from ground zero” as CNN would have it: they are, along with San Diego, Nogales, and Brownsville, ground zero as well.

*****

The hysteria culminated last week with this cover on the once-august Time magazine:

This is a piece of propaganda worthy of the old Soviet Union, and a disgrace to the memory of the now-zombie newsweekly, and really all you need to know about the depths to which the mainstream media will sink in its death throes. It also got this well-deserved reaction from press secretary Sarah Sanders:

It’s shameful that dems and the media exploited this photo of a little girl to push their agenda. She was not separated from her mom. The separation here is from the facts. Dems should join POTUS and fix our broken immigration system. #ChangetheLawshttps://t.co/Y6KrTp4Ulk — Stephanie Grisham (@PressSec) June 22, 2018

Trump later poured some oil on the Left’s self-immolating dumpster fire by observing that the “immigrants” are not entitled to the American justice system by virtue of their having committed a crime in the first place. He’s correct: they should be treated as unarmed invaders, and entitled to nothing but a presumption of prima facie guilt:

President Donald Trump said on Sunday that people who enter the United States illegally should be sent back immediately to where they came from without any judicial process, likening them to invaders who are trying to “break into” the country. His proposal drew immediate criticism from legal analysts and immigrant rights advocates who said it would violate the U.S. Constitution’s due process provision, which applies to citizens and non-citizens alike.

But it does not apply to enemy combatants captured in a time of war. And war is what the international Left has declared on national sovereignty both here and in Europe.

In a series of tweets on Sunday, Trump said: “We cannot allow all of these people to invade our Country. When somebody comes in, we must immediately, with no Judges or Court Cases, bring them back from where they came.” “Cannot accept all of the people trying to break into our Country. Strong Borders, No Crime!” It was unclear if Trump was advocating an expansion of the provision that allows expedited removals of illegal immigrants at or near the U.S. border, a policy his administration has embraced since he took office. Nor did Trump differentiate between illegal immigrants and people who entered the United States to seek asylum protection. The White House did not return a call seeking clarification.

What this entire saga on both sides of the Atlantic illustrates so vividly is the Left’s simultaneous contempt for the rule of law and its pettifogging insistence on “due process” for people who would have absolutely no entitlement to it had they remained in their home countries, as well as its reliance on emotionalism, real or faked, to subvert the territorial and population integrity of the U.S. and the European nation-states. At the first sign of pushback, they cry “racism,” which has long been their all-purpose rejoinder to anyone bold enough to mock their selfish moralism.

Then again, for the Left, “racism” is anything they want it to mean, even when — as with the “Muslim ban” — it has nothing to do with race. But that’s the Left for you, always projecting their own fearful racial stereotypes on others: mention the word “Muslim” and they immediately see a swarthy, sinister Arab in a burnoose, instead of a cultured Persian or a jet-setting member of the Ismaili sect, such as the Aga Khan.

But the times they are a-changing. Spain has recently had both a change of government (to a Socialist) and a change of heart abut being played for suckers by non-governmental organizations who hide behind their do-gooder images as they merrily try to destabilize nations that have survived for hundreds if not thousands of years —

Spain today refused to accept a charity boat carrying 230 migrants, arguing that the country cannot be the ‘sea rescue organisation for all of Europe’ amid growing acrimony within the EU over how to deal with migrants seeking asylum. The socialist government in Madrid took the hard line during the second international stand-off over a migrant boat in a week – sparked by the populist government in Italy’s refusal to accept any more rescue vessels from Libya. Tensions within the EU over migration have dramatically increased over the past month, with Angela Merkel facing calls for a crackdown that could bring her government down, and several feuds between France and Italy over the correct course of action.

Merkel’s fall is now inevitable, as is the hapless Theresa May’s in Britain, a leader so inept that she can’t even extricate her fading country from the clutches of the EU, despite having unequivocally voted to Leave two years ago. With Italy and Spain now tilting against “migrants,” the remaining handful of European nations still harboring the diversity delusion will find themselves increasingly swamped by Afghanistan and the Levant, while the rest of Europe shuts its borders in a last-ditch determination to defend its Western heritage.

This is not intolerance, or racism, or xenophobia (which can sometimes be very useful) but prideful self-preservation. That the Left attacks the most basic human instinct, and demands that we give it up and submit meekly to the knife, tells you all you need to know about them — and why we have to fight them.

The time to start is now.