The only practicable solution to the problem of mass illegal migration is to make it unmistakably clear that no illegal immigrant will be admitted under any circumstances and that those who make it halfway will be returned to the countries from which they embarked. Anything short of that absolute prohibition is an incentive to wretchedly poor people to risk setting sail in old tubs. Such firmness sounds harsh. But a seeming compassion that encourages people to take such risks is far harsher. [Death on the High Seas, April 23, 2015]

So Europe needs to take two tough decisions — and then think about solving the migration crisis long-term. First, it must establish a joint program for returning migrants to their country of origin outside Europe. Second, it must deep-six Schengen in order to control the movements of migrants within Europe. Once it’s done those things, it can think about how to change the Third World kleptocracies that generate the flows of desperate migrants. That kind of thinking might involve some dangerously forbidden thoughts of a semi-imperialist nature. But unless the EU decides to scale down Schengen, even if “temporarily,” it will be telling us that it has decided not to do any thinking at all.

John O'Sullivan, writing in National Review, understands what has to be done in the Mediterranean,He also makes the point that internal migrant control within the EU must be reinstated.The problem is that the Left's treatment of the refugee crisis isn't really about the refugees, it's about Europe. The Left (and the economist Right) want to abolish the idea of Europe itself. The migrants are a tool to that end, not an end in themselves. Anything short of unlimited immigration (with the government paying the costs of settlement) will be seen as racist.

Thus, to use Rahm Emanuel's phrase of never "let a serious crisis go to waste," the migrant crisis is an opportunity for the Left to push for...

Suzanne Moore at The Guardian shrieks that the language of "genocide" has entered the mainstream debate on immigration [ On immigration, the language of genocide has entered the mainstream , April 20, 2015]

She's right. But it's directed against Europeans by people like her.