A poll by the Royal Institute of International Affairs (RIIA, also known as Chatham House), the British sister organization to our Council of Foreign Relations (CFR), taken a month before President Donald Trump issued his temporary suspension on refugees, showed widespread and increasing support among Europeans for his actions. Across all 10 of the European countries polled, 55 percent of those polled agreed that all further immigration from “mainly Muslim” countries should be stopped while only 20 percent disagreed. In no country did those disagreeing exceed 32 percent.
The results were “striking and sobering,” according to Matthew Goodwin, writing for the RIIA. Trump’s ban “has been interpreted widely as an attempt to curtail the inward migration of Muslims, which Trump and his supporters argue pose a threat to national security.” Those supporters include “leaders of Europe’s populist right-wing parties, including Geert Wilders, Nigel Farage and Matteo Salvini [who] have heaped praise on Trump.” The results of the poll “suggest that public opposition to any further migration from predominantly Muslim states is by no means confined to Trump’s electorate in the US but is fairly widespread [across Europe].”
The news was even worse for those worshipping at the altar of internationalist “solutions” to the refugee “problem.” Wrote Goodwin: “There was also a widespread perception in many countries that the arrival of refugees would increase the likelihood of terrorism, with a median of 59 percent across [those] ten European countries holding this view.”
A Reuters/Ipsos poll taken just a week earlier should have given the globalists fair warning: That poll found that half of American adults polled said they either “strongly” or “somewhat” agreed with Trump’s executive order, with a third of those polled feeling more safe because of the temporary ban, and 38 percent saying they thought Trump was setting “a good example” of how best to confront terrorism.
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The internationalists thought they had “fixed” things back in September when the United Nations hosted the Summit for Refugees and Migrants, which resulted in the “New York Declaration.” According to the UN, the refugee issue was an opportunity to push for more globalist intervention, “with the aim of bringing countries together behind a more humane and coordinated approach.” It was “a historic opportunity to come up with a blueprint for a better international response. The Summit was a watershed moment to strengthen governance of international migration and a unique opportunity for creating a more responsible, predictable system for responding to large movements of refuges and migrants.”
The New York Declaration had lofty goals, to be implemented by force. They included:
• Support[ing] those countries rescuing, receiving and hosting large numbers of refugees and migrants;
• Ending the practice of detaining children for the purposes of determining their migration status;
• Strongly condemn[ing] xenophobia against refugees and migrants and support a global campaign to counter it;
• Find[ing] new homes for all refugees identified by [the UN High Commissioner for Refugees] as needing resettlement, and expand the opportunities for refugees to relocate to other countries; and
• Strengthen[ing] the global governance of migration by bringing the International Organization for Migration into the UN system.
The New York Declaration constituted a “minor miracle” claimed the UN High Commissioner, representing “a revival of multilateralism as an antidote to isolationism” and “a truly remarkable achievement in today’s complex and retrogressive climate.”
The polls are showing a much different attitude toward the international planners’ proposed mandates. Dr. Jeff Crisp, writing for Chatham House, commented on the unhappy change reflected by the polls: “It therefore seems inconceivable that an expansion in global resettlement numbers — a key objective of the New York Declaration — will be attained.”
In addition, President Trump has already targeted U.S. contributions to the UN for some serious budget-cutting. Decried Crisp: “The UN High Commissioner for Refugees, which currently receives around 40 percent of its resources from Washington, DC, is likely to be on the sharp end of this process. In such circumstances it will be extremely difficult to [accomplish the objectives] as envisaged by the Declaration.”
The ripple effects of the president’s executive order and its complimentary support from Europeans who are even closer to the refugee “problem” and its terrorist implications are already being felt. Trump’s order has effectively negated implementation of the New York Agreement and is threatening the very existence of the UN agency seeking to implement it. Not bad for an executive order that hasn’t even been fully carried out.
An Ivy League graduate and former investment advisor, Bob is a regular contributor to The New American magazine and blogs frequently at LightFromTheRight.com, primarily on economics and politics. He can be reached at [email protected].
