Cogito Ergo Non Serviam

Migrants Pose Minimal Security Risk for Europe

Europe has an immigration problem on its hands that seems to grow worse by the minute. People flee places like Syria and Libya, and the EU is definitely a better place to live and raise a family, so that's where they go. This has sparked a nativist backlash, and parties like UKIP, France's National Front and Italy's Northern League are channeling this proto-racism into the mainstream of national and European politics. One of the big arguments they make is that groups like ISIS could use the wave of immigration to place terrorists inside the EU. This argument has everything going for it except a factual basis; it is neat, plausible and wrong.

Thanks to the nativist parties of Europe, otherwise responsible leaders of the EU are saying that there might be a security threat. After all more than a third of a million non-Europeans arrived in the latest wave as of the end of July, and this month hasn't seen the pace slacken. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg told reporters in May: "Of course, one of the problems is that there might be foreign fighters. There might be terrorists also trying to hide... to blend in among the migrants."

It sounds scary, but it is the stuff of bad post-Cold War spy fiction. Claude Moniquet, a former French intelligence agent who heads the European Strategic Intelligence and Security Center in Brussels, said, "Islamic State has no need to export fighters to Europe because it imports fighters from Europe." The headlines are daily reporting on some foolish kid or starry-eyed idealist who has flown from suburban Europe to ISIS-land via Turkey or some similar weigh station. The flow the other direction is quite arduous.

Coming in as a refugee, on a boat out in the middle of the Mediterranean, is going about it the hard way. "It is a very cumbersome way for terrorists to come into the European Union. There's a lot of easier ways to slip in" according to Magnus Ranstorp, research director with the Center for Asymmetric Threat Studies at the Swedish National Defence College. A stolen or forged passport and an airline ticket work much better.

The real threat is not from an Arab or Berber posing as a refugee but rather it comes from EU passport holders who are currently fighting on behalf of the jihadis. Mr. Moniquet stated, "There are five to six thousand Europeans who are, or have been, in Syria, and others are leaving all the time. So it's hard to see the advantage for Islamic State to export Syrians or Iraqis -- people who speak Arabic, who know Iraq and Syria, and who they need over there."

Besides, ISIS and others don't need to send anyone. The home-grown, lone wolves offer ISIS a risk-free asset in the EU. Mr. Ranstorp stated, "The volume of people in contact with Islamic State -- not only the ones who've gone [to Iraq and Syria], but sympathizers who decide to act [in Europe] -- that's what's keeping security services awake in Europe."

Of course, there are no votes for the hard right is saying that. The great irony is that, by arguing as they do that the refugees could be terrorists, the nativists are actually taking attention away from the genuine threats posed by EU passport holders and those who are coming into the EU more or less through the front door.

© Copyright 2015 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Ubuntu Linux.



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