How Europe Got Tough on Migration

When Nicola Procaccini was elected to the European Parliament six years ago, colleagues seemed to avoid stepping into elevators with him at the towering glass Parliament building in Brussels, he said. He belonged to a tiny, fringe party on the right of Italian politics whose hard-line stances on immigration were scorned.

“My hand would hang midair because they don’t shake hands with fascists,” Mr. Procaccini said in an interview, derisively characterizing how he thought his opponents saw him. Meanwhile, migrant rights activists were invited into the Parliament chamber and cheered.

Now those tables have turned, he said. “Those who told us our approach was racist, xenophobic, are slowly starting to say, ‘Well, maybe they’re a bit right,’” Mr. Procaccini said, noting that mainstream politicians are now embracing more of his party’s policies on migration.

Mr. Procaccini’s party, Brothers of Italy, is now very popular in Italy. Its leader, Giorgia Meloni, is the country’s prime minister. And Mr. Procaccini is a chairman of the European Conservatives and Reformists group, a big force in the European Parliament.

Across the political spectrum in Europe, leaders, right and left, are pushing a tougher line on undocumented migrants. The shift has not set off the same turmoil that President Trump’s immigration crackdown has stirred in the United States, but it is already being seen as entrenched and profound.

In nations across the European Union, centrists are joining staunch conservatives to roll back protections in an effort to make it easier to deport illegal migrants. Denmark’s “zero” refugee policy has become a model other leaders want to replicate. European Union officials are working on new rules that would help to send asylum seekers to third countries. The bloc struck a recent deal to deploy agents in Bosnia and Herzegovina, which is not an E.U. member, to better police borders.

Illegal border encounters