ArcaMax

PARIS – Here in Europe this week, a tsunami of an estimated tens of thousands of migrants suddenly overwhelmed a tiny Spanish enclave in North Africa within just 24 hours. Thankfully, it doesn’t happen every day. Oh wait, actually it does.

Hundreds of thousands of both legal and illegal migrants flow into Western nations every year. Spain itself just granted amnesty to undocumented migrants, with a million having already applied.

Elsewhere, we’ve been told that we’re racist to oppose mass migration. Nothing much has changed since that was the original justification for bumping up migration in the US under the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act.

Concocted right smack in the middle of the civil rights movement, the policy was meant to show those evil Soviet critics of “racist” America how enlightened America actually was – by doing something very non-racist but also very stupid: importing the entire world and its grievances. Until then, migration had mostly been limited to Europeans. And as all of us living here in Europe know, there’s zero diversity. Which is why we all agree on absolutely everything, all the time.

It makes you wonder how many other dumb things the West was goaded into doing simply because it felt that it had something to prove to Soviet critics. As a former competitive swimmer, I learned much later that the heavy daily mileage that even sprinters were forced to endure in the 1980s and ’90s, blowing out our shoulders with injury “because the Soviets were doing it,” wasn’t actually what the Soviets were doing.

And then came the globalization excuse for migration, starting in the 1990s. Want to compete with the industrializing developing world? Better steal their workers – anyone willing to come help boost gross domestic product as cheaply as possible. That’s still what it’s all about. And no nation is immune. Which explains why even modern-day Russia has recently loaded up with the cheapest possible foreign labor from former Soviet satellite states. That’s the globalist game – play it or perish. Let only those who have been to Moscow recently and had a ride-hailing driver from Baku try to put a hand on their leg – or been asked by one, as he careened past Red Square, “Do you like sex?” – cast the first stone. (Just give me a second to limber up with my bad swimming shoulder.)

It’s still all the rage to keep importing cheap foreign labor while simultaneously assuring your own citizens that nothing about their country is changing.

U.S. President Donald Trump made deportations a hallmark of his re-election campaign, and went so far as to produce the Immigration and Customs Enforcement smackdowns for his demo reel – right up until realizing that no one wanted to actually see this particular movie with real guns being used on real people. Now, Trump’s deportation enthusiasts are left feeling like they’ve been scammed. Meanwhile, Trump has increased seasonal labor, adding another 65,000 guest workers for 2026, as Reuters reported in January.

In Canada, temporary workers and students have been staging protests and somehow managing to appear to be porking up on hunger strikes, all because “temporary” or “guest” apparently sounds like a decent proposition right up until the time that you’ve settled in and don’t feel like moving off the couch to go back home.

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney didn’t mince words, saying that they needed to go back. Unfortunately he’s been far less direct when talking about the overall need to cut back on migrants – speaking mainly about how he’s been cutting back on quotas in various categories.

It’s only recently that he’s become much more courageous in his assertions, finally admitting in a press conference just a few days ago that immigration was “far too high,” and that the previous government had “lost control” – indirectly referencing the chef d’oeuvre of Justin Trudeau: the prime minister turned pop video extra currently dating entertainer Katy Perry and last spotted with his hand down her top in Saint Tropez.

Not only did Carney finally admit that migration has contributed to a housing crisis, but also that “a few more years of restraint” were needed. Really? Try a generation or two. Why is that so difficult to admit?

Actually, I know why. It’s because they’re worried about all the migrants already in-country who won’t vote for them if they feel like their ability to chain migrate their entire family into the country and onto the state-funded health care plan is jeopardized. Which is why Carney has just “paused” intake in the “Parents and Grandparents” sponsorship program.

The what, you say?

I’ve been in France for nearly 20 years now, and not once did it ever occur to me to import my Canadian parents. Because they have their own lives as grown adults. Why is this even a thing? And why are many Canadians rightfully aghast to just find out now that they’ve been paying taxes all along to fund medical treatments for the elderly of the entire planet?

The answer isn’t a temporary pause on migration – it’s a straight-up ban. And while you’re at it, how about some public inquiries into all these businesses that can’t seem to function under the labor laws of the countries they serve without undermining not just their cultural fabric but also their long-term national and economic security.

The scenes in Spain may be exceptional, but they depict a reality that’s overwhelmingly the norm.