Amid growing discontent with immigration, polling evidence across Europe and the US points to increasing voter support for a previously unmentionable idea: mass deportations.

A majority of Americans, 51%, now support mass deportations, including 45% of Latinos and 42% of Democrats, a Harris poll revealed last week. In an earlier poll, Gallup found support for deporting all illegal immigrants hovering around 20% between 2006-15, with an additional 14-17% wanting illegal migrants to be allowed to stay temporarily while working during those polling years.

The swift change in public opinion came after years of record-breaking illegal immigration, with Americans feeling the effects far away from the border. About 3.2 million illegal immigrants were encountered by border patrol in 2023, more than double the figure from 2019. Migrants have strained the resources of large, blue cities including New York and Chicago, where residents and Democratic leaders have called for the federal government to slow the stream of migrants.

Immigration has become the single greatest public concern of the upcoming presidential election, with Democrats now in the position of calling for border security in their campaigns, a far cry from the fierce reaction to Donald Trump’s 2016 promise to “build the wall”. Trump, meanwhile, has promised “the largest deportation operation in American history” if he’s elected in November.

The US isn’t alone in its growing focus on migration: throughout Europe, anti-immigration sentiment has been growing for years.

In the UK, annual immigration has been rising significantly since 1994 and has approximately doubled since 2019. The Rwanda bill became law this week, serving to deport migrants with weak claims to asylum. The bill had slight net popularity last June, but a more recent poll found that scrapping the legislation was slightly more popular than pushing ahead with it. This shift may reflect the public’s weariness over the legislative process rather than a loss of appetite for deportations, however.

French President Emmanuel Macron came out against the legislation, calling it a betrayal of European values. Meanwhile, Macron has been pushing for immigration restrictions at home, supporting a bill that will speed up deportations, delay welfare benefits for migrants and make it more difficult for them to bring their families to France. He has also argued that the country has “an immigration problem”.

Annual immigration to the European Union from non-EU countries more than tripled from 2013-22, rising above five million migrants per year. The European Parliament voted in favour of rules this month to make it easier to deport asylum seekers who have misled authorities, who present a security risk or who do not have a legitimate need for international protection.

The measure received praise from German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who has called for “large-scale” deportations of migrants whose asylum claims have been rejected. Germany is itself seeing a surge in popularity for its Right-wing AfD party, particularly among young people, thanks to its opposition to immigration.

Countries that have embraced mass migration in recent decades are now backtracking, largely in response to surges in crime. In Sweden, migrants are 2.5 times likelier to be registered as a crime suspect than those born to two Swedish parents, while those born in the country to non-native parents are 3.2 times as likely, according to government figures. Sweden already offers funding to help migrants repatriate to their countries of origin, and is considering ways to encourage more voluntary returns.

After decades of mass immigration, it is now becoming politically mainstream to support large-scale returns for migrants throughout much of the West. Passing the Rwanda bill and building the border wall in the US — still an incomplete project — have been uphill battles, but future migration crackdowns could look different.

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is UnHerd’s US correspondent.

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