Xenophobia is growing globally
On Saturday night, Nov. 25, three Palestinian immigrants—Hisham Awartani, a student at Brown University; Tahseen Ahmed, Trinity College; and Kinnan Abdalhamid, Haverford College—were shot by a white man with a handgun in Burlington, Vermont, as they were heading to dinner.
Two of the victims were wearing keffiyehs, a traditional headdress worn by people from Palestine, and they were speaking in Arabic, according to the Arab American Anti-Discrimination Committee.
The man, according to police, didn’t say a word before he fired at least four times at the immigrants, two of whom are U.S. citizens and one a legal resident. Two were in stable condition on Sunday night and the third was critical after suffering much more serious injuries.
The shooting comes as the U.S. deals with a surge in Islamophobic and antisemitic incidents, including violent assaults and online harassment, since the Israel-Hamas conflict began on October 7. That war has also led to the murder of a 6-year-old Palestinian American boy who authorities allege was stabbed 26 times by his landlord in response to escalating right-wing rhetoric about the Israel-Hamas war.
While the war has triggered hate on U.S. soil, the xenophobia against immigrants continues to grow globally.
In Dublin, Ireland, last Friday night, racist extremists fought street battles with police in an anti-immigrant riot triggered by the stabbing of three young children and an adult female caregiver outside the children’s school in the heart of the city. Irish police are questioning an Algerian man, believed to be “a naturalized Irish citizen, who has lived here for 20 years,” in the attack. There have been ongoing protests across Ireland against asylum centers amid a housing crisis—many hotels and guest houses have been converted to asylum accommodation, leading to protests by people in towns being affected by lower tourist income.
The irony is that Caio Benicio, an immigrant from Brazil, helped to disarm the suspect. But this was ignored by rioters who saw only “invasion” by foreigners.
Rising migration across Europe is fueling support for far-right and anti-immigration parties, much like here in the U.S.
Nationalist parties that champion a harder line against immigration are surging in polls and have entered governments in countries from Italy to Finland. In the Netherlands, the recent electoral win by Geert Wilders, the Dutch far-right leader who has championed draconian policies against immigration and Islam, reflected how intractable the issue of migration remains in Europe, including France and Australia.
In the UK, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has vowed to “clamp down” on immigration in the face of growing Tory anger, as official figures showed net migration is running at a record high: Annual net migration to the United Kingdom hit a record of 745,000 last year and has been at elevated levels since.
These xenophobic policies are not just in western nations. The Pakistani government has cracked down on undocumented migrants and began mass deportations to Afghanistan.
Anti-immigrant sentiments are also on the rise in Cyprus, Turkey, and Tunisia.
Back here in the U.S., most of the candidates in this year’s 2024 Republican race for the presidential nomination mirror hard-line immigration policies set by the front-runner, former President Donald Trumpeto.
This includes support for building a wall along the Southern U.S.-Mexico border and ending birthright citizenship for American-born children of undocumented immigrants—a protection that is enshrined in the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
This is happening as protests continue in many cities across the U.S. and the U.S. Customs and Border Protection sees an increase in encounters with migrants at the southern U.S. border, from nearly 2.4 million encounters in fiscal year 2022 to 2.5 million in fiscal year 2023.
Neo-Nazis recently openly protested against immigrants in the shelter system in Marlborough, Massachusetts, and proposals to empower state law enforcement to deport asylum seekers for illegal entry and increase mandatory minimum sentences for human smuggling are now being considered in Texas.
All of this points to a rise in hate globally, the U.N. said just last month, and with it, xenophobia as climate change forces immigrants out of their countries to seek economic opportunities elsewhere.
The writer is publisher of NewsAmericasNow.com, the Black Immigrant Daily News.
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