The backlash against immigration calls for rational, pragmatic policies

IT is becoming clear that immigration policy has become central to the political debate in many countries today, and that the failure by governments to handle the issue is challenging the status quo in those nations.

Indeed, the growing political backlash in Europe against waves of hundreds of thousands of refugees from the Middle East has already had a dramatic impact on the politics of France, Britain and Germany where the population of Muslim immigrants has been growing.

First, against the backdrop of rising terrorist acts perpetrated by radical Islamist groups such as the one that took place in Paris last November, there are concerns that some of the migrants from the Middle East could add to the existing security threat. At the same time, the images of young men - mainly asylum-seekers from the Middle East - sexually assaulting women in Cologne on New Year's Eve, raised doubts about whether European societies can absorb large numbers of immigrants from cultures that do …