Immigration, Justice and the Hypocrisy of the West

The most dangerous political weapon of our time is immigration. In Europe, in the United States, across the western hemisphere, politicians win votes by turning desperate migrants into enemies. They stoke fear, point fingers, and claim that men, women, and children seeking safety are somehow threats to civilization, labelling it a crisis.

Immigration is not a crisis; it is a mirror. A mirror reflecting the lies, the hypocrisy, and the arrogance of the West. Politicians wave flags, stir fear, and claim migrants are threats. But let us be clear: today’s migrants are not coming to conquer. They are coming to survive. They are coming to build a future for themselves and their families.

And here lies the hypocrisy: when Western adventurers crossed seas to Africa, Asia, and the Americas, they did not come humbly. They came with fire and iron. They came to steal land, gold, oil, and people. They murdered indigenous populations, kidnapped Africans, chained them, and shipped them like cargo across oceans. They plundered resources, razed villages, and enriched their empires with stolen blood.

It is the descendants of these conquerors, while still living off the wealth of stolen lands and stolen labour, who now slam the door on the very people they once robbed. They cry “sovereignty” while forgetting they shredded the sovereignty of half the world. They preach law and order but built their nations on genocide, slavery, and theft. They wave the banner of civilization, but their wealth is cemented in the bones of the raped, plundered, enslaved and colonized.

This is not immigration policy, it is hypocrisy weaponized, history erased. This is privilege defending itself behind walls.

When politicians of the West seek to deny entry to migrants, it is not only denying people a future, but also history itself. The poverty in Africa, conflict in the Middle East, instability in Latin America did not come out of thin air. They represent the horrors and scars of empire, of coups sponsored by foreign powers, of resources drained and nations divided for profit. Migrants today are not asking for favours they are demanding justice, however silently. They are moving because the West moved on them first.

If the world continues this path of rich nations hoarding wealth while branding the poor as parasites, resentment will boil over. Walls and borders will not stop or contain it. The seeds of new wars will be planted in the soil of exclusion and arrogance.

Peace in the West means that the West must face its past and change its present, thus:
i. Stop pretending history began yesterday. The wealth of London, Paris, Washington, and Brussels was built on blood. Acknowledge it. Teach it. Own it.
ii. Reparations are not radical; they are just. Invest in the nations that were robbed, not with aid that chains them, but with resources, technology, and fair trade that empowers them.
iii. Migration is a human right. The free flow of goods and capital cannot exist while people are trapped in misery. Safe, legal migration must be a cornerstone of global policy.
iv. No more wars of choice, no more toppling of governments in the name of democracy. Respect sovereignty. Stability abroad is the best guarantee of security at home.
v. No more holding of stolen funds laundered in your banks and assets.
vi. Stop demonizing migrants. They are not invaders; they are survivors. They build, they work, they enrich. The narrative must shift from fear to solidarity.

The world is at a crossroads and must make a choice, to either accept a system where the descendants of murderers live comfortably behind walls, hoarding the stolen fruits of empire while condemning the descendants of the plundered to death at sea, or we build a world that is honest, just, and humane.

Immigration is not the problem. Injustice and hypocrisy are. The arrogance of those who benefit from yesterday’s crimes while criminalizing today’s victims is the real threat to peace.

If we fail to change course, history will not forgive us. But if we rise to the challenge, if Capitol Hill, Whitehall and Elysee Palace finally face its debt to the world, then immigration can be the beginning of healing, not the spark of the next great war.


Dr. EK Gwuru writes from Nkolo Ikembe.