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- [00:05]
Podcast Narrator
The Swiss Connection Science Podcast is back with brand new stories. They're all connected by one overarching the climate challenges we face today and the smart solutions that can help us tackle them. This season, we're diving into the depths of Swiss lakes where invasive mussels are threatening the delicate indigenous ecosystem. We'll also travel to the Arctic to discover how ancient ice can reveal vital clues for pioneering climate research. And we'll explore the critical world of the semiconductor industry, looking at its global importance and Switzerland's potential role within it. All this and more is coming soon in the new season of the Swiss Connection Science Podcast.
- [00:59]
Imogen Foulkes
This is Inside Geneva. I'm your host, Imogen folks and this is a production from Swiss Info, the international public media company of Switzerland. In today's program, we've been dealing with.
- [01:14]
Jan Eglund
The refugee situation for 10 years. At some point, that's enough.
- [01:18]
Right-wing Critic
There's a new battle on the streets of Britain fought with flags and calls for deportations and fear mongering about immigrants in Europe.
- [01:27]
Jan Eglund
We're rather seeing one country after the other erecting barbed wire around their country and around our continent.
- [01:38]
Anti-immigration Commentator
They're pouring into our country. Nobody's even looking at them. They just come in. The crime is going to be tremendous. The terrorism is going to be.
- [01:45]
Philippe Bolopion
We believe it's within the rights of any government to set immigration policies that they believe make sense for their country and their electorate. But setting lawful immigration policies does not mean that you have the right to mistreat migrants.
- [02:03]
Imogen Foulkes
A chaotic scene as Venezuelan migrants arrived in El Salvador over the weekend. Tonight, families of some of those detained saying their loved ones are being wrongly accused.
- [02:18]
Vincent Shetai
Overall, most studies make clear that migrant workers are not in competition with national workers on the labor market in Western states. The medical sector depends on migrant workers. We are reaching a peak in terms of violent anti migrant rhetoric which has nothing to do with reality.
- [02:47]
Imogen Foulkes
Hello and welcome again to Inside Geneva. I'm Imogen folks and today we're going to explore the, how shall I describe it? Tricky, challenging, divisive, polarized debate around immigration. It seems to dominate our political discourse. Other challenges like climate change, even conflict, have been pushed down the agenda. The so why have we become so concerned about this issue? What are the facts and figures behind the political rhetoric? That's what we're going to talk about in this episode. And we're going to start with a conversation I had recently with Jan Eglund, Secretary General of the Norwegian Refugee Council, who told me he was dismayed by the tone of the debate in Europe and by what he sees as a lack of support for refugees.
- [03:40]
Jan Eglund
I think we are seeing a race to the bott. I had hoped we would be much better off in Europe. We're rather seeing one country after the other erecting barbed wire around their country and around our continent. And it's in contradiction with the Geneva Convention of 1951, which was made by and for European refugees at the time. How come? Where then? The continent putting that convention to its grave? Because we are not refugees anymore.
- [04:18]
Interviewer
Do you think it's that or because some people say that, you know, that was created in the wake of the Second World War, that convention, and that.
- [04:26]
Imogen Foulkes
Really it's not suited to the situations.
- [04:30]
Interviewer
We have today when people are much more mobile, there's more conflict.
- [04:34]
Jan Eglund
Well, there were millions and millions of refugees in Europe at the time. I mean, Second World War was horrific. Tens of millions were displaced altogether. In our time and age, also millions are displaced. The point is that we're much richer now. We're more nationalistic, we're more inward looking. We're more xenophobic. As Europeans and North Americans, we became so rich, we're not willing anymore to share protection in our countries. It's a battle of values, and we are losing this battle of values at the moment. So we have to fight harder for the people who are desperately seeking protection.
- [05:20]
Imogen Foulkes
But the thing is, you know, people don't feel richer in Europe. They feel challenged. My own country, it's a common refrain, I can't get a house, I can't get a doctor's appointment. And they're blaming, rightly or wrongly, immigration and asylum and possibly mixing the two things up.
- [05:39]
Jan Eglund
Yeah, I disagree that it is these refugees that is the cause to many of the problems of an aging Europe. A Europe that is not producing as we should, has not been as innovative as we should, is not educating the young generations as well as we should. And that's the fault of the refugees or the asylum seekers? No, it's not. Actually. It will be a problem for Europe and aging Europe if we do not have people coming from outside.
- [06:14]
Imogen Foulkes
I met a very senior diplomat in Geneva who was justifying their government's quite savage cuts in foreign aid. Who said, we've been spending this money for decades and what has it improved? Absolutely nothing.
- [06:29]
Jan Eglund
I also hear that from some now, what's the interest of Europe to help in Africa and Sudan and elsewhere? Why should we care? Because it's in harmony with our ideals and our interests. If you want to live in a stable world without uncontrolled migration, pandemics, wars and insecurity. You invest in hope for people who have been displaced. It's a simple equation really. Millions of people displaced by violence, they need to have hope. If not, we will learn to regret it in Europe because they will want to move and there will also be instability very close to a continent.
- [07:17]
Imogen Foulkes
Just to come back to what you were saying earlier, you said we've become more inward looking and more nationalistic and xenophobic. Why do you think that is?
- [07:29]
Jan Eglund
I think, number one, we've not been good enough explaining how often we succeed. I mean again, in Syria, I've been to places where people return from after 12 years of displacement. And the school that my organization, Norwegian Refugee Council helped rebuild, the children were singing in jubilant of having returned to their ancestors land and we were helping people rebuild their homes. Those kind of success stories were not getting to the taxpayers who believe it often is a hopeless case. And then we forget that if there's instability in the world and no hope for hundreds of millions of people elsewhere, it will come to haunt us as a continent. We need to go from this race to the bottom. Of course we have to receive people as we've done now for generations, if they seek protection, if they don't need protection, of course they can be returned. We cannot end European civilization and solidarity like this. How come? We are putting the Refugee Convention and the right of asylum to its grave. It is contrary to what we believe in as European civilization.
- [08:56]
Imogen Foulkes
So dismay about what's happening in Europe from Jan Eglund. Meanwhile, events in the United States are causing alarm among human rights groups.
- [09:05]
Podcast Narrator
Thousands choked the streets of downtown Minneapolis.
- [09:10]
Interviewer
The US has sent hundreds of mostly Venezuelan migrants to be held without trial at this mega prison in El Salvador.
- [09:19]
Imogen Foulkes
The roundups by Immigration Control Forces, or ice. And in January, the shooting of protesters were shocking to many.
- [09:28]
Vincent Shetai
I just saw a video of more than six masked agents pummeling one of our constituents and shooting him to death.
- [09:41]
Imogen Foulkes
Mourners left tributes on a frozen snow bank, the site where Alex Preddy was shot and killed by federal agents.
- [09:48]
Interviewer
And the world needs to respond to this. We are fighting for our democracy in our country.
- [09:53]
Imogen Foulkes
Philippe Bolapion is executive director of Human Rights Watch. He doesn't argue with the US policy on immigration, but he has big concerns about how immigrants are being talked about and how they're being treated.
- [10:08]
Philippe Bolopion
We believe it's within the rights of the US government, or any government for that matter, to set immigration policies that they believe makes sense for their country and their electorate. So as a human rights organization, we are not a pro immigration organization per se. But setting, you know, lawful immigration policies does not mean that you have the right to mistreat migrants, even migrants who are undocumented in the country. And very sadly, that's what the US administration is doing. It's rounding up Venezuelan migrants in the US and sending them to El Salvador to prisons where they are being tortured, where they are experiencing sexual abuse. And that's a clear violation of human rights norms. So the Trump administration is within its right to set, you know, the immigration policy that it wants, that its electors want. It's within its right to control its borders. It's not within its right to send migrants to be tortured in another country. It's not within its rights to detain migrant in inhumane conditions. So, you know, that's what international human rights law, international human rights norms do. They constrain governments to make sure that, that people's rights are being respected, even people who may be undocumented in the US Today.
- [11:36]
Interviewer
Do you think that message from you though is getting across? I mean, we hear very often, I mean, not just in the United States, but in Europe too, people cite immigration as one of their biggest concerns. Do you think the framing of the debate is wrong?
- [11:57]
Philippe Bolopion
I mean, there is no question that the sort of anti immigration sentiment has fueled the rise of illiberal movements both in the US and in Europe. And you know, some populist political movements are demonizing migrants or asylum seekers. They are making them responsible for all the ills of the societies. They are demonizing them in ways that are extremely dangerous and sort of contrary to human rights values and human rights norms. So I think we need to separate what is a sort of legitimate political debate about how to control immigration in any given country from what would be more in the range of hate mongering from demonizing entire communities and cheering at times, the violations of their rights. Even people who are illegally in a country have rights that have to be respected. They are due, due process. There is a rule of law in the US in many other countries and, and the Trump administration is crossing these lines every day and is not only demonizing immigrant communities, but violating their rights. We see that with the, the, the practices of ICE in Minnesota. Masked agents who cannot be identified, who use policing methods that are improper and lawful, two people who have been killed in just the last month without any lawful justification. So these trends are very dangerous and they do fuel the rise of illiberal movements.
- [13:37]
Interviewer
It's interesting that you've used in your last answer there, the Word demonizing a couple of times. And that was actually my next question is, do you fear the consequences of the kind of language that is used by some political leaders about immigrants? We've heard how President Trump, for example, talks about members of the Somali community.
- [14:03]
Philippe Bolopion
I mean, the demonization of entire communities does have real life consequences. One has to wonder how much President Trump's attack on Ilan Omar, a US Congresswoman who came from Somalia, who was victim of an attack a couple of days ago, how much President Trump's attacks on her and demonizing of her and the entire community, how much of a role did that play in that individual attack? So this type of rhetoric is dangerous and it has real world consequences.
- [14:37]
Interviewer
We're also facing a kind of war of words about what's true or not. So when I talk to some of my friends and colleagues in the States, many of whom, because of limited holidays and cash flow issues, have not been to Europe for a very, very, very long time, they do ask me, oh, how are you coping with all the crime? And they mentioned this phrase, civilizational erasure, which we saw in the US National Security Report. How do we work on combating something which I think many people in Europe would say, that's completely the wrong picture of how we are.
- [15:19]
Philippe Bolopion
Yeah, I mean, it's clear that the Trump administration is flirting with white nationalists ideologies, a sense that, you know, the European civilization is in decline, is openly supporting illiberal movements in Europe and is trying to draw strength from that. So these narratives are, of course dangerous. They are toxic for many communities. You know, they are playing into some of the, the worst tendencies of the electorate in some places who, you know, resort to scapegoating entire communities and they believe that, you know, they can renege on, on the rights of these communities and they don't think that eventually this will come back to haunt them, that their rights will, will also be on the line at some point. And history shows that often you start with the, the most disfavored or vulnerable communities in a society. But as authoritarian tendencies progress, eventually it's large parts of the populations that, that are deprived of their rights and deprived of, you know, the opportunity to choose the government over them.
- [16:30]
Imogen Foulkes
Do you think that's an increasingly difficult.
- [16:33]
Interviewer
Argument to make, though, in the current climate, we moving more towards this idea of sovereignty, nation states, us, the indigenous population, even personal identity, that that whole principle of human rights being universal is getting lost. It might not resonate with people if you say to them, look, if you harm somebody else's rights Even somebody you don't like, you disagree with, you wish didn't live on your street, in the end, it's going to be bad for you, too.
- [17:10]
Philippe Bolopion
You know, I think ultimately people want their rights. You see it these days in the US when the sort of reaction to the ICE practices. In Minneapolis, where the Trump administration is clearly under pressure, we wrote a report about the torture of Venezuelan migrants that was aired on 60 Minutes. These things matter. The facts do matter. And human rights, which is really well positioned actually to establish those facts. You know, in a world where the Trump administration is promoting, you know, fake news and alternative facts, at the end of the day, if you can bring the real facts to the table, you can influence public opinion.
- [17:53]
Imogen Foulkes
And that's one of the problems around the immigration debate. There are opinions and there are impressions. Philippe Bolopian and Jan Eglund have their views about human rights, about the right to asylum. But some communities do feel genuine concern about immigration.
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Right-wing Critic
On immigration, I think Europe was foolish. We attracted the wrong kind of immigrants. We need immigrants, but we need to attract the right kind.
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Jan Eglund
Doesn't matter where they were from. It's just the fact that certainly five to 600 males, young males, will be in the town and wandering around.
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Right-wing Critic
But our main specialty is attracting immigrants that are actually weighing on the social system. And our citizens see this, and this has fueled the extreme right.
- [18:38]
Imogen Foulkes
They worry about job security, about pressure on public services, and about crime.
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Philippe Bolopion
It is a problem because we don't.
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Right-wing Critic
Know who they are.
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Philippe Bolopion
We don't know the press criminal record. We don't know the past history.
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Interviewer
They walk around in gangs.
- [18:51]
Imogen Foulkes
You're not safe because you're usually on your own. But they're always in groups of at least five. That's why, as Philippe said, we need facts to get some. I went to Geneva's Graduate Institute to talk to Vincent Shetai. He's director of the Global Migration center at the institute. In an office surrounded by data about migration with studies from dozens of countries, I asked him first what the data showed about migrant workers putting pressure on the jobs market.
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Vincent Shetai
Overall, most studies make clear that migrant workers are not in competition with national workers on the labor market. Generally, they are taking jobs which are not taken by nationals as such. And obviously you can in some specific sector find different. But overall, as a general trend, there is no risk of unemployment among the national population because of migration.
- [19:56]
Imogen Foulkes
People also say migrants are putting pressure on hospitals and housing, which really should be for national people notice.
- [20:05]
Vincent Shetai
It's another interesting argument because first of all, in Western states, The medical sector depends on migrant workers. This is true, particularly true for the uk, the US and many other countries in Europe. The hospitals cannot survive without foreign doctors and so on. So this is quite interesting, this kind of counter agreement. And then they are not using health care more extensively than nationals. In terms of housing also you mentioned. Sorry, yes, housing again, because I mean, the problem is that housing is more about the market as such than the population per se. In the sense that most incentives in terms of welfare benefit for housing and so on, many are reserved to nationals. And here again there is no tension between more migration and less housing. There is no correlation.
- [21:11]
Imogen Foulkes
And then the one we read about a lot in the newspapers, migrants commit more crime.
- [21:17]
Vincent Shetai
Yes, here again it is interesting because we have very good databases now since more than one century in the US and it is clearly demonstrated that they are overall, I mean, foreign born migrants are committing overall less crimes than national population. If you of course exclude the question of documentation, the administrative fines related to those wounds.
- [21:49]
Imogen Foulkes
So a crime related to not having the right papers.
- [21:51]
Vincent Shetai
Exactly. So if we exclude teas, of course, but even here, I mean, in the sense that again, contrary to the common misperception, undocumented migrants are a very small minority. In fact, according to all projections, the vast majority of migrants are coming with a regular paper visa and so on.
- [22:14]
Imogen Foulkes
There's one country in Europe which is taking a slightly different approach to immigration. Spain, for example, has offered an amnesty to undocumented migrants. It's not citizenship, it's an amnesty, perhaps a path to citizenship later on. Spain's economy is actually doing quite well. Do you see a connection there that other countries could learn from?
- [22:35]
Vincent Shetai
Several experts have mentioned that there is a connection between economic dynamism of Spain compared to other European countries and immigration. So this is correlated by several studies. Then it would be too easy. In the sense, of course, it is part of the picture. But I don't want to replace one narrative by another one. In the sense that. That obviously migration is an avenue for economic development, for sure, but obviously this is not the only one. In the sense that dynamism of Spain is partially due to immigration, but there are many other factors.
- [23:11]
Interviewer
You've given me lots of evidence, lots.
- [23:13]
Imogen Foulkes
Of facts quoted, lots of reports. But how do you combat this fear?
- [23:19]
Interviewer
Because I hear it also from people who.
- [23:21]
Imogen Foulkes
I would have been surprised. They say, I feel threatened, I'm worried, I'm worried for my daughters. Can you counter that fear with your facts?
- [23:31]
Vincent Shetai
I mean, this is not to me to counter a narrative which is wrongly spread for bad Reasons by politicians. I'm not responsible for this. I'm responsible as an independent scholar to tell the truth to those who are asking me some evidence. But obviously what is very disturbing now is that even I'm working in this area since three decades and I can see that even a pure evidence based approach is no longer accepted as such. And this is quite telling about the level of manipulation we have reached today in this area. Despite all the important contributions after the second World War, human rights fight against racism. What is striking is the rationalization of the discourse and the fact that despite the formal prohibition of hate speech, now hate speech has become the new normal. Clearly. And here this is very worrisome in the sense that we are reaching a peak in terms of violent anti migrant rhetoric which has nothing to do with reality. I used to say to my students that the reality of migration is at the opposite of what is described in political discourse and mass media as such. And obviously there are many reasons for this gap. The gap is huge between reality and misperception and there are many reasons for this gap. First of all, of course, electioneering is a key factor. Using migrants as cape boats to avoid addressing the real issues at stake, climate change, unemployment, health issues and so on. So obviously this is part of the picture.
- [25:33]
Imogen Foulkes
When you hear some of this rhetoric, I mean, it seems to become quite extreme now in the United States. Does this concern you?
- [25:43]
Vincent Shetai
Of course. I mean, the US is the state in the world with the most important number of migrants and most of its economic growth is also due to this contribution. What is extremely worrisome is related to the systematic violation of the most basic human rights of migrants, Beaskopius the right to explain its own situation. So what is worrying is also the role of law is under attack through the operation against the migrants. And TC is extremely worrisome as such.
- [26:19]
Donald Trump
And first of all, I want to thank El Salvador and their president for their partnership with the United States of America to bring our terrorists here and to incarcerate them and have consequences for the violence that they have perpetuated in our communities.
- [26:31]
News Reporter
A new report found some Venezuelan citizens deported by the Trump administration to El Salvador faced horrifying abuse during their time in a notorious prison. The abuse allegedly includes systematic torture, sexual violence and forced disappearances.
- [26:47]
Imogen Foulkes
So the facts don't really support the negative rhetoric around immigration, Vincent Shetti says, but as he points out, facts and often the institutions which produce them are not really trusted anymore, at least by some sectors of the population. That's why even Vincent, who deals primarily in statistics has come to share some of the concerns of human rights groups that the debate on immigration is now being twisted into a real threat to our fundamental rights and principles. Human Rights Watch's annual report for 2026 warns that our global system of human rights is under threat. And so I had another question for Philippe. So when you see the people of.
- [27:38]
Interviewer
Minnesota peacefully protesting against these immigration raids, delivering food to their neighbors who are frightened to go out, does that give you some confidence that not everything's lost? Because in your report, you're asking if the United States has switched sides on human rights.
- [27:59]
Philippe Bolopion
Well, it's clear that the government, the Trump administration, is hostile to the human rights movement and to the entire ecosystem of human rights norms. You know, President Trump is proud to be bound only by his own morality, not by international law, is proud to order unlawful strikes on the boats of alleged drug traffickers in the Pacific or in the Caribbean, for example. So the US Government doesn't speak for the entire American people. And ultimately, you know, that's where the response lies. To protect rights. It's in electors, voters who demand their rights, who protest the abuses of power. And, you know, ultimately, that's. That's a battle to be won in the electoral system. We. We do not take political positions as a. As a nonprofit organization. Human rights is our. Is our mandate. And these days, it's. It's hard not to see that the. The Trump administration is raising a fundamental challenge to a lot of the rights and values that the American people have fought for. We. We see a deterioration of democracy in the US A rapid deterioration of democracy, and an attack on all of the pillars of this democracy, all of the checks on power for the president. And it's a dangerous slide, and it really has consequences for the entire world.
- [29:26]
Interviewer
And that brings me on to my very last question, because if we broaden it out from the United States, although obviously there is an awful lot of focus on the US at the moment, there are millions of people, including the listeners to this podcast, who do really want to stand up for their rights, and they want to keep them. What should they be doing?
- [29:52]
Philippe Bolopion
I mean, I would say that, you know, aspiration for human rights is a very enduring feeling. You know, you can see that people, even when they face tremendous odds these days in Iran, for example, risking their lives to march on the streets to demand basic human rights. It's a powerful, enduring idea, one that authoritarian governments around the world are trying to smash, but they never can do that durably. And so, you know, often people who study democracy say that democracy dies with the whimper, not with a big bang. It dies through a thousand cuts when people renounce their rights. So I, I think if we are to to push back against this trend of, of receding human rights, receding democracy, it's really for, for people to rise up wherever they are and do whatever they can to not tolerate, you know, an encroachment on their basic rights.
- [30:58]
Imogen Foulkes
And that rallying cry from Philippe Bolopion brings us to the end of this edition of Inside Geneva. If you are concerned that your and your neighbor's rights are in danger, stand up and defend them. We know immigration remains a challenging topic, but we hope this program brought some useful perspective to the debate. We'd love to hear your thoughts on the issue and so please share them by writing to us at Inside genevaissinfo. Ch. Next time to mark International Women's Day, we'll be looking at the situation for women in Afghanistan and asking whether the world has forgotten them. Join us on March 3rd for that episode Foreigner. You've been listening to Inside Geneva, a Swiss info production. You can subscribe to us and review us wherever you get your podcasts. Check out our previous episodes how the International Red Cross Unites Prisoners of War with Their Families or why Survivors of Human Rights Violations Turn to the UN In Geneva for Justice. I'm Imogen folks. Thanks again for listening.