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Immigration Dilution: Why Europe Cannot Match America
Perhaps the most popular words for any right-wing party in the West at the moment are border and immigration. The European and American right are united in what they want, yet get starkly different results. This gap is architecturally embedded in the system rather than being an implementation error. The United States channels right-wing politics through a singular party. If the Republicans win the Presidency, they can act immediately in a large number of cases to prevent migration.
Illustration by The Geostrata
This can be done via executive order, rule changes, and even a fee increase. And
none of these changes requires the appeasement of a coalition partner. By contrast, the European right is split into distinct blocs which are often rivals to each other. This is topped by dozens of domestic parties on a national level, and each party has its own voter base to please, red lines, and history.
EXTENT OF FRAGMENTATION
The fragmentation the Europeans face ultimately boils down to where it shows up, which, due to the structure, is almost everywhere.
This fragmentation is visible through instances like the four-year negotiation to pass a migration pact that was not enforced till 2026, a Dutch government that collapsed in June 2025 because the very largest party in the ruling coalition failed to get its partners to sign a hardline asylum plan, and an Italian Prime Minister who campaigned on naval blockades and instead ended up expanding legal work-permit quotas. Importantly, one of the elements of this has been the rise of Indian migrants in Europe, even when the United States has steadily pushed them out of its visa system in recent years.
ONE PARTY VS ONE DEADLOCK
The American right-wing exists as a singular vehicle in the Republican Party. Any disagreements inside the party are resolved before an election or the presentation of a plan rather than after, if we eliminate the occasional dissenter or two. However, even from an electoral standpoint, the very nomination of a candidate translates to being the sole representative of the American right-wing in a Presidential election. The right either entirely loses or entirely wins, but they do it as a bloc.
This relatively streamlined structure enabled the Trump administration to move from announcement to enforcement on major immigration change in roughly 3 days. The White House signed a proclamation in September 2025 to impose a $100,000 fee on new H-1 B visa petitions, effective the very following Monday without any real need for legislation or consultation.
Europe has nothing resembling this American machinery. In fact, their European Parliament further embeds this fragmentation rather than addressing it.
The traditional single nationalist bloc has split into two competing groups: the France- and Hungary-led Patriots for Europe, boasting 84 seats, and the Alternative for Germany-centred Europe of Sovereign Nations, boasting 25 seats, while a third Meloni- and PiS-anchored European Conservatives and Reformists wing, boasting 78 seats, continues to be a holdout and shows willingness to work with the Centrist establishment in a way the other two blocs refuse to.
Adding to this fragmented structure, roughly 30 non-committal members are too extreme or too idiosyncratic for any of the available groups. Effectively, while headlines may suggest a rightward surge in European politics, in reality, Europe is marred by factions that cannot agree on Russia, the EU framework, or even migration policies, let alone form a united right-wing front.
AGGRESSION COOLED BY COALITION
In the Netherlands, Geert Wilders’ Party for Freedom won the most seats in the November 2023 election and, after drawn-out negotiations spanning 8 months, entered into government as the dominant force in a four-party coalition.
However, in June 2025, Wilders walked out of the coalition entirely when his partners in the VVD, the BBB and the NSC refused his ten-point asylum plan. The government collapsed, and triggered a snap election, and the measures Wilders wanted never ended up being enacted at all. Being the largest party was simply not enough; for his plan, he needed unanimous partner buy-in, which he never managed to acquire.
Italy suggests another version of this arithmetic. Giorgia Meloni’s campaign relied on naval blockade and hardline deterrence as central promises, and she has indeed delivered from an enforcement perspective through offshore Albanian processing centres, tighter asylum rules, and longer detention. However, from a legal-migration side, her government has moved in the opposite direction to its own rhetoric by expanding the annual worker-permit quota in one of the most labour-friendly immigration expansions in recent Italian history.
The tension for her remains structural, as the country needs rural, industrial, and tourism sector constituencies to have workers, and the flagship Albanian scheme has already been partially struck down by Italian courts on legal grounds that would not be an obstacle in the United States.
WHY DOES FRAGMENTATION NOT END?
Three core issues aid fragmentation in Europe rather than reduce it. The first is that ideologically pure parties are rewarded and not punished by proportional representation. This reward for electorally smaller parties prevents the creation of the political incentive to consolidate into two blocs the way a first-past-the-post voting pressure would in America.
Second, and perhaps more importantly, is the cordon sanitaire — the informal but consistent and real refusal of mainstream parties to hand committee chairs and coalition seats to more extreme nationalist outfits.
Third is that the EU governance model itself is multi-level, through a National coalition government, a European Parliament with its own internal blocs on top of the domestic blocs, and also a Council of National Leaders. All these variables generally need to align in order to allow anything sweeping to happen.
THE INDIAN BENEFICIARY
For India, the practical effect shows up in migration numbers. Germany is now the largest EU destination for Indian nationals, being home to more than 250,000 nationals in 2024. These increases were driven by the country’s Skilled Immigration Act, 2020, and a persistent shortage of around 200,000 workers that not even a far-right purist anti-immigration coalition had strong intentions to close.
The Netherlands, despite a governing coalition, still hosted almost 90,000 recent Indian migrants as of January 2024. Most of these migrants are concentrated in STEM roles at above-average wages. The Irish Indian student cohort grew by 30% in a single year to become the country’s largest international student group, primarily drawn in by a two-year post-study work visa that no right-wing outfit has substantially tried to oppose.
WHAT'S NEXT?
If the European Conservatives and Reformists group deepens its work with the Centrist institution, migration policy is expected to shift rightward through the mainstream outfits rather than around them. This would mean a more durable form of restriction than anything the radical nationalist outfits can feasibly offer. Full implementation of the migration pact in June 2026 is the first real test of whether a fragmented Parliament and Council can actually enforce a common policy line.
However, for now, the asymmetry continues; only a unified party can promise immigration reform with an impact akin to what we are seeing in the United States.
On the contrary, a fragmented European one has to deal with coalitions, courts, and years of challenges. India has also adjusted its migration strategy with this changing curve in mind, with students diversifying away from the United States to destinations like Germany, Ireland, and France.
BY KRISH
TEAM GEOSTRATA
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