Ayaan Hirsi Ali: Covid will change the immigration question forever

It is hard to think of a more sensitive topic than the connection between sexual violence against women and the surge in immigration from Muslim countries into Europe since 2015. But then, it is hard to think of a more credible person to address it than Ayaan Hirsi Ali, who herself began life in Somalia and ended up claiming asylum in the Netherlands to escape a forced marriage.

In this fascinating interview, Ayaan discusses how the pandemic will effect the West’s view of immigration:

'There’s a sense that when it comes to immigration, we were told, well, we can’t do this, because it’s going to violate our civil rights. We are liberal societies. And as liberal societies, there are things we can’t do you know, deportations, closing borders, this, that and the other. And now with COVID, what are we doing? We’re closing borders, we’re constraining our civil liberties. We’re having lockdown after lockdown. And so I think even after COVID has passed (us if it’s ever passed us), I think voters are going to think wait a second, you subjected us to all of these things. So you can’t make those arguments afterwards.'

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