Leonid Bershidsky, Columnist

Immigration Politics Aren’t Really About Immigration

The controversy around the UN’s toothless migration pact shows politicians care about buzzwords more than actual policies.

November 20, 2018 at 1:54 PM UTC

By Leonid Bershidsky

Leonid Bershidsky, formerly Bloomberg Opinion’s Europe columnist, is a member of the Bloomberg News Automation Team. He recently published Russian translations of George Orwell’s “1984” and Franz Kafka’s “The Trial.”

Rallying behind the president.
Photographer: David McNew/Getty Images North America

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A toothless United Nations document is stirring up political trouble throughout Europe, nearly toppling one government. The overreaction to the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration shows how immigration politics have decoupled from the reality of people moving across borders.

In July, the text of the compact was approved by all 193 UN member states — except the U.S., which had pulled out of the talks earlier.