European far-right parties push for ICE-style police

https://www.politico.eu/article/europe-far-right-pushes-for-ice-style-police-amid-migration-crackdown/

Posted by Wagamaga

36 Comments

  1. Some European far-right parties and politicians have sparked a backlash by calling for a police force in their countries resembling U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

    ICE, which enforces federal laws governing border control, customs, trade and immigration, has been mired in controversy after its agents killed two U.S. citizens in recent weeks, amid a push by the Trump administration to deport unauthorized immigrants.

    That has not deterred the Bavarian branch of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) and Belgian far-right Vlaams Belang party from proposing police units that resemble ICE, in calls that have stoked an outcry from political opponents.

    In January, the Bavarian arm of the AfD said it would put forward plans in regional parliament for a police unit focused on deporting immigrants who have entered the country illegally, as part of an array of steps to curb unauthorized immigration, according to an internal party document reported by German media.

    “In addition to state-run deportation flights, we are calling for the creation of an asylum, investigation, and deportation unit within the Bavarian police,” the AfD parliamentary group leader Katrin Ebner-Steiner said. The Bavarian Police Union said there is no legal basis for a deportation unit.

    Belgium’s Vlaams Belang plans to submit a proposal for a similar police unit in the coming days. While MP Francesca Van Belleghem rejected the comparison with ICE because, she said, the Belgian unit would remain part of the existing police and not a separate federal agency, the details of the plan suggest otherwise: Specialized officers in every police zone, full units in major cities and border areas, and agents actively hunting unauthorized immigrants.

    “Instead of only registering illegal immigrants when they are caught by chance, the unit would actively search for persons without legal status,” Van Belleghem told POLITICO, adding: “We do not allow our national proposals to be dictated by the international context.”

    In France, meanwhile, far-right firebrand and Reconquête party founder Éric Zemmour did not rule out the idea when asked in a TV interview whether France should have a police force similar to ICE. “It would need to be adapted to France and to French institutions. But we’ll have to be ruthless,” Zemmour told BFMTV.

    Political scientist Laura Jacobs from the University of Antwerp said that some far-right parties are careful and avoid association with Trump as it could hurt their image, but “are indeed referring to [a] similar police force.”

  2. but we already had the Sturmabteilung in Europe, didn’t work out all that great for Europe. Didn’t work out great for the members of the Sturmabteilung either tbh 😀

  3. The plan from the European far-right to copy the American Far-Right was likely planned for a longtime, groups such as the Heritage Foundation are still targetting Europe. This collusion has been well known for a while now.

    That being said, several botched policies including ICE being vile beyond any capacity to justify them (and many have tried) as well as diplomatic crises like with the American threat to Greenland and the EU (where the European Far-Right either had to condemn the Americans or stay silent or even try to justify it and take the popularity hit) has disrupted that timetable.

    Some like the AfD and the Belgian Far-right seem like they are still going to try however.

  4. Plane_Willingness_25 on

    I welcome the fact that far-right EU parties are hitching their political and ideological wagon to the failing Trump project

  5. I mean, we now know for a fact that there exists an international organised far right, so it’s not a surprise that every right wing party wants the same kind of authoritarian repressive and mass surveillance regime.

  6. ASuarezMascareno on

    The worst parties in Europe are desperate to copy the worst aspects of the worst first first world country.

    Fucking no.

  7. No thanks. Been voting right (Moderaterna) in four elections so far here in Sweden, 2026 will be the first election the left gets my vote. This shit cannot go on, and the right wing extremist movement needs to be stopped.

    I urge everyone (maybe temporarily) to shift their focus from personal gains to help in stopping this from developing further. May it be higher taxes, or something else – it means nothing if we let the fascists take over.

    Rethink what you vote for, what you have today might be gone in matter of months.

  8. LurkingWeirdo88 on

    So they want to expand EUs executive power over nation states, by forming federal police?

  9. Are these the European far right parties that are *checks notes* being funded by Trump? Shocking…

  10. Fit_Fisherman_9840 on

    Fascist parties want Fascist style police, next news water wet and they are in the epstein files as foreign agents.

  11. Jeez, is politico.eu just a continental version of the Daily Mail? They’re leveling up as rage-bait merchants

  12. Haha, here in France, the CRS will already beat the shit out of you and haul you away to unknown places if you’re brown, no suspicious activity required. So no need for an extra police force to do that.

  13. We also have Frontex, which is litteraly ICE but in Europe. An ex director of ICE is now in the french far right party National Rally (patriot for europe) and if them, their party, and the rest of the EU Far right get into power they will totally push people to militarize Frontex.
    They will also turn a blind eye on all the atrocities they might commit (and they already did some in the mediteranean sea) saying this is “for the good of our citizens”…

  14. I don’t understand the point of modeling a deportation unit after ICE specifically, as I’m sure most EU countries have their own functional equivalents, but certainly in Ireland we need something more effective, because at present deportation is _voluntary!_

    If you’re found to be here illegally, you’ll be sent a letter in the post asking you nicely to leave. Seriously.

    (There are exceptional cases where people are escorted out from the state however)

    Riad Bouchaker, who a few years ago [went on a stabbing spree in a primary school](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-67783903) was served two voluntary self-deportation orders in his time here, which he just decided to ignore as there’s no consequences, and a few years after ignoring these _he was awarded citizenship_. He then went on to commit serious atrocity

    We don’t want something as amateurish and wreckless as ICE but we _do_ want something

  15. I wonder if AfD want this new force dressed by Hugo Boss or if Reconquête want to reuse the uniforms worn by the Darnand boys.

  16. Here’s a better idea… Anyone supporting such unlawful actions should be banned from politics.

  17. Round up those right wingers and drop them in Houthi controlled Yemen.

    US should do the same with theirs.

  18. Hitching-galaxy on

    ICE aren’t police – so they mean, unaccountable criminal thugs doing the corrupt leaders’ bidding

  19. Their base also would prefer to live under a “strong leader” aka a dictator, which says enough.

  20. Emergency_Link7328 on

    There we go. Brown shirts roaming our streets.

    We need to take the issue seriously. Before our lives become a living hell. Again.

  21. Just go to Russia please. They will send most of you to a nice gulag or the front of course, but one of you will win the tea or window lottery and be their token German to parad around.

    Wait a minute, that’s already Gerhard Schröder. Gulag it is.