Spain has a population of 49 million people. More than half a billion people in Sub-Saharan Africa alone live in extreme poverty, and well over a billion live below basic poverty thresholds. So I genuinely want to understand the principle here. Why does the person who makes it into Spain illegally, or arrives seeking refuge, suddenly have a greater claim to Spanish resources than the hundreds of millions, even billions, who remain behind? To say nothing of the actual citizens of the country expected to absorb the cost. A politician’s first duty is to the citizens of the country they serve. That means protecting their security, housing, public services, infrastructure and social cohesion. They are not elected to assume responsibility for every person living in poverty worldwide. If helping people abroad is your personal mission, have at it. Devote your own time, money and career to it. Move there and help them directly. But when you hold public office, you are spending other people’s money and making decisions that affect their communities. Compassion does not exempt you from basic arithmetic. Populations are enormous, resources are finite, and every policy choice has tradeoffs. If you want to dedicate your own life and resources to helping everyone you can, go for it. What you do not have the right to do is impose the costs of your compassion on millions of citizens who never consented to having their housing, services, security and communities placed under greater strain.

Everyone is reacting to the videos from the Spanish enclave of Ceuta and asking what the hell is going on. But the same pattern is unfolding across virtually every historically white, European-majority country in the world. Across Europe, the UK, Canada, the United States and Australia, there appears to be a clear and concerted effort to encourage both legal and illegal migration. The result is even more pressure on housing, healthcare and public services that are already stretched. Meanwhile, native-born citizens are struggling financially and being asked to pay more and more to support large-scale migration they never voted for and, in many cases, clearly do not want. Each of these countries has its own history, culture, language and social fabric. Citizens who want those things preserved are not hateful, and they should not be made to feel guilty for asking how many people their country can realistically absorb. Nor should they be afraid to ask why their own needs and future are constantly being placed behind those of new arrivals. There is also an obvious question that very few leaders are willing to address. A large proportion of these arrivals are young men from societies where women often face severe discrimination, sexual abuse, forced marriage, child marriage, female genital mutilation and treatment as the property of men. If the true priority is humanitarian protection, why are Western governments not doing far more to protect the vulnerable women and children trapped in those societies? Why are the strongest and most mobile men being prioritized, while many of the women and girls most at risk are left behind with the same men and systems that subjugate them? Why are European women expected to bear that social risk while citizens are told that even raising the question is unacceptable?