WASHINGTON — Secretary of State Marco Rubio has ordered American diplomats in Europe, Canada, Australia and New Zealand to pressure local governments to restrict most immigration and to submit reports if those governments appear to be overly favorable to immigrants, according to a document sent to U.S. embassies and consulates.
Rubio instructed diplomats to emphasize the effects of criminal acts committed by immigrants to encourage greater restrictions on entry, according to the document, which is a diplomatic cable dated Nov. 21. The text of the telegram, obtained by The New York Timeshad not been previously disclosed.
Diplomats should “regularly engage host governments and their respective authorities to raise U.S. concerns about violent crimes associated with people with a migration background” and “any related human rights abuses,” the cable says. He states that these episodes are “widespread disruptions of social cohesion and public safety”.
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Diplomats must submit reports on immigrant-related crimes to State Department headquarters, as well as analyzes of how host governments deal with these issues, including “policies that unduly favor migrants over local populations.”
The goal of these actions is to build “support from host governments and stakeholders to address and reform policies related to crimes committed by migrants, defend national sovereignty, and ensure the safety of local communities,” the cable says.
The Trump administration frequently uses the term “sovereignty” to describe its efforts to get other countries to accept fewer foreign citizens and harden their borders — even as it tries to impose policies on sovereign nations.
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President Donald Trump, his top aides and many of his supporters have spoken about large numbers of migrants and immigrants as a plague in the United States and Europe. They are determined to get governments to adopt draconian measures to limit immigration and increase deportations, even though statistics show that irregular border crossings in Europe have been falling for many months and were declining in the United States at the end of the Biden administration.
In a speech at the UN in September, Trump denounced the “globalist migration agenda”. Stephen Miller, Trump’s deputy chief of staff for policy, and Vice President JD Vance have been equally vocal. “We cannot rebuild Western civilization, we cannot rebuild the United States of America or Europe, by letting millions and millions of unverified illegal migrants into our country,” Vance said in February.
Rubio, the son of Cuban immigrants, changed his views on immigration policy during his 14 years as Florida’s Republican senator, and he and his vice president, Christopher Landau, are now pushing the State Department to help enforce the Trump administration’s tough stances.
For example, they are helping to implement the drastic reduction in the number of refugees allowed into the United States, as first reported by the Times. And many of the current 7,500 refugee slots are reserved for white South African Afrikaners, even though they do not face widespread persecution.
The State Department said in an official statement on social media last week that “mass migration poses an existential threat to Western civilization and undermines the stability of key U.S. allies.”
The State Department sent the telegram with instructions on migration diplomacy last Thursday night. The same day, it sent a separate cable to American diplomats saying that cases of foreign governments supporting illegal or mass migration should be included in annual human rights reports being prepared, two State Department officials said.
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One of the officials said the telegram on migration diplomacy was sent to American missions in countries that share a “Western civilization” with the United States and are close allies. Telegrams on how to deal with migration problems in Latin America and other regions will soon be sent to missions in those areas, he said.
The official said Trump supports immigration of “highly skilled” workers.
The cable lists 12 discussion points that diplomats can use with host governments and three more specific to European countries.
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One of the points reads: “We encourage your government to ensure that policies protect its citizens from the negative social impacts of mass migration, including displacement, sexual assault and the breakdown of law and order.”
Another says: “We urge vigilance in protecting religious freedom, particularly against the prevalence of radical Islam among certain migrant populations, which has caused an increase in anti-Semitic and anti-Christian incidents in areas with a large migrant presence.”
The telegram does not present data to support these statements, although it says that such information exists.
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Many of the Trump administration’s claims about immigrants in Europe overlap with the language of far-right political parties in those countries. The administration accuses European governments of trying to censor speech by far-right groups and individuals on these and similar topics.
The State Department has directed diplomats working on annual human rights reports to report cases of this type of censorship.
