Calling it an immigration debate is a symptom itself, right? We’re usually not talking about people coming here to study and to work, which would be immigration. Instead the debate is about asylum for refugees, whether refugees get individual human rights or if they can be treated in bulk with imposed limits, where they can be sent and who has to deal with them, who builds walls, whether they can be drowned in the mediterranean or if it’s legitimate to shoot them at the borders, whether activists who rescue them from drowning are criminals.

Stop framing it as immigration, which is a bit in each country’s purview to organize or not, and can indeed be debated. Here we’re talking about human rights for human beings who are in a desperate situation and deserve every help they need and if we can’t grant them that then we have failed our shared values, and our economic system and our political system are apparently unsuited for humanity and should be abolished. Refugees are welcome or you are an asshole and there cannot be any discussion about this, at all, in a modern democracy with human rights.