Rise of Germany’s far right
The US is quietly but furiously recruiting in neighbouring Mexico for cheap labour as the critical autumn harvest window accelerates, writes Opiyo Oloya
Opiyo Oloya. (File)
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OPINION
By Opiyo Oloya
They are not exactly Hitler’s hard edged stormtroopers breaking down doors and hauling people off to concentration camps, but make no mistake, Germany’s far-right party Alternative for Germany (AfD) share many of Nazi’s vision of Germany — free of foreigners, pure, white and Germanic. If that thought seems far-fetched, consider that the AfD is closer to power than ever before following its historic landslide victory in the Saxony-Anhalt state election on September 6, 2026, where the party won 43.8% of the vote in a hard-contested elections in the heart of Germany.
The only difference from the dark past is AfD’s framing of its anti-immigrant rhetorics, what it calls remigration, around cultural incompatibility of immigrants and legal frameworks rather than biological racism to operate within the electoral system.
Controversially, the concept of remigration within the party also includes pushing for the return of non-ethnic-German citizens to their country of origin. Notably, they advocate for massive expansion of state-level mass detention facilities like those used in the US for deportation custody, aiming to process rejected asylum seekers swiftly. They go further by demanding asylum seekers to perform mandatory community service; those who refuse should face immediate cuts to their basic survival benefits.
But the rise of Germany’s far right is not an isolated case. Elsewhere in Europe, including in Italy, Spain, France, the UK, Poland and others, the far right have steadily gained ground mainly by pushing hard anti-immigrant policies. Once dismissed as a joke, just fresh-from-house arrest for embezzling funds, Marine Le Pen and her far-right National Rally party, centred on identity, security and a strict anti-immigration stance, is leading in French presidential election polls. She is looking like the face of the next leader of France than a renegade to be dismissed as a crank.
The Spanish far-right was handed ready ammunition recently when, in a 10-hour window on July 30, more than 70,000 illegal immigrants swarmed across the border from Morocco into the Spanish enclave of Ceuta. Although most of the immigrants returned to Morocco, the incident became fodder for right-wing propaganda, including US President Donald Trump, who added fuel to the fire when he blamed the government of Spain for weak enforcement and zero control over the border.
But the surge of far-right politics across Europe and the Americas signals something more fundamental — what happens when resources are dwindling, people fighting for space, clean water and land to grow food and live — who gets what, when and how. That age-old issue that thinkers from the past (Niccolò Machiavelli, Thomas Hobbes, Karl Marx and so on) wrestled with remains with us.
When it comes down to deciding who gets priority, racial difference, language and other markers are conveniently used as deciding factors. For the politicians on the far-right, forced exclusion is a weapon of choice needed to insulate Europe and the Americas from immigrants seen as aliens.
In fact, despite being a complete failure on all the election promises he made for his second administration, Trump remains a favourite with America's far right precisely because he has shamelessly pushed the anti-immigrant agenda. Whipping xenophobic fears, Trump has reaped support from a fearful American heartland that sees the world changing and not understanding what that means for its survival.
The reality, of course, is different. Europe and the Americas cannot close the door on the immigrants they rely on to do their dirtiest jobs, the manual labour nobody wants, clean the streets and harvest crops from the field. Essentially, the heavy reliance on migrants is necessary for the survival of their economies and industries.
Across the European Union, for example, in heavy agricultural production countries like Italy, foreign-born workers contribute to over 32% of total agricultural working days. What’s more, migrants make up about 10.7% of specialised construction activities and roughly 5.8% to 8% of heavy manual labourers in mining, construction, manufacturing, and transport. The highest concentrations of migrant labour in shortage sectors are found in building and landscape maintenance, roughly 22.4%.
When isolated for specific occupations like farming, fishing and forestry, they constitute nearly 45% to 50% of the entire workforce. More than 54% of agricultural graders and sorters are immigrants. Over 40% of all hired crop farmworkers in the US lack legal work authorisation.
While Trump barks about getting rid of immigrants, the US is quietly but furiously recruiting in neighbouring Mexico for cheap labour as the critical autumn harvest window accelerates.
The US agricultural sector faces an immediate labour gap, with a targeted federal recruitment push underway to secure roughly 119,000 certified agricultural guest workers to prevent crops from rotting in the fields. California alone is urgently seeking to employ as many as 4,000 seasonal farm workers to help with the imminent harvests and avoid ruined crops.
So how to square the ugly anti-immigrant political rhetoric with the reality? Simple — Europe and the Americas are looking for exploitation without responsibilities. In simpler language, immigrants are needed as slave labour without employers having to worry about providing welfare guarantees when they fall sick or require other necessities of life such as education, healthcare and housing.
Contrary to unfounded claims that immigrants are mostly criminals, the real motive is to keep them where they belong — in the fields, in the belly of the earth as miners, doing back-breaking work. So long as they do the hard labour and keep quiet, immigrants are seen as good and useful. They only become problems when they start working to improve their lot, sending their children to school, taking evening classes to improve their skills to seek better employment.
Interestingly, immigrants have focused precisely on improvements such as education and skills, elevating more immigrants to take on better jobs. Next, immigrants must get better at outmanoeuvring the far-right in their own games: leaning into politics, pushing candidates who will fight for their rights, and organising against those who seek to limit their rights and livelihoods. And, yes, they need to communicate better that without immigrants, Europe and the Americas would starve, literally.
Opiyo.oloya@gmail.com Twitter: @Opiyooloya The writer is the inaugural associate vice-president, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion at Western University, London, Ontario, Canada