Migration has been one of the prevalent topics in virtually all nations of Europe in recent years. The main catalyst for that was the 2015 migration crisis, which has brought a number of challenges to the Old Continent, such as a heightened threat of Islamist terrorism. The Danube Institute held an event on Wednesday, 10 June to discuss the factual correlations between immigration and terror in Western Europe.
The basis for the discussion was a research paper authored by Dr Simon Cottee, a criminologist and writer for UnHerd. He joined the event via video call. Meanwhile, Director of the Migration Research Institute Dr Viktor Marsai and Host of Code Victorian Matthias Victorian took the stage for a panel discussion. Director of Research at the Danube Institute Calum Nicholson served in the role of moderator.
Mr Cottee started by sharing that he has a background in criminology, and studied terrorism, violence, and extremism before he began working on his paper about the links between migration and terrorism. He stated that the prevailing narrative in modern criminology is that most Islamist attacks are carried out by ‘home-grown’ offenders, those who grew up in Western Europe. However, he described this notion as ‘politically coded’ and ‘misleading’.
According Mr Cottee’s own research, foreign-born individuals are disproportionately represented in Jihadist terror in Western Europe, with about 45 per cent of all such terror plots in the region in the last ten years involving at least one foreign-born migrant. He also told the audience that data for his research was really hard to find, as it is treated as ‘sensitive’ by Western European governments, in fear of it stoking ‘demonization’.
Mr Marsai echoed similar sentiments. Coming from the migration research area, he shared that people seeking to uncover the correlation between migration and terror are often accused of ‘securitizing’ the subject—or even accused of racism and xenophobia in academic circles. He agreed with Mr Cottee that relevant data on the subject is hard to obtain in Europe, unlike in the United States. In the US, the CDC made it publicly available that 3–4 per cent of migrants arriving at the Southern border of the United States have connections to terror organizations.
Mr Victorian stated that we are at ‘a turning point’ in history, when people are no longer accused of hatred and bigotry instantly when they want to talk about extremism among the migrant population. He added that therefore we have the opportunity to ‘popularize’ such discourse. On a personal note, he shared that he gave up a lucrative career in finance to advocate for his view on migration.
Mr Cottee took back the word on video call. He shared that the average person involved in a jihadi terror plot in Western Europe is male, and in their 20s–30s. The youngest offender in his data set was just 14 years old, while the oldest was 62 years old. 12 per cent have mental health issues, and 21 per cent have a criminal record unrelated to terrorism, he added.
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