As President Obama politicizes the issue of admitting Syrian refugees into the U.S. who have not been properly vetted – by mocking Republicans who are opposed to the plan as cowards – there has been an upsurge of anti-immigrant sentiment building not just within the U.S. but all over the Western world.

If you’ve not heard about or read about any of that, that’s understandable, considering that the mainstream American media – and many of its Left-leaning counterparts overseas – haven’t done their duty and reported it.

But some have, fortunately, and their reporting provides insight and context to an increasingly complex issue made even more so by the recent attacks in Paris. One of them is Deutsche Welle, Germany’s international broadcaster.

The media company reported that, following the Paris attacks, massive anti-immigrant protests were launched in nearby Poland. Local media in that country have also reported the story of a Polish national living in Norway who was arrested on terrorism charges in his native land after fighting for several months in Syria on behalf of ISIS, the group that claimed responsibility for killing 129 people in Paris recently.

The suspect, a 26-year-old, was apprehended by Polish authorities in the city of Lodz; a spokesman for the local public prosecutor’s office there told reporters that the man could spend as many as six years in prison.

‘How will we protect ourselves?’

DW.com further reported:

In the wake of the Paris terrorist attacks, the case – and the implication that IS was already active in Poland – focused the anxieties of many ordinary Polish citizens on immigration from non-European countries and how it might affect them personally. The former liberal cabinet of Prime Minister Ewa Kopacz agreed to accept 7,000 immigrants. It also pointed out that in the 1990s, 80,000 Chechens found a home in Poland and were successfully integrated into Polish society.

But that has not convinced all Poles.

“I’m really worried that if we allow as many immigrants as the outgoing government said it would, how can we protect ourselves against radicals and fanatics among them? How can we prevent what happened in Paris from happening here? We don’t have the experience of how to screen refugees and how to control what they do,” a clearly worried, concerned Warsaw retiree in her 60s told DW, after hearing several public announcements urging everyone to remain vigilant and to report any dangers to authorities.

The influx of mostly Muslim migrants is also disconcerting to the largely Roman Catholic Polish citizenry as well. Poles see Muslim mores as “alien,” a contention raised repeatedly by conservative politicians during the country’s recent parliamentary elections.

At one meeting prior to elections, Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the leader of the victorious Law and Justice (PiS) party, sparked some controversy after hinting that immigrants could bring contagious diseases with them. And while some in the party have since toned down statements viewed as anti-immigrant by some, the new ruling party was clearly given a mandate by Polish voters – and that mandate is to accept fewer immigrants.

In fact, incoming Interior Minister Mariusz Blaszczak told Polish Radio that the country as a whole should have a debate over accepting mostly Muslim immigrants, and that the focus ought to be on helping Christians trapped in the Middle East.

More protests, and they are spreading

“The entire philosophy of the ‘Islamic State’ is directed against them. They are bestially murdered,” Blaszczak said. “You cannot allow people who bring death to come to the European Union under the guise of refugees.”

The anti-third-world-emigration sentiment that is growing in Poland has also grown across Europe in recent months, as more migrants from other parts of the Middle East and Africa stream into the continent. As Euronews.com noted, thousands of people are turning out to demonstrate against the former government’s pro-immigrant policies.

As DW.com also reported, anti-immigrant rallies are also being held in Germany.

The sentiment is the same in the United States, for the record: According to a recent survey by Bloomberg News, taken after the Paris attacks, 53 percent agree with 2016 GOP presidential contenders who say Syrian refugees should not be resettled in the U.S., with just 28 percent backing Obama’s plan to do so.

Sources:

DW.com

Bloomberg.com

DW.com