Demographic Fears and Far-Right Fantasies

This is the 17th installment in the Legacies of Eugenics series, which features essays by leading thinkers devoted to exploring the history of eugenics and the ways it shapes our present. The series is organized by Osagie K. Obasogie in collaboration with the Los Angeles Review of Books, and is supported by the Center for Genetics and Society, the Othering & Belonging Institute, and Berkeley Public Health.

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IN LATE JULY 2026, tens of thousands of migrants tried to enter Europe’s Schengen Area via Ceuta, a Spanish territory located at the northern tip of Morocco. This rush on Europe’s farthest border triggered pandemonium and more than 80 deaths, with the vast majority of migrants repelled back into the African continent by military forces. Across Europe, far-right critics in publications such as the The Spectator and Le Figaro slammed Spain’s liberal prime minister for supporting open borders and lax immigration policies. In the United States, National Review pointed to the chaos at Ceuta as evidence that “the 1973 French novel The Camp of the Saints is more than a xenophobic...