MAGA Actually Wants ALL Immigrants Out — A Bitter Irony For European Populists

-OpEd-

TURIN — Imagine waking up and realizing you’re suddenly a potential illegal immigrant. A potential undesired presence. A potential deportee. Maybe even a potential inmate at the infamous Guantánamo Bay — the prison in Cuba that has become a symbol of endless detention without charges or trial. 

Italians, Germans, French — Europeans in general — those proud defenders of “civilized” values, the very ones who’ve spent years weaving nationalist tales: keep the impure out, send the pariahs back, expel even those with valid documents. And if their papers aren’t in order? Ship them off to Rwanda, Albania, or anywhere else that’s comfortably out of sight and beyond the reach of legal guarantees.

Now, the mirror turns. For America, we are the outsiders. For America, the Guantánamo-bound might just include thousands of Europeans — those without valid visas, those waiting for renewals, or simply the 20-somethings who, after a vacation, decide to stay a bit longer and see what happens. In short: all of them — all of us — deemed illegal.

The Washington Post and Politico broke the story: 800 Europeans reportedly on track for deportation, possibly headed to the Cuban detention center. The White House has officially dismissed the reports — “fake news,” they say. But the confirmed expulsion of two Italians (One back home, the other’s whereabouts unknown. Detained? Behind bars?) makes two things brutally clear.

First, nationalistic-populist America no longer differentiates between desperate migrants queuing at the Mexican border and a Parisian, a Berliner, a Madrileño or a Milanese. The message is simple: Everyone’s a threat to the “Great Again” dream, built on purging parasitic foreigners — no nuances allowed.

Mirror game

Second, this Trumpian twist exposes the hypocrisy of European parties that eagerly adopted the same logic. Just days ago in Italy, some denied undocumented migrants the right to even own a SIM card to call their families. In Germany and France, the idea of “remigration” thrives — pushing even legal immigrants out through relentless social hostility and bureaucratic pressure, until they say: “You know what? I’m better off leaving.”

The rest of Europe can’t escape the mirror game. And now, the confusion sets in.

So now what?

Matteo Salvini — Italy’s far-right deputy prime minister and minister of infrastructure and transport since 2022 —  predictably, defends U.S. President Donald Trump’s right to protect his borders. But that’s a fringe stance; he also once celebrated tariffs as an opportunity for Italy. It’s talking in circles. The rest of Europe can’t escape the mirror game. And now, the confusion sets in.

What’s really going on

Italy Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani tries to calm things down. He secures a phone call with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, promises that no Italian will end up in a special prison. But until a denial comes from Washington, the notion that Trump’s crackdown extends to Europeans seems plausible enough to rattle entire foreign ministries. 

Even Germany is scrambling to say: Don’t worry, we’ll take our citizens back — no need to funnel them through a prison known for violating not only Geneva Convention standards for war prisoners but also the most basic penal code protections.

We’d need to say something about the America that once held high the torch of Lady Liberty.

Only after the phrase “fake news” is repeated, does the European side breathe a temporary sigh of relief. But the fact that everything hinges on a tweet speaks volumes about the current state of transatlantic relations. European capitals are left waiting for social media updates to understand what’s really going on.

Yet the questions we must ask ourselves still remain.

How should we judge those two Italians, and the other 798 Europeans facing forced repatriation without trial or appeal? Are they illegals, freeloaders, scum? Or people who believed in the freedom to try their luck in a country they thought was an ally.

They still call it the West

If we go with the former, then no consular help is needed. They messed up. Let them pay — maybe even serve time in Guantánamo, which, after all, is just a bigger version of what Italy is building in Albania, offshoring unwanted migrants to a de-facto detention center there. They deserved it. 

But if we go with the latter, then maybe — just maybe — we should admit not every irregular migrant deserves the guillotine of expulsion. Maybe an expired or missing visa is just a bureaucratic mishap or a sign of an outdated system — not a criminal act.

Tolerance is no longer tolerated.

And then, yes, we’d need to say something about that America. The one that once held high the torch of Lady Liberty — her full name, lest we forget, is “Liberty Enlightening the World.” About Ellis Island, where poor Europeans — Italians, Irish, Poles — once found safety and hope. But those are fairy tales from another era.

Today’s mirror game reveals a different reality: We deport them, and now they deport us. No more torches glowing in the night — only fear, even where hospitality still flickers. In California, the National Guard and Marines are arriving. Tolerance is no longer tolerated. A union activist who sits in front of an armored vehicle to block its path is arrested — he faces six years in prison. (Sounds familiar, Italy? The new law criminalizing passive resistance?)

They still call it the West. But it’s starting to look like something else entirely — something that used to happen on the other side of the Berlin Wall.