Some European Leaders Pushing Back Against Migration and Islamic Extremism
While most of Europe remains globalist, a number of politicians are taking a stand against illegal immigration, asylum acceptance, and particularly against allowing Islamists into their countries.
Right-wing parties now hold over one-quarter of seats in the European Parliament, 187 out of 720, following the June 2024 elections. Leaders including Italy’s Giorgia Meloni and Hungary’s Viktor Orbán have driven EU policy toward tighter border controls. Germany’s interior minister participated in a summit at the Zugspitze with leaders from Austria, Denmark, and Poland, all of whom have adopted stricter migration stances.
In late March 2026, the European Parliament voted to advance new deportation legislation shaped by conservatives and the far-right, with trilogues expected in spring 2026, and a proposal expanding powers for EU border agency Frontex is forthcoming.
Alice Elisabeth Weidel, born February 6, 1979, has served as co-chairwoman of the Alternative for Germany (AfD) alongside Tino Chrupalla since June 2022 and has led the AfD parliamentary group in the Bundestag since October 2017.
She holds an unconventional profile: she has two adopted boys with a female Sri Lankan-born partner, speaks Mandarin, and previously worked at Goldman Sachs and the Bank of China. In Germany’s February 2025 federal election, she led the AfD to second place with over 20 percent of the vote.
The AfD currently holds 151 seats in the Bundestag, making it the largest opposition party. In a recorded speech, Weidel declared: “The danger does not come from without, it comes from within. It has been rising from the globalist elites in Brussels and in too many European capitals, and precisely because it wears a mask of benevolence, it is so diabolically dangerous. They flood our countries with illegal mass migration. They force our own people to feed, house, and privilege these masses while crime explodes and terrorism stalks from within.”
She has also stated that Germany was seeing “an explosion of foreigner criminality and migrant violence,” and at the January 2025 AfD party congress called for borders to be “closed completely” to undocumented migrants, using the term “remigration” multiple times.