“There are too many immigrants in Germany”
That’s what my cousin’s 28-year-old son had to say when I saw him in Frankfurt in 2024.
The thing is that he had migrated to Germany from Macedonia 18 months before.
“But you’re a migrant” I pointed out to him.
“I’m not a migrant. I’m from Europe” was his response, underlying the racist connotations of what the term “migrant” means to him and many others.
Soon after the German elections in February 2025, I saw how many on Balkan social media were mentioning (anecdotally) that large numbers of people from ex-Yugoslavia in Germany voted for the anti-immigrant far-right party AfD – despite having been immigrants themselves.
And then a friend of mine in Australia, a registered immigration agent of Serb background, went on social media to tell off all the ex-Yugos and other Aussies of southern and eastern European origin she knows, many of whom weren’t even born in Australia, who attended the “March for Australia” anti-immigration protests in August and October 2025. "You should all hand in your other passports then and just keep your Aussie one if you're that dinky-di" is what she had to say, pointing out their hypocrisy.
There’s nothing unique in this pattern. As Australian journalist and writer Sami Shah so eloquently points out in this article: “the migrant’s dream has always been this: arrive, succeed, then explain why everyone arriving after you is a threat to civilisation”.
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