Human beings have many talents, but one of their most enduring gifts is the ability to find someone else to blame.
This is a rare, truly universal human behaviour. It transcends boundaries of race, religion, ideology, geography, and history. Though we may differ on nearly everything else, we are united by a profound reluctance to accept responsibility for our failures, mistakes, anxieties, and shortcomings.
For centuries, humanity has sought what I call a whipping boy — a convenient scapegoat, a vessel into which societies pour their fears, frustrations, disappointments, and insecurities. The scapegoat’s identity shifts over time, but the pattern endures. There was a time when fate played this role.
When harvests failed, wars were lost, children fell ill, or dreams crumbled, people blamed fate. It became the explanation for misfortune and the excuse for failure. Human beings found comfort in the belief that forces beyond their control were responsible for their troubles.
Then the devil appeared. For centuries, the devil became perhaps the most successful scapegoat in history, blamed for temptation, weakness, sin, poor judgment, and moral failings. People found it easier to ignore troubling truths about themselves, ever ready to point the finger at a supernatural villain.
Modernity diminished the dominance of fate and constrained the devil’s explanatory role; yet, fear not, a new whipping boy arose to take their place.
For many years, especially in wealthy societies, stress was regarded as the root of nearly all misfortunes. Rudeness, failure, neglect of responsibilities, and bad behaviour were all attributed to stress. It became, in a sense, the modern world’s secular demon.
Today, however, a new whipping boy dominates public discourse across much of the world: the illegal immigrant. Whether in North America, Europe, Africa, Australia, or elsewhere, one increasingly gets the impression that illegal immigrants are responsible for almost everything.
What is the pain? Concerns about housing shortages? The strain on public services? Crime rates? Declining wages? Political instability? Social tension? All these worries are now often linked to illegal immigrants. If, by some unlikely chance, extraterrestrial beings were to land tomorrow and disrupt satellite communications, it is likely that someone would blame illegal immigrants.
One of the most intriguing facets of modern politics is how effectively societies have been led to associate illegal immigration with notions of criminality. The phrase “illegal immigrant” no longer simply indicates a person’s immigration status; for many, it now instinctively conjures images of criminals, rapists, traffickers, gang members, drug dealers, and threats to public order. This mental leap is truly remarkable.
A person who enters or remains in a country without proper authorisation often, in the public imagination, acquires a host of criminal traits that have no real connection to their immigration status. We have shifted from discussing actual actions to contemplating the qualities we ascribe to individuals. This distinction is not just a shade; it is of grand proportion.
Someone who commits a robbery should be prosecuted for robbery; a person who commits rape should face the appropriate charges; and one involved in drug trafficking should be prosecuted for drug offences. Yet immigration status is not a reliable measure of moral virtue. Sadly, history reminds us that lawful residents, citizens, ministers, professors, bankers, clergy, politicians, and judges are equally capable of criminal behaviour, often entirely independent of their immigration circumstances.
Yet the stereotype endures. Why? Because scapegoats serve a vital political purpose.
Scapegoats simplify reality, reducing complex issues to simple, straightforward stories. This simplicity is politically advantageous. It’s far easier to blame migrants than to confront decades of failed housing policies, rising inequality, declining productivity, educational shortcomings, stagnant wages, fragile infrastructure, or gaps in human capital development. Complex problems demand difficult solutions, but scapegoatism requires only easy slogans.
Perhaps the most profound irony is that some of the loudest voices opposing immigration today come from societies built by immigrants.
The United States stands as a prime example: a nation whose very identity has been profoundly shaped by wave after wave of migration, yet now finds itself haunted by anxiety over newcomers. Grandchildren of those who once sought opportunity now often voice fears about immigration. Those whose families once arrived seeking a better life sometimes come to believe that today’s arrivals threaten their own existence.
This paradox deserves our attention; it reveals how swiftly memory can fade. Human beings possess an extraordinary capacity to forget their own journeys once they have reached their destination. Many who once embraced openness now advocate for closing borders; those who once sought acceptance grow suspicious of others seeking the same. Such tendencies are not limited to any particular ethnicity, nationality, or faith. They are fundamentally human—and, in a striking irony, they are also universal.
South Africa deserves a peculiar form of recognition in this discussion.
Long before the term gained popularity elsewhere, South Africans had already shown the world the true meaning of xenophobia — not merely what the dictionary states, but the lived experience. South Africa illustrated that hostility towards foreigners is not solely rooted in racial differences; one can harbour dislike for those who appear similar or share the same skin colour, religion, language, or cultural roots.
The South African case reminds us that prejudice often stems less from race than from a sense of belonging. The outsider remains forever just that: an outsider. It is for this reason that xenophobia may serve as a more insightful concept than racism when examining contemporary anti-immigrant sentiments.
Some of those who oppose immigration are not driven solely by racial hostility. Some are influenced by cultural anxieties, others by economic insecurity, some by political opportunism, and yet others by a simple fear of change. Nonetheless, fear remains fear, regardless of how it is dressed up in words.
This brings us to another intriguing facet of modern immigration debates.
Many cultural conservatives claim that their primary concern is illegal immigration, perhaps at times, though not always. If the issue were solely about legal status, one would expect equal concern for all undocumented migrants. Yet the reality is more complex.
The sharpest anxieties often arise not in discussions of visas and permits, but when neighbourhoods grow more visibly diverse: when unfamiliar languages fill the air, when new cuisines appear, or when different faiths become more evident. When cities transform, as some critics lament, into something ‘less recognisable,’ the debate frequently shifts from legality to questions of identity, revealing deeper concerns beneath the surface.
One is tempted to ask a simple question: if illegal immigration is the concern, how exactly do illegal immigrants build large temples and mosques, establish permanent cultural institutions, open restaurants or corner shops, or secure the best jobs? Such developments generally require time, resources, legal recognition, and settled communities. The anxiety, therefore, is often not simply about legality. It is about cultural change.
This pudency smacks of unvirtuous hypocrisy; people are entitled to discuss cultural change.
They are entitled to debate integration. They are entitled to express concerns about social cohesion. It is legitimate to advocate for the preservation of autochthonous culture and structure. What they are not entitled to do is to disguise any form of cultural anxiety as a conversation about documentation. Honesty remains a virtue in public debate, even in our times.
The same honesty is needed from some religious communities, particularly Christians.
There is a remarkable quality to the transformation that unfolds when political fervour meets religious teaching. Many Christians, passionately defending civilisation’s fabric, often seem surprisingly indifferent to Christ’s words on strangers, compassion, mercy, forgiveness, and hospitality.
One need not oppose open borders to recognise the contradiction; it is possible to support border controls while cherishing compassion, uphold immigration laws while honouring human dignity, and defend national sovereignty without neglecting moral obligations. Just in case some forget, here is a reminder: the teachings of Christ do not fade at the border, nor does humanity’s inherent dignity.
Perhaps the most illuminating group in this debate is legal immigrants themselves. Often, they find themselves ensnared in a peculiar psychological prison. Official rhetoric assures them they are not the intended target. Politicians claim their quarrel is solely with illegal immigrants. Campaigns are waged against undocumented migrants. New measures are justified as the enforcement of immigration laws. Legal immigrants are repeatedly reassured that they have nothing to fear.
However, many of them do fear, and their fears may be justified. They recognise something others miss: when a society becomes accustomed to blaming outsiders, the distinction between individuals can become dangerously blurred. Currently, the focus might be on illegal immigrants. In the future, it could extend to all immigrants, and eventually to just foreigners.
Language of exclusion tends to broaden its vocabulary. Legal immigrants listen to such rhetoric and recognise its implications: they understand that public hostility rarely scrutinises documents. They know that suspicion rarely asks for proof of residency before passing judgment. They see how anger directed at one group of outsiders can easily spill over onto others.
They are like passengers on a train who have been told that only those in the last carriage will be asked to disembark. The reassurance offers little comfort, for they know the train is still hurtling in the wrong direction.
Many legal immigrants, therefore, live with an uncomfortable contradiction. They are encouraged to distinguish themselves from undocumented migrants while recognising how fragile such distinctions can be. They may possess the correct papers, but they cannot entirely silence the question that lingers in their minds: What happens when the search for a whipping boy requires a larger supply?
History offers little reassurance.
Societies that grow accustomed to targeting convenient scapegoats seldom stop after the first. The line dividing an “illegal immigrant” from an “immigrant” can become dangerously thin when fear, frustration, and political opportunism sway public discourse. While legal status may grant protection under the law, it does not always shield one from prejudice—an understanding that seasoned immigrants deeply appreciate. Yet, none of this suggests that immigration laws should be disregarded.
Nations have the right to regulate their borders, and governments bear the legitimate responsibility to manage migration. Citizens are entitled to discuss immigration policies openly. The question is not whether such discourse should occur, but whether immigration will forever serve as the default explanation for all societal problems.
A mature society understands the difference between policy issues and scapegoatism, recognising that immigration might contribute to certain challenges without being the sole cause. It knows that complex societies rarely stem from a single root. Most importantly, it resists the temptation to turn human beings into symbols of blame.
Today, the illegal immigrant has become the latest whipping boy in mankind’s long history of finger-pointing. Before that, it was stress; before stress, the devil; before the devil, fate itself. Names change, but the pattern endures. Perhaps the key lessons this pattern teaches are that the greatest challenge facing societies is not immigration per se, but humanity’s enduring tendency to seek someone else to blame rather than confront the truth within, our desire for simple stories, and the fact that there will always be someone or some people who will rise to fame and make their fortunes from our fears and worries.
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Anthony Kila is a Jean Monnet professor of Strategy and Development. He is currently Institute Director at the Commonwealth Institute of Advanced and Professional Studies, CIAPS, Lagos, Nigeria. He is a regular commentator on the BBC and he works with various organisations on International Development projects across Europe, Africa and the USA. He tweets @anthonykila, and can be reached at anthonykila@ciaps.org
