I spent 24 years enforcing immigration law. I know what government looks like when officials stop taking enforcement seriously. In June, I wrote in Lyceum that Belfast's riots exposed a collapse of public trust and that lawful enforcement offered the peaceful way to restore it. France has now delivered another warning.
On October 17, masked rioters looted businesses and set fire to public buildings across France. Police made more than 2,400 arrests, and nearly 1,000 officers were injured, seven of them seriously. Cities imposed curfews. Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez acknowledged that police had failed to anticipate the scale of the unrest and offered to resign. President Emmanuel Macron refused his resignation and publicly condemned the violence.
Publish the data regularly, explain what the numbers show, and let citizens judge. If the numbers support the policy, why hide them?
French officials blamed ultra-left militants and opportunistic looters. The protests began in September over the cost of living and deteriorating schools. More than half a million people marched on Oct. 17, most of them peacefully. I accept those facts. I do not accept that the government's explanation ends the inquiry. Officials who admit they failed to anticipate what happened on their own streets should expect the public to ask tougher questions.
Start with the government's own immigration figures. France issued about 377,000 first residence permits in 2025, up 9.2% from 2024, according to revised Interior Ministry figures. Permits issued for humanitarian reasons rose 56.8%. The increase is partly explained by protection for people fleeing conflict in Afghanistan and Ukraine. But who calculated the effects on the communities expected to absorb them?
Consider the schools, where the protests began. France’s 2026 plans eliminated more than 3,000 existing teaching positions in certain categories even as the Education Ministry budgeted thousands of other posts. Teachers complained about vacancies, and students described classes of 32 to 36. The ministry points to a historic decline in enrollment. I take it at its word. That makes it all the more important to show how officials reconcile nationwide enrollment projections with the needs of particular neighborhoods.
Who weighs residence permits against available classrooms, housing, local services, and employment? Who decides where resources will follow the people who arrive? If officials have made those calculations, publish them. A government that can count permits can explain their second- and third-order consequences. If it does not ask those questions, it cannot expect the public to believe it cares about the answers.
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Here is another test. France publishes residence permits by nationality, including the numbers issued to Moroccans and Afghans. After the riots, the Interior Ministry reported arrests, but I have not seen a comparable public breakdown of who was arrested. Publish the numbers and let the public assess them. Silence is no substitute for evidence.
Spain has felt its own pressures. In 2025, an assault on an elderly man in Torre Pacheco became the spark for several nights of anti-migrant clashes. In April this year, Madrid opened an extraordinary program to regularize undocumented migrants, originally expected to reach about half a million people. Housing protests intensified, and Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez called a snap election for November 29. I read these events as a bill coming due for political leaders who must answer for their decisions.
Belfast offered a more immediate example. On June 8, a man was stabbed, and a Sudanese asylum seeker was charged with attempted murder. Mobs then set fire to homes and a city bus. Lists of addresses supposedly belonging to immigrants circulated online. Police brought in reinforcements from Great Britain and used plastic bullets.
Attacking people because of where they live is a crime, and no immigration policy excuses it. But governments cannot ignore demands for public order and then profess surprise when disorder follows. I made that argument in Lyceum, and I stand by it.
Poland chose a different response. In March 2025, it suspended most asylum applications from people crossing its border with Belarus, strengthened border enforcement, and maintained a visible security presence. On October 18, Prime Minister Donald Tusk defended that policy, emphasizing border control and the removal of people who violate Polish law.
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Poland has not escaped demonstrations. Anti-immigration marches took place in more than 80 cities in July 2025, and police separated marchers from counterprotesters. But I have not found riots on the scale of Belfast or France. Critics note that the OECD put Poland's foreign-born population at only 2.2% in 2023. The country also hosts more than a million refugees from Ukraine, and human rights groups challenge its asylum restrictions. Poland proves neither that every restriction works nor that it has settled every concern. It does show a government acting openly on a question voters have pressed it to answer.
Americans should learn from this. Enforcement can rebuild trust; secrecy corrodes it. The Oversight Project sought deportation statistics from the Department of Homeland Security. According to an October 9 Daily Caller report, DHS supplied a fully redacted summary of voluntary departures. I called that a slap in the face, and I meant it.
France should explain its arrests and immigration decisions. The Trump administration should publish the deportation figures it uses to defend its record. Both governments ask the public to trust them. Publish the data regularly, explain what the numbers show, and let citizens judge. If the numbers support the policy, why hide them?