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 Except that, unlike the Republican presidential frontrunner, who
wants to make Mexico pay for a wall to keep migrants out of the
United States, the Europeans are willing to pay their neighbor
Turkey to do the job for them.
Seven months and a million migrants after Chancellor Angela Merkel
declared a "welcome culture" for Syrian refugees in Germany, the
European Union is rushing to erect "No vacancy" signs along its
internal and external borders.
Under fierce political pressure in her own conservative camp and
from an insurgent right-wing populist party, the Alliance for
Germany (AfD), Merkel's mantra of "We can do this" is morphing into
"The Turks can do this for us".
In a surprise overnight deal she negotiated with Turkish Prime
Minister Ahmet Davutoglu last week, Ankara offered to take back all
migrants, including Syrian refugees, who cross from its shores into
Europe from now on or are intercepted off its coast.
Having thus sealed its most porous border to irregular migrants, the
EU would admit a limited number of carefully vetted Syrian refugees
directly from Turkey - one for each Syrian asylum seeker Ankara took
back from Greek Aegean islands.
 The lucky few would be chosen with the help of the U.N. refugee
agency from among those who had waited patiently in camps in Syria's
neighbors, not those who had paid smugglers thousands of euros for a
risky sea crossing. They would be sent to those EU countries that
agreed last year to take in a quota, although some states are
resisting that.
Stifling doubts about the legality of such a blanket return policy,
discomfort at outsourcing it to a partner many of them see as
worryingly authoritarian, and irritation at the price Turkey is
demanding, stunned EU leaders gave their provisional assent.
DESPERATION
European public opinion is so petrified by images of tens of
thousands of bedraggled migrants trekking across muddy fields and
highways towards western and northern Europe - and populists have
made such capital out of those fears - that governments are
desperate to halt the flow.
Another summit in Brussels this week is due to conclude the Faustian
bargain, granting Turkey 6 billion euros ($6.7 billion)in aid to
keep refugees on its soil, an accelerated path to visa-free travel
for Turks and faster EU membership talks in return for its agreement
to act as Europe's gatekeeper.
European Council President Donald Tusk says regaining control of
Europe's external borders is a condition for gaining public
acceptance to take in refugees. In practice, it looks more like a
way of keeping them out, if it can be implemented.
Human rights groups and volunteers who work with refugees are
outraged to see Europe slamming shut its open door for victims of
war and persecution.
EU lawyers are working overtime to try to make it legal. The Geneva
Convention on refugees requires signatories to examine individually
each claim for protection submitted by an asylum seeker on their
soil.
The German-Turkish deal would get around that provision by declaring
Turkey a "safe" third country to which irregular migrants could be
returned under a bilateral Greek-Turkish readmission agreement.
The United Nations' top human rights official has said that could
entail illegal "collective and arbitrary expulsions".
Apart from the moral issues raised by this dodge, there are several
legal problems. Turkey restricts its application of the Geneva
Convention to refugees from Europe. People fleeing war or
persecution in the Middle East and Asia will not be covered unless
Ankara amends its laws.
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Turkish officials say they will ensure Turkey complies with
international law to fulfill its part of the potential EU deal.
Even so, lawyers say asylum seekers who reach Greece have a right to
appeal against being sent back to Turkey if they fear for their
personal safety there. A Greek court would have to hear each appeal
before a person could be removed.
There is no appropriate court on the Greek islands, and Greek
justice is notoriously slow.
EMBARRASSMENT
At the same time, the rush to declare Turkey "safe" could hardly
have come at a more embarrassing time for the EU.
President Tayyip Erdogan has stepped up a military crackdown on
Kurdish militants, the government has seized Turkey's best-selling
newspaper, critical journalists face prosecution and jail, and
businessmen and public officials close to a dissident Muslim cleric
have been purged.
Unlike Trump, most EU leaders do not declare they want to prevent
more Muslims settling in their country, with the exception of
Hungary's Viktor Orban and Slovakia's Robert Fico, who have stressed
preserving their countries' Christian identity.
However, anti-immigration campaigners like Marine Le Pen in France
and Geert Wilders in the Netherlands openly cite Islam as a reason
for rejecting refugees, and they are increasingly setting the agenda
for mainstream politicians. They oppose visa-free travel for Turks
in Europe for the same reason.
France, which has a tradition of political asylum and took in tens
of thousands of Vietnamese "boat people" in the 1970s, is limiting
its intake of Syrian refugees now, citing security concerns
following last year's Islamist attacks in Paris.
Like other west European countries, France has struggled to
integrate second and third generation young people of Muslim or
north African origin. The place of Islam in public life is fiercely
contested in these secular societies, and resentments from Algeria's
war of independence still simmer.
European politicians may be aghast at the rhetoric of Trump, who has
said he wants a database to register and track Muslims in the United
States and would bar any Muslim entering the country until Congress
could act.
But if the pact with Turkey goes through as conceived, the EU will
be retreating into a "fortress Europe" policy for fear of its own
Trumps.
($1 = 0.8968 euros)
(Writing by Paul Taylor)
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