Look Up, Not Across: How Elites Weaponize Migration as a Distraction from Class Inequality

In this commentary, Bernard Allan V. Garcia argues that contemporary populism strategically reframes migration not simply as a policy issue but as a political instrument for redirecting public anger. Rather than confronting structural inequalities such as wealth concentration, housing crises, and labor exploitation, populist leaders shift political conflict from a vertical struggle between citizens and elites to a horizontal conflict between natives and migrants. Garcia demonstrates how this narrative preserves existing economic hierarchies, redefines political enemies, and transforms migrants into convenient scapegoats while leaving the underlying causes of social and economic insecurity untouched. The commentary offers a provocative framework for understanding anti-migration rhetoric as a mechanism of economic elite preservation rather than a genuine response to citizens’ socioeconomic grievances.

By Bernard Allan V. Garcia*

In an era of staggering wealth inequality, stagnant growth, soaring living costs, and decaying public infrastructure, populist leaders often target vulnerable populations rather than addressing systemic shortcomings. The rhetoric of modern populist movements is directed downward, frequently toward migrant populations (Wodak, 2015). This is no coincidence. It is a recurring pattern in countries led by populist governments, albeit with different variations, and has become a core strategy of contemporary populism.

To understand why human migration remains such a controversial issue in contemporary politics, we must look beyond standard and overused explanations (i.e., xenophobia and traditional economic models). The reality in countries governed by populist leaders is more structural: migration and migrants serve as instruments of political distraction and redirection (Rini, 2019). This strategy shifts political conflict from a top-down class divide to a horizontal conflict between citizens and immigrants.

The Elite’s Dilemma

Every sovereign state today has its own deep structural fractures. For ordinary citizens, difficulties such as unaffordable housing, inadequate health insurance, bankruptcy, or industrial decline naturally lead them to search for explanations. Public anger tends to flow vertically upward, toward government institutions, powerful elites, and the corporate structures that, directly or indirectly, shape people’s daily lives.

This places political and economic elites in an equally difficult position, as a society organized around a vertical, top-down understanding of power can become highly volatile. When directed upward, public anger can generate demands for wealth redistribution, higher corporate taxes, and structural reforms that threaten the status quo benefiting those who hold power. To preserve that status quo, political leaders who depend on elite donors face a fundamental dilemma: how can they acknowledge the frustrations of the working class without allowing that frustration to be directed at the elites themselves?

The Art of Anger Redirection

Migration and migrants are, unfortunately, well suited to solving this dilemma (Nayyeri, 2024). By introducing an external group into the political equation, populist leaders can dramatically redirect public attention and redefine the source of public suffering. For example, housing crises in many Western states, where rental prices are skyrocketing, are driven primarily by internal factors such as restrictive zoning laws, low interest rates, and the financialization of housing as an investment rather than a basic human right. Addressing these problems requires significant redistribution of resources and a reordering of policy priorities—measures that may be unpopular with economic elites. Instead, populist leaders attribute the problem to migrants. It is far easier to tell working-class families that housing prices have risen because of the millions of migrants who have arrived in recent years than to introduce policies that might strain relations between the government and economic elites. As a result, the political conflict instantly rotates by 90 degrees, shifting from Bottom vs. Top to Inside vs. Outside.

This substitution offers an immense political advantage. First, the redirection preserves the economic and political status quo because there is no need to raise taxes on wealthy individuals or undertake structural reforms. Second, it provides political leaders and economic elites with an easy villain in a fabricated narrative, as migrants lack both political power and media representation to defend themselves. Finally, it unites a struggling working class and powerful elites around the issue of border control, creating a shared political agenda that can be translated into electoral advantage.

Redefining the “Enemy”

Historically, the elite has consisted of those with economic power, such as business owners, landlords, and corporate executives. However, populist leaders, driven by both the desire to remain in power and the need to preserve their relationships with traditional elites, introduce a revised concept of who constitutes the elite (Mudde & Rovira Kaltwasser, 2017). In the populist narrative, an elite is no longer a billionaire who pays workers minimum wage while benefiting from low corporate taxes. Instead, the elite becomes a progressive liberal politician, university professor, journalist, or anyone who advocates for migrants. Through this lens, those who defend migrants’ rights are portrayed as enemies of the state, while those who oppose migration are celebrated as patriots.

When populist leaders attack migrants and the migration system, they claim to be fighting the established liberal order. Working-class voters may feel a sense of victory in dismantling the so-called migrant establishment, even though their own economic exploitation remains unresolved.

The Paradox of Protecting Local Labor

The hypocrisy of populist politics can be seen in the priorities set by populist governments. One of the most common justifications for anti-migration populism is the protection of local employment opportunities. If populist leaders were truly concerned with protecting local jobs, their proposed policies would follow a logical order. They would champion strict penalties against corporate exploitation, including the abuse of both local and undocumented foreign workers. They would insist that all workers, regardless of their country of origin, be treated fairly and that no employer be allowed to use race or nationality to justify paying below-standard wages. They would also advocate pathways to citizenship or permanent residency to protect migrants’ rights and prevent employers from coercing them into accepting substandard pay.

However, such policies remain far down the list of priorities for populist leaders. Instead of penalizing corporate exploitation, they target workers themselves. The objective is rarely to eliminate the unregulated labor market—including undocumented foreign workers—but rather to preserve a system of permanent insecurity. By keeping migrants in a legal twilight zone while simultaneously using them as political punching bags, populist leaders claim two victories: a source of cheap labor for the economy and an inexhaustible political scapegoat during elections.

Stop Looking at the Border

None of this commentary suggests that migration policy is simple or that sovereign states should not manage their territorial boundaries. Managing immigration is both a legitimate and a necessary function of a sovereign state. However, there is a difference between treating migration as a complex humanitarian challenge and presenting it as an all-purpose solution to domestic political problems.

As long as public scrutiny remains focused on the horizontal conflict between locals/natives and foreigners, the underlying causes of societal inequality will remain unaddressed. The housing market will continue to suffer as long as housing is treated primarily as an asset and investment. Wealth will remain concentrated at the top of the social hierarchy. Public services will continue to deteriorate. Ultimately, despite efforts to militarize state borders, citizens may one day wake up and realize that their lives have not fundamentally improved.

Therefore, whenever political figures attempt to convince you that your main adversary is an immigrant arriving by boat or crossing a border, commentators, journalists, and citizens must remain vigilant and look upward. The central political conflict of our time is not a clash between natives and foreigners; it is a struggle between those who profit from a broken status quo and those left to bear its costs. While public attention is directed toward the border, ask yourself which policies are being quietly buried. When working people compete with one another over scraps instead of demanding a seat at the table, ask who truly benefits.

(*) Bernard Allan V. Garcia is a political demographer having earned degrees in International Studies and Population Studies. He is currently an Associate Researcher at the Asian Institute of Management in the Philippines. Email: bvgarcia@aim.edu

References

Mudde, C. & Rovira Kaltwasser, C. (2017). Populism: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford University Press.

Nayyeri, M. (2024). “Populism, backlash morality and immigrants.” International Journal of Law in Context, 21(1), 58–79. https://doi.org/10.1017/s1744552324000387

Rini, R. (2019). “Scapegoating and the strategic reallocation of public anger.” Journal of Applied Philosophy, 36(3), 411–428.

Wodak, R. (2015). The Politics of Fear: What Right-Wing Populist Discourses Mean. SAGE Publications.