He is running on a nationalist, anti-Islam platform. Yet his mother’s family is from Indonesia, the largest Muslim country on the planet. He fashions himself a political outsider. Yet he has spent his entire career in politics. Meet Geert Wilders: the 53-year-old paradox vying to be the next prime minister of the Netherlands.

Wilders has been called the “Dutch Donald Trump.” For one, his hair, dyed blonde and coiffed, is central to his image. But it goes a bit deeper: he has proposed banning the Quran. He would like to see all mosques in the Netherlands shuttered. And, like his populist peers in the rest of Europe, has promised a “Nexit” (a referendum vote for the Netherlands to exit the European Union) if he wins the March 15 election.

At a political rally three years ago, Wilders led an exchange that underscores his anti-Islam, and anti-immigrant views. “Do you want more or fewer Moroccans in this country?” he asked the crowd, which replied: “Fewer, fewer, fewer!” Wilders, then a member of parliament, smiled and said: “Well I’ll arrange for that then.”

There are a few qualities that distance Wilders from the popular perception of other far-right political candidates in Europe. He supports gay marriage. He supports drug legalization and legalized prostitution. And his supporters see him as a protector, not an opponent, of the Netherlands’ liberal ethos, unlike France’s Marine Le Pen and the nationalist candidates in Germany. In Wilders’s world, Islam is the enemy of liberal values, not of orthodox conservative values or values steeped in Christianity.

By most accounts, his extreme stance against Islam began in 2004. Dutch filmmaker Theo Van Gogh made a film that was critical of Islam. Soon after its release, Van Gogh was killed by a Muslim extremist. This ignited millions of people to take to the streets in the name of free speech. Wilders, a member of parliament at the time, was a vocal opponent of Muslim immigration to the Netherlands. Dutch officials discovered plots to take his life, and Wilders has been living a reclusive lifestyle ever since.

He lives in a safe house. His office at the Dutch parliament is on a different floor than his fellow MPs, and is heavily guarded. He has rarely made public appearances in the weeks and months leading up to the March 15 election. And as befits a man often compared to Trump, Wilders uses Twitter to directly communicate with his followers.

His message is resonating with a large swath of Dutch voters; his Party for Freedom is leading most national polls. But the Dutch governing system is ruled by a coalition of parties–usually four or five–with a prime minister usually, but not always, coming from the party with the most seats in parliament. Other party leaders, including current Prime Minister Mark Rutte, have said they will not govern with Wilders at the helm. Whether or not he becomes the prime minister, Wilders has surely nudged the government to the right, and his message will influence the future leader.

During a recent interview, Wilders summed up his governing philosophy: “I’m a patriot, and I believe there’s a ‘Patriotic Spring’ going on in the world today, in the Western world,” he said. “Donald Trump did the job in America, and I hope that here in Europe, we will see a patriotic spring in Holland but also in Germany, France — many other countries where parties like mine are getting stronger every day.”

Alec Siegel

Alec Siegel is a staff writer at Law Street Media. When he’s not working at Law Street he’s either cooking a mediocre tofu dish or enjoying a run in the woods. His passions include: gooey chocolate chips, black coffee, mountains, the Animal Kingdom in general, and John Lennon. Baklava is his achilles heel. Contact Alec at ASiegel@LawStreetMedia.com.

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Miami-Dade County Mayor Carlos A. Gimenez signed a memo on Thursday that orders county officials to comply with federal immigration detention requests. This order makes Miami-Dade the first jurisdiction to relinquish its status as an immigrant sanctuary, a title given to it by the Department of Justice in May of 2016, but one that the county itself has resisted.

Gimenez’s action comes a day after President Trump signed an executive order titled “Enhancing Public Safety in the Interior of the United States” on Wednesday, which denies federal funding to sanctuary cities by instructing the Department of Homeland Security to cut its funding to these cities. This, in effect, coerces counties into cooperating with federal authorities when it comes to detaining undocumented immigrants.

Gimenez’s action directs the county’s corrections director to comply with Trump’s executive order by holding undocumented immigrants who have been detained by police for committing crimes long enough for federal authorities to pick them up, a measure that officials in many cities have resisted so far.

In 2016, the cost that the county would have incurred had it held the almost 100 undocumented inmates long enough for feds to pick them up would have been about $52,000, according to The Miami Herald, which broke the story.

In an interview with The Miami Herald, Gimenez said that his decision was a financial one, stating that “I want to make sure we don’t put in jeopardy the millions of funds we get from the federal government for a $52,000 issue. It doesn’t mean that we’re going to be arresting more people. It doesn’t mean that we’re going to be enforcing any immigration laws.”

On “Fox and Friends” this morning, Gimenez told the show’s hosts that the decision was a “no-brainer,” saying that Trump’s executive order “put an exclamation point” on the issue, and the county is merely returning to its 2014 policy honoring detention requests “regardless of the fact the governments says they’ll pay for it.”

Gimenez’s statement stands in contrast to statements made by mayors of other sanctuary cities such as Bill de Blasio of New York City. He said on CNN that the city would threaten to sue if federal funding was stripped because the city refused to turn over undocumented immigrants who commit low-level crimes. The city’s current policy states that the city will cooperate with the federal government if an undocumented immigrant commits a serious crime.

Gimenez, who voted for Hillary Clinton in the election, and called for Trump to step down as the Republican party’s nominee back in October, was praised by Trump, as the president took to Twitter yesterday afternoon to celebrate the perceived policy victory:

Miami-Dade Mayor drops sanctuary policy. Right decision. Strong! https://t.co/MtPvaDC4jM

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 26, 2017

Austin Elias-De Jesus

Austin is an editorial intern at Law Street Media. He is a junior at The George Washington University majoring in Political Communication. You can usually find him reading somewhere. If you can’t find him reading, he’s probably taking a walk. Contact Austin at Staff@Lawstreetmedia.com.

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The Senate passed a measure on Thursday that will renew the Special Immigrant Visa (SIV) program, designed to provide asylum for Afghan translators and interpreters who assisted U.S. troops in Afghanistan and Iraq. Attached to a larger bill–the National Defense Authorization Act–the measure added 1,500 additional visas to the program, which lawmakers from both parties and military officials traditionally support.

Though it easily passed by a vote of 92-7, lawmakers have been at odds during the past few months over the specifics of the measure, including how many visas should be added, and how much it would cost. Earlier this year, President Obama requested 4,000 applicants be added to the program, though the measure missed that mark by 2,500 visas. There are currently 13,000 pending applications from sanctuary-seekers.

Since U.S. troops invaded Afghanistan in October 2001, thousands of Afghans have assisted troops as translators and interpreters. Many face threats when they return home, from the Taliban–which remains a force in the country–other extremist groups, or even from their neighbors who may view them as traitors. The SIV program provides sanctuary for Afghan nationals who were employed for at least two years on behalf of the U.S. military, and who experience an “ongoing serious threat as a consequence of such employment.”

In August, Senator John McCain (R-AZ), a vocal proponent of the program, offered a blunt warning on the Senate floor: “People are going to die,” he said to a fellow Republican who wanted to block more visas from being added to the program. “Don’t you understand the gravity of that?”

The program began in 2009 under the Afghan Allies Protection Act, and is traditionally attached as a clause to the annual military bill. This year’s bill, expected to cost $619 billion, also calls for a 2.1 percent wage increase for U.S. troops, the steepest increase since 2010. One lingering question about the SIV program is how President-elect Trump will handle it.

Three of Trump’s cabinet choices thus far are former generals, and the military is a traditional supporter of the program. But more visas would also mean more Muslims in the U.S. Throughout his campaign, Trump often targeted Muslims with harsh rhetoric, and has flirted with banning the entire faith from the country.

Alec Siegel

Alec Siegel is a staff writer at Law Street Media. When he’s not working at Law Street he’s either cooking a mediocre tofu dish or enjoying a run in the woods. His passions include: gooey chocolate chips, black coffee, mountains, the Animal Kingdom in general, and John Lennon. Baklava is his achilles heel. Contact Alec at ASiegel@LawStreetMedia.com.

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During a speech on Tuesday, German Chancellor Angela Merkel proposed a ban on full-face veils, eliciting raucous cheers from the audience. “Here we say, ‘Show your face,'” she said during her 80-minute speech. “So full veiling is not appropriate here. It should be prohibited wherever legally possible.” Her shift in tone on what her country would accept amid a rising tide of anti-immigration sentiment in Germany and elsewhere in Europe could be an appeal to far-right voters before the federal elections next year.

The speech was made to acknowledge her acceptance of the nomination of the center-right Christian Democratic Union, the party she has led since 2000. Though the party suffered an embarrassing loss to a far-right party in a local election in September, Merkel was nominated to head the CDU with convincing support: she won 89.5 percent of votes from 994 delegates. A few weeks ago, Merkel announced she will be running for a fourth term.

During her speech, which ended with a 12-minute standing ovation, Merkel hinted at the rising tides of populism, and the recent challenges to liberal democratic ideals. “A good quarter century after the end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the two blocs, many people have the feeling that the world has gone off the rails,” she said.

And while she managed to avoid naming President-elect Donald Trump explicitly, she did nod in his direction. “We are dealing with a world situation — and that is especially true after the American elections — in which the world must first sort itself out,” she said. “Especially when looking at important things like NATO and the relationship to Russia.” Trump questioned the U.S.-NATO alliance during his campaign.

Since Merkel allowed nearly one million migrants from the Middle East, many from Syria, into Germany last year, she has had to deal with rising criticism at home and abroad. Germany will weigh in on her leadership during next year’s elections, and many see Tuesday’s speech as a way to placate the fears that are fanning far-right, nationalist movements, and assure those voters that she will be staunch to defend German values. In addition to supporting a full-face veil ban, Merkel said Shariah Law could never supplant German justice.

Alec Siegel

Alec Siegel is a staff writer at Law Street Media. When he’s not working at Law Street he’s either cooking a mediocre tofu dish or enjoying a run in the woods. His passions include: gooey chocolate chips, black coffee, mountains, the Animal Kingdom in general, and John Lennon. Baklava is his achilles heel. Contact Alec at ASiegel@LawStreetMedia.com.

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