The U.S. Supreme Court upheld a landmark Native American rights law Thursday in a ruling that surprised tribes – quite pleasantly.

The 7-2 decision in Haaland v. Brackeen dismissed, in part on the merits and in part on procedural grounds, an array of challenges to the Indian Child Welfare Act, a 1978 law regulating foster and adoption proceedings for Native children in state courts. The law has been challenged many times, and it’s likely to be challenged again in the near future.

But the ruling today preserves, for now, a law that tribes view as critical to the best interests of Native children, and critical to preserving the long-term political and cultural viability of Native people as a whole.

“They punted on one or two key issues ... but it’s a very strong endorsement of the law,” says Kevin Washburn, a professor at the University of Iowa College of Law and a former assistant secretary of Indian Affairs.

The law “will remain intact and undisturbed,” he adds, and will continue to “help ensure that Native children remain connected to their tribe and have the opportunity to learn tribal culture.”

Over 130 pages of opinions saw the high court’s conservative majority engage in emotional debates on child welfare, historical debates on the legacy of centuries of harms inflicted on Native Americans, and legal debates on foundational issues like states’ rights and tribal sovereignty.

“The issues are complicated,” wrote Justice Amy Coney Barrett in the majority opinion. “But the bottom line is that we reject all of petitioners’ challenges to the statute.”

A complex law

The Indian Child Welfare Act is a complex statute that exists within the complex field of federal Indian law. Generally speaking, Congress has broad powers to legislate over tribal affairs because the U.S. has a unique “government to government” relationship with tribes. The adoption law is unusual, however, in that it applies federal law to child welfare proceedings in state courts.

The law requires that when a Native child enters custody proceedings in state court, “active efforts” must be made to keep the child in a Native household. It also provides for a hierarchy of placement preferences, meaning a non-Native family can only adopt a Native child if there is no one willing to adopt the child who is an extended family member, another member of the child’s tribe, or another Native family. 

The Haaland case arose from three separate child custody proceedings, and ultimately led to a trio of adoptive parents and the state of Texas appealing the case to the Supreme Court. They argued that the adoption law is unconstitutional on several grounds, including that it racially discriminates against non-Native adoptive parents and unconstitutionally overrides states’ authority over their child welfare systems.

The court’s ruling today only tackled some of those questions. First and foremost, the majority opinion held that the adoption law doesn’t unlawfully intrude on state child welfare powers. While Justice Barrett admitted that, per the court’s precedents, there are (vaguely defined) limits to Congress’ tribal law powers, and that states retain broad powers over domestic affairs like family law, “the Constitution does not erect a firewall around family law,” she wrote.

“Petitioners’ strategy for dealing with the confusion is not to offer a theory for rationalizing this body of law,” she added. “Instead, they frame their arguments as if the slate were clean. More than two centuries in, it is anything but.”

For Kathryn Fort, director of the Indian Child and Welfare Act Appellate Project, keeping the status quo “is just a massive victory.”

“There’s still a lot of work to be done in the area of child welfare, child protection, family reunification,” says Ms. Fort, the director of the Indian Law Clinic at the Michigan State University College of Law and a counsel of record on the tribal defendants’ brief. “I think in some ways we can go back to focusing on ... how to make lives better for the individuals caught up in the child protection system.”

The importance of history

While the majority opinion nodded to history, Justice Neil Gorsuch – in a 40-page concurrence – dove into it. The adoption law “did not emerge in a vacuum,” he wrote, but was instead the result of mass removals of Native children from their homes by state and private child welfare organizations. Those removals, he noted, were a continuation of earlier policies aimed at assimilating Natives in Western society by placing children in government-funded residential schools.

Furthermore, Justice Gorsuch plumbed constitutional legal history to argue that tribal sovereignty – and Congress’ duty to uphold it – outweighed any state child welfare interests.

“The very first Congresses punished non-Indians who ‘commit[ted] any crime upon [any] friendly Indian,’” he wrote. The adoption law “operates in much the same way.”

“Our Constitution reserves for the Tribes a place – an enduring place – in the structure of American life,” he added. “It promises them sovereignty for as long as they wish to keep it.”

Justice Clarence Thomas, often in agreement with Justice Gorsuch in other cases, also performed a deep, originalist-oriented dive into the history of the adoption law. He arrived at the opposite conclusion.

Congress’ authority in tribal affairs has historically related to “matters of war, peace, and diplomacy – not internal affairs like adoption proceedings,” he wrote.

“The court declined to rule on the heart of the case”

The ruling disappointed Mark Fiddler.

An adoption and family law attorney in Minneapolis, and a member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians, he has campaigned against the Indian Child Welfare Act for years. 

“It wasn’t what I was expecting,” says Mr. Fiddler, who represented plaintiffs in the lower courts. “But the very interesting thing is the court declined to rule on the heart of the case.”

There, Mr. Fiddler is referring to the question raised in the case of whether the adoption law violates the Equal Protection clause of the Constitution because its placement preferences favor Native families over non-Native ones, and could disadvantage Native children over non-Native children. 

While the adoption law has been challenged several times over the years, that particular argument had never been put forward. In today’s ruling, however, the court declined to consider that argument. Since there were no active child welfare proceedings in the case, the plaintiff families could not get relief for those claims from the court’s Haaland ruling.

This is the second case in as many weeks in which the court has rejected a “race neutral” theory of law. In a separate concurrence, Justice Brett Kavanaugh agreed with that conclusion, but wrote that the equal protection issue “is serious.” 

Foster and adoption decisions made on the basis of a family or child’s race “raise significant questions under bedrock equal protection principles and this Court’s precedents,” he added. “Courts, including ultimately this Court, will be able to address the equal protection issue when it is properly raised by a plaintiff with standing.”

Thus, future challenges to the adoption law – and specifically equal protection challenges – are likely. Justice Kavanaugh’s concurrence “is a roadmap for our future,” says Mr. Fiddler. “My takeaway is [the adoption law] lives, but it lives to die another day.”

Matthew McGill, who represented the Brackeens, said he would press a racial discrimination claim in state court. The Brackeens have since adopted another Native child, Y.R.J., and her case is under appeal.

“Our main concern is what today’s decision means for the little girl, Y.R.J . – now five years old – who has been a part of the Brackeen family for nearly her whole life,” said Mr. McGill in a statement.

“I couldn’t be happier”

By punting on that equal protection question, the Supreme Court avoided wrestling with a question that could have seismic consequences for tribal sovereignty.

Federal Indian law has always been grounded in the understanding that being a member of a tribe is a political classification, not a racial one. If tribal membership is viewed as a racial classification, not a political one, Native rights advocates claim that it would render all kinds of special tribal privileges, from hunting and fishing rights to gaming, vulnerable to equal protection challenges.

The racial classification argument “resonated with many people on the court, and many observers,” says Alison LaCroix, a professor at the University of Chicago Law School. “It’s not really settled as a matter of law or of public discourse.”

But “you’re also talking about tribal nations that have some degree of sovereignty and autonomy, and this is about possibly stripping them of that,” she adds. “It’s not just about putting people in boxes according to some notion of race.”

As much as anything, the Haaland ruling reinforces Justice Gorsuch’s position as the court’s foremost supporter of tribal sovereignty. Not only did he display it in his Haaland concurrence, but he was the lone dissenter in another decision today concerning tribal immunity from federal bankruptcy law. (He in fact cited his Haaland concurrence in that dissent.)

And the Haaland opinions provide an example of the skilled historical and legal analysis this court – with its conservative, originalist majority – is capable of, experts say.

“We see many, many instances in which the Supreme Court uses history very bluntly, and I think not responsibly,” says Professor LaCroix.

“I was really struck by what a responsible, contextual, informed use of history the opinion made,” she adds. “It’s very welcome, and I hope to see more of it.”

Ultimately, people like Aurene Martin got perhaps the most satisfaction from the court’s decision.

A member of the Oneida tribe in Wisconsin, she has two adopted Native sons – one of whom is from a different tribe. While a ruling in favor of the plaintiff families wouldn’t have meant she lost her son, it would potentially have deprived others of having a family like hers.

“I couldn’t be happier,” she says.

“The idea of family and of children is essential to everybody, right?” she adds. “But for tribes, to have the power to protect our communities and keep them intact, it’s just extremely gratifying to have that recognized by the Supreme Court.”

Matt Rourke/AP/File

Britain's former Prime Minister Boris Johnson resigned from Parliament this week after being found guilty of misleading the House about his breaches of pandemic rules.

Many years ago, when I was in high school, I was a pretty good wrestler. But when a friend jokingly remarked that I’d be a good guy to have alongside him in case of a mugging, I remember my younger brother chiming in: “Yeah, as long as he could tell the mugger, ‘Stay inside that circle. And stop if the referee blows the whistle!’”

Similarly constrained fights, but with real-world implications, have been raging this week on both sides of the Atlantic as two of the world’s leading democracies – the United States and Britain – moved formally to sanction men who, not too long ago, held the reins of power.

The decision by the U.S. Justice Department to indict former President Donald Trump for alleged security breaches and obstruction and Britain’s move to punish ex-Prime Minister Boris Johnson for what an inquiry has deemed serial lies to Parliament were unprecedented. And they were bound to provoke a political firestorm.

But beyond the public drama, and the dueling claims of “due process” and “witch hunt,” the moves by the U.S. and British authorities represented an attempt to meet a challenge that has been building ever since Mr. Trump and Mr. Johnson first sought high office.

It is this: How can the centuries-old institutions, written rules, and long-accepted conventions of these two venerable democracies accommodate a brand of 21st-century politician that neither system was designed, or equipped, to cope with?

Amr Alfiky/Reuters

Former President Donald Trump gestures after pleading not guilty in a Miami courtroom to dozens of felony counts relating to classified documents he took from the White House.

The answer will matter, a lot, to the future shape of democratic government in America and Britain; to Messrs. Trump and Johnson, out of office yet hopeful of regaining power; and to their admirers at the head of other, less robustly rooted democracies such as Hungary and Poland, Turkey and Israel.

For Donald Trump and Boris Johnson are strikingly similar figures.

Both were initially dismissed as almost comically unlikely to rise to rule their countries. Both did so, with enormous impact. Mr. Johnson ended Britain’s decadeslong membership in the European Union. Mr. Trump reshaped America’s approach to the world, shrugging off traditional alliances in favor of purely transactional deals he decided were of value.

Both men repeatedly ignored, or breached, their democracies’ established rules and conventions.

And both, this past week, were accused of the same transgression – a failure to tell the truth, and telling further untruths when investigators pressed them.

At issue for Mr. Trump was his retention and handling of highly classified documents. For Mr. Johnson, it was his testimony to a parliamentary committee looking into whether he’d misled legislators during the controversy that drove him from office last year about his breaches of pandemic lockdown rules.

Yet the most important similarity between the two men – and the reason that the ultimate outcome of this week’s showdowns remains uncertain – is that they’re not really politicians, in the traditional sense of the word, at all.

Jessica Taylor/UK Parliament/Reuters/File

Boris Johnson, then British prime minister, takes questions in the House of Commons, in London, June 8, 2022.

They’re performers. Entertainers. Essentially, personal brands: Trump “the politician” no less so than Trump Tower; Mr. Johnson, known universally by friend and foe alike, simply as “Boris.”

And they are prodigiously gifted performers, leaving crowds laughing, clapping, shouting, and jostling for selfies. Before Mr. Trump was excluded from Twitter, he had tens of millions of followers. Mr. Johnson has nearly 5 million – far more than any other British politician.

And while pundits frequently label both men “right-wing populists,” that’s not so much who they are, as much as it describes the political persona they embraced during their rise to power – first in their political parties, and then in their nations.

Donald Trump was not even a Republican in his earlier years. Though socially liberal himself, he embraced the party’s trademark policy crusades, for instance on abortion, as part of his grassroots rallying call – and proceeded, as president, to reshape the U.S. Supreme Court, paving the way for its restriction of abortion rights.

Mr. Johnson was the indispensable leader of the 2016 referendum campaign that took Britain out of the European Union. But only days before he publicly declared his backing for Brexit, he’d drafted two versions of his newspaper column – one supporting withdrawal, the other opposing it.

His ultimate decision proved not only a vehicle for greater national celebrity. It propelled him, a few years later, into No. 10 Downing Street.

So will he, and Mr. Trump, again prevail?

They’re certainly coming out fighting. Mr. Trump has denounced this week’s indictment as a travesty of American democracy, and nothing more than a blatant political hit job.

Mr. Johnson’s challenge is more daunting: The report of the parliamentary inquiry, concluding he had indeed deliberately misled Parliament, was released Thursday. It is due to go to the whole legislature for a vote early next week.

But his response was every bit as robust as Mr. Trump’s. A “dreadful day for democracy,” he said, calling the report “a charade ... intended to be the final knife-thrust in a protracted political assassination.”

Mary Altaffer/AP

A supporter of former President Donald Trump waits for him to speak at Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, New Jersey, June 13, 2023.

And he added tellingly that the verdict on his, or anyone’s, parliamentary future isn’t up to a parliamentary committee. “It is for the people of this country to decide,” he said.

Still, at least so far, the prospects for Mr. Trump’s angry fightback are looking decidedly more promising than Mr. Johnson’s – and the reasons for this may hold clues to Britain’s and America’s future political course.

One key difference is in the architecture of the two democracies. Britain, unlike the U.S., does not vest power in a single elected president; that rests with the 650 members of the House of Commons. And any Prime Minister who cannot command a majority has to step down. That’s what happened to Mr. Johnson last September.

So the main obstacle to a Boris or Trump comeback lies not with rival political parties, but rather with their own tribes.

Mr. Johnson appears to have exhausted the patience of all but his most devoted followers in the Conservative Party. But across the Atlantic, the great majority of Mr. Trump’s tribe – federal indictment notwithstanding – seems uninclined to break ranks.

This story is by Julio Franchi, as told to staff writer Erika Page.

At the time my only thought was to help. I just followed my instinct. Only now am I realizing what it means to be a father. 

It was 2019. I would meet up with a group of neighbors and our dogs at the square around 10 o’clock at night. We were always the same people. One night a little boy appeared. 

He was just there, playing with a stick, and you could tell he was alone. He looked abandoned. It was 11 o’clock, 12 o’clock at night. That was late for a 7-year-old. I asked him what his name was, what he was doing there. We got along right away. The next day he came back. 

From then on he was always there, with his broken sneakers and clothes that weren’t his size. 

We asked, and he wasn’t going to school. The first thing that occurred to us was to buy him some sneakers. We pooled money between the 10 of us neighbors. 

I kept trying to connect the dots. I asked where he lived, and he said, “that way.” The next day I walked him to the corner. There were a few squatter houses left in the neighborhood – his was one of them. I went with him one day with the excuse of the new shoes. I didn’t want his mom to think I was meddling. When she came out I realized because of her state that she was dealing with an addiction. But she was receptive to help.

We found him a local school. That was already a lot. He could eat there and not spend so much time on the street. He would come to my apartment for an afternoon snack, or he’d go to one of the neighbors’ homes. This continued into 2020. We saw each other several times a week. He would ask to stay over at my house, but that didn’t happen at first.  

Then the pandemic hit, and the pandemic was really strict here. You couldn’t go anywhere. Six months passed, and I didn’t hear anything from him. When the quarantine began to relax – right around when Maradona died, that’s what I remember – his mom called to say she was going to be hospitalized. She couldn’t take care of Ian. 

Erika Page/The Christian Science Monitor

Ian Cháves

She wanted to know if I could. I obviously said yes. 

She never called to ask for Ian back. 

She clearly loves her son. In her right mind, she’s great. Very fun, very cheerful. But the addiction leads her to lie endlessly. She can sleep for days. Later I learned that Ian had to get her out of places where he was forced to see really ugly situations. Within her chaos, though, she is always looking for the best for him. 

I’m very individualistic. I’m always thinking about myself, always caught up in my own world. I never thought I would be ready to be a father. When I realized she was handing him over to me, I didn’t think about my life. It’s never crossed my mind even a little bit to wonder what I’ve gotten myself into. I live alone in Buenos Aires; he is my family. Ian came to pull me out of myself, out of my ego. 

People who know me can’t believe I get up at 6 a.m. and take him to school. I used to go to bed at 7 in the morning or later. I’ve discovered the morning. I’ve discovered what it means to miss someone. The most important things in my life happen without me expecting them. 

My relationship with my own father marked me. There are things that have been difficult for me to forgive, moments of violence from another generation. But he never threw in the towel. He always wanted to change. Now I see what it means to be a model for Ian. I can’t hit the brakes and say, “I’m not going to raise you for a while. I’m going to spend my time screwing everything up and doing things wrong, so don’t watch me.” He’s going to watch anyway. 

Fatherhood is like a giant mirror in which I see all my flaws. The virtues, too, although they aren’t as numerous. It forces me to try to be better, even if I don’t succeed all the time. When I get angry, and I realize five minutes later I’ve made a mistake, I apologize right then. No matter how much I feel like screaming like a madman, I say, “Look, what I just said was wrong. I’m sorry.” 

That’s my guiding principle: honesty. When I told Ian the whole truth about what was happening to his mom – what it’s like to be an addict – everything became clearer to him. He began to understand that his mom had a problem. It wasn’t that she didn’t love him. It was essential for him to understand that. So that’s where I take shelter, in the truth. 

When I met him, knowing where he came from, the first thing I imagined was that I was going to bring him things, offer him experiences, buy him stuff. Not that I have any money. I’m a musician. I was better off than him, but just by a bit. But later I realized that in reality what I was going to give him were limits. That’s what he needed. That’s really being a parent. 

At first we explained things to people about our relationship. Then at one point we said, “OK, that’s it, we’re father and son.” I told him, “Just watch, now that we say it, we’re going to start hearing that we look alike.” Two days later, a woman stopped us and said, “You’re identical!” Ian just started to laugh.

He talks like someone from Rosario, which is where I’m from. He’s never been there. He had the same sense of humor as my dad before meeting him. And there are things I’ve copied from him. He’s calm. He doesn’t talk so much. He listens. He observes. He eats so slowly, and I tell him that’s great. Eat slowly your whole life.

Once we were talking about how I found my dog Nino, how I found my cat, and he grabbed me and said, “You found all of us on the street!” I like the street. I feel good on the street. Life today feels as if it were on demand. Everything we do is already planned out, leaving no room for surprise. The street has something our phones don’t. There must be something there, because now I have a son. 

Ian loves his mom. It’s more sadness he feels than anger, although there is anger too. If he can pull through all the inner turmoil – and he is going to – he’ll be free. I always tell him, “With all the pain around you, there are things you’ve gained that other kids don’t have.” He’s going to see that he is someone who has a story, and not just a traumatic one. It’s the life he was given. May he try to make it as beautiful as possible. 

Over the years, many have noted the effect of historical ignorance. Here’s one such comment, attributed to 18th-century British philosopher Edmund Burke: “Those who don’t know history are doomed to repeat it.” 

That may be true, but knowing what happened in the past doesn’t protect us from repeating it.

I never thought I would see something so profoundly remind me of the 1992 Los Angeles riots as the incident a few weeks ago about an hour’s drive from my home.

Cyrus Carmack-Belton, a 14-year-old Black middle schooler, was chased and fatally shot by a convenience store owner in Columbia, South Carolina, according to a police investigation resulting in a murder charge. While the store owner accused him of shoplifting, video footage indicates that he picked up a few bottles of water and then put them down.

The incident – and shoplifting allegations – immediately reminded me of Latasha Harlins, a 15-year-old Black girl who was killed in 1991 over a bottle of orange juice at a convenience store in South Central Los Angeles. Latasha’s death was one of the powder kegs, in addition to the 1992 acquittal of the police officers who beat Rodney King, that set off the LA riots. From South Central to South Carolina, history keeps repeating itself.

I looked at young Cyrus’ face, and albeit in different circumstances, I saw the smile of 12-year-old Tamir Rice, whom police shot and killed. I thought about 16-year-old Ralph Yarl, shot by a stranger when he showed up at the man’s house by mistake, and 11-year-old Aderrien Murray, shot by police last month after he called 911 at his mother’s request.

These incidents are the rejection of basic calls for humanity and decency. It is the reason that Black Lives Matter remains relevant, in spite of criticisms of the national organization and questions about whether the summer of discontent after George Floyd’s murder in 2020 was a moment or a movement. 

Alex Brandon/AP/File

Demonstrators, some with Black Lives Matter signs, protest near the White House in Washington, June 4, 2020, over the death of George Floyd, a Black man murdered by police in Minneapolis.

Black Lives Matter prevails as more than a hot summer or a culmination of protest arising from George Zimmerman’s killing of Trayvon Martin in 2012. It is an idea as old as race itself, a necessary response to and rebuke of the suggestion that being Black is synonymous with second-class citizenship.

Almost three years prior to the date Cyrus was killed, I participated in a Black Lives Matter protest in Columbia. People marched through the downtown area and ended up in front of a police station, which officers in riot gear promptly surrounded. At first, only words caromed off police shields, and then, presumably a water bottle.

That water bottle lit a fire in the officers, which led to a rushed panic among police and protesters alike. When the proverbial smoke had cleared, and I watched the news that evening back at home, a tank trudging through the street represented the local government’s militaristic response.

That angst is a function of history repeating itself. Columbia isn’t just South Carolina’s capital. It was a major center of the Confederacy and of post-Civil War Reconstruction. Columbia was the site of the first 1860 Southern secession convention, and less than eight years later, hosted the first Black-majority legislature. The political and periodically violent tug of war continues to this day, as Democrats plan to start the presidential primary cycle in South Carolina even as Republicans hold a legislative supermajority in the state. 

Perhaps the gains of Black Lives Matter aren’t as profound as those of the Civil Rights Movement. There is a simple explanation for that: Black Lives Matter has become “the language of the unheard.” That phrase is best known from Martin Luther King Jr.’s 1967 “The Other America” speech at Stanford University, where he described riots as the language of the unheard.

That failure to hear – or listen – persists. I only need to reference the Atlanta City Council’s multimillion-dollar approval of what some term Cop City, a proposed police training facility still in the works despite 14 to 15 hours of public comment in overwhelming opposition. Protests against it have been an exercise in people versus policing, with notable incidents including the shooting death of an activist by police, and the arrest of bail fund organizers from the Atlanta Solidarity Fund.

It is history repeating itself.

Black liberation, much less the very notion of integration, has been met time and time again with slave patrols, police, water hoses – anything oppression can muster. It has become such a part of Americana that folks from convenience store owners to the likes of George Zimmerman deem themselves judge, jury, and executioner. A country in the midst of a pandemic chose to move money from COVID-19 relief to policing at the behest of President Joe Biden, who considers himself an ally of Black Americans.

As I watch Black lives and dreams continue to be deferred, I think of the warning from one of Harlem’s great Renaissance men, Langston Hughes:

Negroes,
Sweet and docile,
Meek, humble, and kind:
Beware the day
They change their mind!

Wind
In the cotton fields,
Gentle breeze:
Beware the hour
It uproots trees!

For King, though, a violent storm wasn’t the best route to progress. Not quite a year before he was assassinated, in the same speech at Stanford where he defined riots, he lamented “the other America” with its “blasted hopes and shattered dreams.” More importantly, he called for mass action to deal with the “triple evils” of racism, poverty, and war.

Action is the thing. Efforts to thwart activism are, by design, “winters of delay,” as King put it. He saw equality as the goal, with all hands on deck needed to achieve it. 

If not, sadly, history will repeat itself.

Reuters

A migrant disembarks the Geo Barents rescue ship, operated by Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders), in Bari, Italy, March 26.

In the past two years, the European Union has made so much progress on difficult problems – Ukraine’s war refugees, energy security from Russian extortion, and the pandemic – that it has built up a reservoir of trust among its 27 member states. Now the bloc is tapping that heightened harmony to tackle one of its most emotional issues: a wave of migrants into Europe’s southern countries.

On Wednesday, the EU was given a vivid reminder why it must stem the flow of people across the Mediterranean Sea in search of safety or work. A boat carrying hundreds of migrants capsized off the coast of Greece, leaving at least 79 dead. Such tragedies reflect the fact that the number of people risking to take the dangerous voyage has reached a six-year high. Italy has had nearly four times the number of “irregular” arrivals from two years ago, mainly from troubled Tunisia.

On June 8, the EU’s interior ministers reached a surprise agreement on how to divide responsibility for solving the crisis. The southern “front-line” states will need to improve the way they deal with migrants while all states will be obligated to take in at least 30,000 asylum-seekers a year – or else pay a fine of €20,000 ($21,600) per migrant. The money will be used to support the front-line states.

Then on June 11, the EU offered a financial package to Tunisia to stop the smugglers and to rebuild its economy, which has suffered under authoritarian leader Kais Saied. Tunisia has until the end of June to decide whether to take the package, which appears linked to a possible rescue loan from the International Monetary Fund.

In the long run, helping the Middle East and Africa end their conflicts and reduce poverty will be the best solution for migration. Aid from the EU will help. But so will European leaders getting their own house in order. The more trust they build with each other, the more they can be both compassionate and firm with migrants fleeing their countries.