Although it looks like some kind of monstrous fish, the above photo from the Wall Street Journal’s article, “Europe’s Cargo Ships Diverted To Sea Rescues” [by Liam Moloney and Costas Paris, March 27, 2015] actually shows hundreds of immigrants trying to get across the Mediterranean to Europe. And naturally it is assumed by both European governments and the Western Main Stream Media that besieged Europeans have the responsibility to pay and care for this never-ending flood from the Third World.

Even the immigration-enthusiast Wall Street Journal noted the financial burden that mass immigration places on European businesses as “commercial vessels on busy Mediterranean routes asked to assist with waves of migrants”

In September, Italian authorities ordered oil tankers owned by Mediterranea di Navigazione SpA to help in five operations to rescue 600 boat people trying to cross from Libya to Italy in flimsy vessels.

The rescue operations cost the group €100,000 ($109,473) in extra costs, such as fuel and personnel. Now, managing director Paolo Cagnoni is considering changing his vessels’ routes to avoid the flow of migrant boats that is likely to surge this spring.

“We’ve been drawn into this human exile, but our crews aren’t equipped,” Mr. Cagnoni said. “It’s a disaster.”

One can’t help but be reminded of 1973 novel The Camp of the Saints, [PDF] by Jean Raspail, which complacent Open-Borders supporters called “racist” but which appears more and more prophetic with every passing week.

And as the “refugees” keep arriving one in what used to be the First World, another question comes to mind:

Will Americans be turned into refugees as well?

There are plenty of special interest groups in this country that push mass immigration with no thought to how an unsustainable increase in population will destroy First World living standards. These include businesses seeking cheap labor, ethnic tribalists like LULAC and La Raza, and religious factions like the Catholic Church.

Because of their efforts, many Americans are already acting like refugees. After all, many American citizens have already left California as it became overcrowded and expensive. It’s the first time we’ve seen the sad phenomenon of “White Flight” in an entire state.

Like the Italian shippers above, millions of Americans are desperate to avoid being caught in the immigration disaster. The result is that we act like refugees in our own country, thrown about because of the caprice and short-sighted greed of hostile elites who can isolate themselves from the effects of their policies.

From 1970 to today, our population has grown from under 200 million to 325 million today. The impact of the cost of living has been utterly catastrophic.

To take a personal example: I built a 4 bedroom, 3000 square foot house on an acre of land in a small Pennsylvania town for under $40,000 in 1965. Today a similar house in that neighborhood would cost many times that amount, even adjusting for inflation. And the rows of tract houses that sprawl over the formerly idyllic landscapes of exurbia testify to the desperation of Americans to escape overcrowding—even if it means a much longer commute.

Pensions used to be common and Americans used to be able to expect reasonable health care packages. But increased numbers made those policies unsustainable as well. With 25 million US citizens out of work or under-employed, it’s hard not to see the impact of cheap labor on our poorest and most vulnerable.

In effect, tens of millions of our own citizens are economic refugees. Even the propaganda about a “falling” unemployment rate is deeply dishonest because it doesn’t include those people who have simply given up looking for work. And economic inequality gets worse every day.

And yet my own supposedly-progressive President (I write as a Democrat) keeps demanding more aliens be allowed to come here, utterly unscreened and unsupervised. It’s one thing to fulfill our traditional role and benefit from talented and educated migrants. It’s another thing to recklessly endanger our own national existence and devastate the economic prospects of our own citizens.

So don’t think you can escape the fate of those hopeless Third Worlders besieging the “Camp of the Saints” in the West.

If they keep coming, they’ll just transform our home into the very places they fled from.

And as Americans themselves become refugees, where are we supposed to go?

Donald A. Collins [email him], is a freelance writer living in Washington DC and a former long time member of the board of FAIR, the Federation for American Immigration Reform. His views are his own. He is the author of From the Dissident Left: A Collection of Essays 2004-2013