[rayiner]

You have to distinguish between “democracy” and “liberal democracy.” Democracy doesn’t inherently require “rights.” And in general “rights” are invoked to curtail democracy. For example, Germany is more democratic than the US, insofar as it leaves far more things to the public to decide—everything from abortion to guns to campaign finance to same sex marriage—without invoking “rights” to override the public’s decisions. The problem with sweeping invocations of “universal human rights” is that in practice they’re not so universally accepted, and tend to be invoked to override the popular will.

My quibble with OP is that he’s using “anti-democratic” to mean exactly the opposite. The concern is not that a minority of voters will force countries to exclude climate refugees. To the contrary, the concern is that a majority of voters will seek to exclude refugees, in contravention to, as you put it, migrants’ “rights.” But who decided those rights exist? Most people in the world would not agree anyone else has a right to live in their country. Even insofar as they might welcome refugees, they would see that as an act of magnanimity, not “rights.”