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Immigration today
Franklin W Knight
Wednesday, June 13, 2007
The unreasonable and frenetic discussions across the United States of America on the issue of immigration emphasise the inherent problems of immigration today. Problems of immigration go to the heart of national self-consciousness, and often have less to do with reality than with unspoken fears and fuzzy perceptions of reality. In the United States, most major discussions are sporadic, achieving urgency only during times of war or the regular four-year cycles of presidential elections. This election year immigration is a hot-button issue.
One of the less plausible arguments proposed to reduce immigration is an implied threat to the national identity of the United States. After September 11, 2001, national security elicits much attention. While anti-immigrant hostility focuses on Spanish speakers, the folks who destroyed the World Trade Centre were largely Arabic speakers from Saudi Arabia. If a large and powerful country like the United States can feel threatened by a few million immigrants entering legally and illegally, then it is obvious why the problem of migration assumes such inordinate importance in so many of the world's countries. Indeed, it was one of the reasons for the premature demise of the newly formed West Indies Federation in 1961.
No one underestimates the seriousness of the problem of migration in today's world. More than ever before the world is on the move. Foreigners constitute a significant proportion of the population of most western countries. Most foreign-born residents are legal immigrants, but increasingly illegal flows are beginning to swamp legal arrivals in a few countries. Immigration is a universal problem.
In the year 2000 Spain accepted almost a million new immigrants, mostly from Morocco. Portugal received slightly less than 200,000 with the majority coming from the Cape Verde Islands. The United Kingdom registered more than two million immigrants with the largest arrivals coming from Ireland, India and the USA. Germany has more than seven million foreigners with more than two million coming from Turkey. France accepted more than three and one-half million mainly from Morocco, Algeria, Spain, Portugal and Italy.
In the Americas, the two major receiving countries for immigrants were Canada and the USA. In both countries, the foreign-born comprise large groups. About 17 per cent, or slightly less than five million of the present Canadian population were born outside of Canada with most recent immigrants coming from China. The USA counts more than 31 million people born outside its borders, comprising slightly more than 11 per cent of the total population. Mexico contributes the largest proportion of the foreign-born in the United States of America.
But the important observation lies not with the overall proportion of immigrants but with the perception of the flow, and local reaction. Immigrants are controversial only when they are seen to be different, when their economic competition appears to be too inconvenient and when they clash with local culture. Nowhere is this more self-evident than with the French. Anyone listening to the recent French debates on immigration could easily believe that the problem lies with recent North African immigrants from Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia. Yet the North Africans only slightly exceed the total number of immigrants from Spain, Portugal and Italy. Portugal is the single largest contributor to French immigrants, but that pool elicits no negative response.
In the United States, the preponderance of Mexican immigrants strongly colours the debates. Mexicans comprise fully one-half of all American-born immigrants to the USA and more than one-half of all illegal immigrants. In large measure, then, the anti-immigrant debate in the USA is really an anti-Mexico debate.
The harsh irony of this anti-Mexico posture resides in the tangled historical relations between the two contiguous countries. Except for the indigenous population which never seems to get mentioned in the disputes over legitimacy, the America hemisphere represents the quintessential collection of nations of immigrants. Most Americans, therefore, regardless of their residence, are hyphenated or hybrid peoples. They cannot escape the uncomfortable consequences of centuries of moving, mixing and melding.
The United States of America acquired territory in three ways.
The first was by outright appropriation of the land and settling it, as did the colonists at Plymouth and Jamestown in the early 17th century. The second was by treaties with the indigenous population as happened in parts of Pennsylvania, Delaware and Virginia. The third was by purchase from France and Mexico in the early 19th century.
The two most prominent acquisitions were the Louisiana Purchase of President Thomas Jefferson in 1803 and the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo that ended the Mexican American War of 1846-1848. The first expanded the territory of the United States by 828,000 square miles. The second added 525,000 square miles and allowed the United States to stretch its territory from the Atlantic to the Pacific oceans. But that vast expanse of land was not empty. It was inhabited by Mexicans, Spaniards and a substantial population of original peoples who had never surrendered their sovereignty to anyone, but who nevertheless would eventually be ruthlessly expelled, murdered, or corralled on miserable reservations.
Clearly, not all immigrants are equally objectionable to those who passionately propose fortifying the borders of the state and expelling all who have entered improperly. In the 19th century, the United States would have preferred to be an entirely "white-only" country, but that was impossible. Today, illegal immigrants are forced to bear the heavy burden of the nation's ills.
Although the cost accounting is extremely complex, immigrants are indispensable to the economy and society of the United States. From its inception, immigrants have made substantial contributions to the ethnic dynamism, the material progress and its cultural vibrancy. In the decade of the 1990s immigrants filled more than 50 per cent of all new jobs in the United States. Other data support the importance of immigration. Hispanic-owned businesses are opening at four times the national average. Bilingual advertising in English and Spanish is becoming commonplace. More than 50 per cent of all engineering students in 2004 were foreign-born.
More than one-quarter of all Silicon Valley start-up businesses belong to foreigners. Some of the most important new technology firms such as Intel, Sun Microsystems and Google were started by foreigners. And possibly within our lifetime, a Mexican could become the richest man in the world. Maybe it is time to be nicer to immigrants.
Franklin W Knight
Wednesday, June 13, 2007
The unreasonable and frenetic discussions across the United States of America on the issue of immigration emphasise the inherent problems of immigration today. Problems of immigration go to the heart of national self-consciousness, and often have less to do with reality than with unspoken fears and fuzzy perceptions of reality. In the United States, most major discussions are sporadic, achieving urgency only during times of war or the regular four-year cycles of presidential elections. This election year immigration is a hot-button issue.
One of the less plausible arguments proposed to reduce immigration is an implied threat to the national identity of the United States. After September 11, 2001, national security elicits much attention. While anti-immigrant hostility focuses on Spanish speakers, the folks who destroyed the World Trade Centre were largely Arabic speakers from Saudi Arabia. If a large and powerful country like the United States can feel threatened by a few million immigrants entering legally and illegally, then it is obvious why the problem of migration assumes such inordinate importance in so many of the world's countries. Indeed, it was one of the reasons for the premature demise of the newly formed West Indies Federation in 1961.
No one underestimates the seriousness of the problem of migration in today's world. More than ever before the world is on the move. Foreigners constitute a significant proportion of the population of most western countries. Most foreign-born residents are legal immigrants, but increasingly illegal flows are beginning to swamp legal arrivals in a few countries. Immigration is a universal problem.
In the year 2000 Spain accepted almost a million new immigrants, mostly from Morocco. Portugal received slightly less than 200,000 with the majority coming from the Cape Verde Islands. The United Kingdom registered more than two million immigrants with the largest arrivals coming from Ireland, India and the USA. Germany has more than seven million foreigners with more than two million coming from Turkey. France accepted more than three and one-half million mainly from Morocco, Algeria, Spain, Portugal and Italy.
In the Americas, the two major receiving countries for immigrants were Canada and the USA. In both countries, the foreign-born comprise large groups. About 17 per cent, or slightly less than five million of the present Canadian population were born outside of Canada with most recent immigrants coming from China. The USA counts more than 31 million people born outside its borders, comprising slightly more than 11 per cent of the total population. Mexico contributes the largest proportion of the foreign-born in the United States of America.
But the important observation lies not with the overall proportion of immigrants but with the perception of the flow, and local reaction. Immigrants are controversial only when they are seen to be different, when their economic competition appears to be too inconvenient and when they clash with local culture. Nowhere is this more self-evident than with the French. Anyone listening to the recent French debates on immigration could easily believe that the problem lies with recent North African immigrants from Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia. Yet the North Africans only slightly exceed the total number of immigrants from Spain, Portugal and Italy. Portugal is the single largest contributor to French immigrants, but that pool elicits no negative response.
In the United States, the preponderance of Mexican immigrants strongly colours the debates. Mexicans comprise fully one-half of all American-born immigrants to the USA and more than one-half of all illegal immigrants. In large measure, then, the anti-immigrant debate in the USA is really an anti-Mexico debate.
The harsh irony of this anti-Mexico posture resides in the tangled historical relations between the two contiguous countries. Except for the indigenous population which never seems to get mentioned in the disputes over legitimacy, the America hemisphere represents the quintessential collection of nations of immigrants. Most Americans, therefore, regardless of their residence, are hyphenated or hybrid peoples. They cannot escape the uncomfortable consequences of centuries of moving, mixing and melding.
The United States of America acquired territory in three ways.
The first was by outright appropriation of the land and settling it, as did the colonists at Plymouth and Jamestown in the early 17th century. The second was by treaties with the indigenous population as happened in parts of Pennsylvania, Delaware and Virginia. The third was by purchase from France and Mexico in the early 19th century.
The two most prominent acquisitions were the Louisiana Purchase of President Thomas Jefferson in 1803 and the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo that ended the Mexican American War of 1846-1848. The first expanded the territory of the United States by 828,000 square miles. The second added 525,000 square miles and allowed the United States to stretch its territory from the Atlantic to the Pacific oceans. But that vast expanse of land was not empty. It was inhabited by Mexicans, Spaniards and a substantial population of original peoples who had never surrendered their sovereignty to anyone, but who nevertheless would eventually be ruthlessly expelled, murdered, or corralled on miserable reservations.
Clearly, not all immigrants are equally objectionable to those who passionately propose fortifying the borders of the state and expelling all who have entered improperly. In the 19th century, the United States would have preferred to be an entirely "white-only" country, but that was impossible. Today, illegal immigrants are forced to bear the heavy burden of the nation's ills.
Although the cost accounting is extremely complex, immigrants are indispensable to the economy and society of the United States. From its inception, immigrants have made substantial contributions to the ethnic dynamism, the material progress and its cultural vibrancy. In the decade of the 1990s immigrants filled more than 50 per cent of all new jobs in the United States. Other data support the importance of immigration. Hispanic-owned businesses are opening at four times the national average. Bilingual advertising in English and Spanish is becoming commonplace. More than 50 per cent of all engineering students in 2004 were foreign-born.
More than one-quarter of all Silicon Valley start-up businesses belong to foreigners. Some of the most important new technology firms such as Intel, Sun Microsystems and Google were started by foreigners. And possibly within our lifetime, a Mexican could become the richest man in the world. Maybe it is time to be nicer to immigrants.