Migration

Changing the World

Guy Arnold

• Publisher: Pluto Press
• Year: 2011
• Print ISBN: 9780745329055
• eBook ISBN: 9781783714858
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Emigration & Immigration
• Index: Social Sciences

Constant migration is a worldwide phenomenon that creates sharp divisions between those who accept the need for migrants and welcome the contributions they make and those who oppose them on xenophobic grounds. Guy Arnold provides a comprehensive survey of the consequences of migration. Arnold studies both the massive internal migrations in China and India that drive economic development and the influx of cheap labour into the advanced economies of the USA and EU. He shows that migrants are essential to advanced countries, filling skills gaps and bolstering ageing and static populations. He argues that the constant flow of people in all directions should be welcomed as a positive assault upon outdated, narrow nationalism. Packed with statistics that support the argument that migration is a force for positive change, Arnold's analysis will be an excellent resource for journalists, policy makers and students of sociology, human geography and anthropology.

Part I

The Americas

The Americas have attracted immigrants from the initial ‘discovery’ of the New World to the present time: the Spanish colonised the whole of Central and South America except for Brazil which went to Portugal; the British and French North America; while the Caribbean Islands were fought over and divided between the Spanish, British, French and Dutch. Today, apart from being the world’s only superpower, the United States is also the world’s most important destination for migrants. The other major destination for migrants is Canada, although Brazil’s rapidly expanding economy is turning it into another target country. The Caribbean for years has been a source of migrants seeking a better life in more affluent societies than their poverty-stricken islands. However, there is another side to the story of American migration and that is the movement of Latin American peoples northwards to the United States. Mexico has become wedded to its northern neighbour as a source of cheap labour and destination for illegal migrants. In its turn, though it tries to stem the tide, the United States is now host to an estimated 23 million Mexican immigrants, both legal and illegal, and though it is erecting a wall or barrier to stem the flow from the south this seems unlikely to be effective.

1

The United States

The story of migration to the United States divides, reasonably neatly, into four phases: the colonial period, the mid-nineteenth century, the turn of the twentieth century and the period since 1965. Each of these periods attracted different and distinct racial and ethnic groups. Thus, the mid-nineteenth century saw an influx from northern Europe; the early twentieth century mainly from southern and eastern Europe; and the post-1965 period from Latin America and Asia and, more recently, Africa. Until the 1930s, the gender imbalance among legal immigrants was sharp, with a majority being male, but beginning in the 1990s women came to account for over 50 per cent of all legal immigrants. When he was president Bill Clinton said that while an influx of new residents from different cultures presented problems, ‘the United States has always been energised by its immigrant populations’. Giving the 1998 commencement address at Portland State University, President Clinton voiced support for immigrants, including those from Asia and Latin America, when he said that: ‘America has constantly drawn strength and spirit from wave after wave of immigrants – They have proved to be the most restless, the most adventurous, the most innovative, the most industrious of people.’

Prior to the arrival of commercial airlines, immigration was long, arduous and risky. Today it is much easier, except for illegal migration across the Mexican border, which remains difficult, expensive and dangerous. In the new century there have been increasing American calls for tighter controls along the 2,000 mile (3,200 km) US–Mexican border. During 2006 a number of public and congressional debates about controls made headlines, but few of the proposals to tighten controls have become law – although Congress did approve the construction of a partial border fence between the two countries. Strong arguments are advanced on both sides of the debate but many cities, including Washington DC, New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco, San Diego, Salt Lake City, Phoenix, Dallas, Houston, Detroit, Jersey City, Minneapolis, Miami, Denver, Baltimore, Seattle, Portland, Oregon and Portland, Maine have adopted sanctuary ordinances, banning police from asking people about their immigrant status. Contemporary immigrants (aged 15–34) tend to be younger than the native population and are also more likely to be married and less likely to be divorced than native-born Americans of the same age. They will also tend to move to areas (formerly called ghettoes) populated by people with similar backgrounds. US citizenship can be obtained through state-controlled admission and registration procedures. In America, a green card gives the immigrant the right to live and work in the United States permanently. After five years, the immigrant can apply for American citizenship. The possession of a green card, therefore, holds the promise of eventual unlimited residence status.

In his book Who Are We?¹ Samuel Huntington poses a number of questions about what he calls America’s Great Debate. He provides estimates of the rise in the numbers of illegal immigrants from 4 million in 1995 to 6 million in 1998 to between 8 and 10 million in 2003. Mexicans made up 58 per cent of this number by 1990, while by 2000 there were an estimated 4.8 million illegal Mexicans – 69 per cent of the total illegal population. Apprehensions of illegal Mexican immigrants into the US by the US Border Patrol were 1.6 million over the 1960s, rising to 12.9 million over the 1990s. Estimates of Mexicans who do enter illegally range from 105,000 to 350,000 a year. About two-thirds of post-1975 Mexicans in the US entered the country illegally. In 1993 US President Bill Clinton declared organised smuggling of people into the US to be a ‘threat to national security’. Mexico’s President Vicente Fox described himself as president of 123 million Mexicans, 100 million in Mexico and 23 million in the United States, some of whom had been born there. Huntington went on to consider the US–Mexican border, which he suggested was becoming increasingly ‘blurred’, a process that had been enhanced by the formation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). An increasing number of US cities now have a Mexican-Hispanic majority. Today, the growing Mexican diaspora in the United States (of 20 million plus) is of increasing social, economic and political importance to both countries. Mexico, moreover, is pressing the United States to accept illegal Mexicans as a fait accompli. Finally, in reference to Cuba, Huntington claims that the irony of US policy towards Cuba between 1960 and 2000 is that it has encouraged a flow of anti-Castro Cubans to migrate into Florida and Miami, which has become the largest, most Hispanic city in the US.

Three-quarters of immigrants surveyed by Public Agenda said they intended to make the US their permanent home. Moreover, if they had to do it over again, 80 per cent of immigrants say they would still come to the US; 50 per cent claimed that the government had become tougher on enforcing immigration laws since 11 September 2001 and 30 per cent had personally experienced discrimination. Immigration has been a major source of population growth and cultural exchange throughout American history, while the economic, social and political aspects of immigration have caused controversy regarding ethnicity, religion, economic benefits, job growth, settlement patterns, environmental impact, impact on upward mobility, levels of criminality, nationalities, political loyalties, and moral values of work habits. Despite this, the United States accepts more legal immigrants as permanent residents than any other country in the world.²

Absorption and change is the natural outcome of any large-scale movement of people. In 1900, when the US population was 76 million, there were an estimated 500,000 Hispanics in the country. Estimates now suggest that by 2050 25 per cent of the US population will be of Hispanic descent. In 1910 nearly 15 per cent of Americans were foreign born, whereas in 1999 only 10 per cent were foreign born. By the end of the twentieth century it was clear that the ethnic make-up of the total population was changing substantially as a result of immigration; according to the 2000 census there were 28 million first-generation immigrants in the country. While this was the highest number in the country’s history it was not the highest percentage of foreign-born in relation to the total population: in 1907 this was 14 per cent, whereas in 2000 it was 10 per cent. Legal immigration into the United States has increased steadily from 250,000 in the 1930s, 2.5 million in the 1950s, 4.5 million in the 1970s, 7.3 million in the 1980s to 10 million in the 1990s. Since 2000, legal immigrants to the US number approximately 1 million a year of whom 600,000 are ‘Change of Status’ immigrants who are already in the country. Legal immigrants are at their highest level ever at over 37 million. Since 2000, possibly as many as 1.5 million illegal immigrants have entered the United States every year, of whom 700,000 remain to join the 12 million to 20 million already in the country. The figures for illegal immigrants are necessarily imprecise. According to Pew Hispanic Data Estimates, immigration led to a 57.4 per cent increase in the foreign-born population from 1990 to 2000.

Although the great majority of immigrants to the United States during the nineteenth century came from Europe, today they are drawn from across the globe and most immigrants from Asia and Africa are people with education and skills who are likely to find jobs and not become welfare dependent. However, a quarter of all immigrants come from Mexico and many of these have few skills. Nonetheless, the people who choose to emigrate tend to have greater ambition and more education than their fellow citizens and the more difficult it is to immigrate the wider this skill gap is likely to be.

Distance of travel, opportunity, financial costs, and the size of networks of family and friends in the home country are among the factors contributing to immigration difficulty. For Mexico, the barriers to immigration are not high. Therefore the skill gap is the lowest.³

The author of the above quote, Jeffrey Williamson, goes on to argue that although employers gain from paying lower wages, the overall effect on the economy appears to be neutral. ‘Immigration had no effect on the pay of non-immigrants with some college education, but reduced the average wage by 4.9 per cent for college graduates, 2.6 per cent for high school graduates, and 8.9 per cent for high school dropouts.’ Williamson comes to a number of conclusions: one is that the greater the perceived threat to the wages of the native unskilled workers from both lower- and high-quality immigrants, the more restrictive the immigration policy; and the United States is a clear policy leader, showing no evidence of responding to policies adopted elsewhere.

Present immigrants to the United States settle predominantly in seven states: California, New York, Florida, Texas, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Illinois. These are all high foreign-born population states, together comprising 44 per cent of the total US population. Of immigrants from 2000 to 2005, 58 per cent came from Latin America. US government statistics reveal that the population grew by 2.8 million between 1 July 2004 and 1 July 2005 and that Hispanics accounted for 1.3 million of the increase. Of vital importance to any forward population predictions, 45 per cent of children under the age of 5 years are from racial and ethnic minorities. In 2006 a total of 1.2 million immigrants became legal permanent residents of the United States. The top twelve migrant sending countries in 2006 by country of birth were Mexico, China, the Philippines, India, Cuba, Colombia, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Vietnam, Jamaica, South Korea and Guatemala (seven of the twelve were countries of the Americas). Immigrants from Muslim countries were also increasing and 96,000 became legal permanent US residents in 2005, despite the negative impact of 11 September 2001.

According to Migration News⁴ there were 1 million Asian-Americans in the United States in 2000. They have one of the highest median family incomes of any ethnic group – $60,000 compared with a national average of $39,000. About 60 per cent of Indian-Americans over 25 have a BA degree or higher qualification and an estimated 5,000 were professors at US colleges and universities. About 300,000 Indian-Americans were in Silicon Valley and 750 Silicon Valley companies were headed by persons of Indian origin. This scenario represents a remarkable achievement on the part of one immigrant group. It should also be understood that many Indians who achieve success abroad subsequently return home to invest their savings. A significant proportion of Indians who immigrate into the United States come from the booming Indian software industry that employs about 300,000 Indians in the USA. President Clinton visited India in 2000, emphasising the growing connection between the two countries. During his visit President Clinton said that Indians working in the United States benefited both countries. ‘We’re moving from a brain drain to a brain gain in India because many are coming home.’⁵

Another increasingly significant group of migrants to the United States are black African: for the first time more black people are coming to the United States from Africa than during the slave trade. During the 1990s up to 50,000 legal black immigrants a year were arriving in the United States and probably many more illegal immigrants. Writing in the New York Times, Sam Roberts said:

With Europe increasingly inhospitable and much of Africa still suffering from the ravages of drought and the AIDS epidemic and the vagaries of economic mismanagement, the number migrating to the United States is growing – despite the reluctance of some Africans to come face to face with the effects of centuries of discrimination.⁶

Although New York State attracts the most African incomers, many others go to Washington, Atlanta, Chicago, Los Angeles, Boston and Houston. This new influx of black people from Africa is redefining what it means to be an African-American. African-born residents of the United States send back more than $1 billion annually to families and friends. Overall, the proportion of foreign-born black people rose to 7.3 per cent from 4.9 per cent in the 1990s, while in New York City about one in three black people are foreign born. According to the 2000 census the proportion of black Americans who describe themselves as African-born more than doubled in the 1990s. The ten metropolitan areas with the largest black African-born populations in 2000 were as follows:

Washington – 89,281

New York – 73,851

Atlanta – 34,302

Minneapolis-St. Paul – 27,592

Los Angeles – 25,829

Boston – 24,231

Houston – 22,638

Chicago – 19,438

Dallas – 19,134

Philadelphia – 16,344

The largest black African-born populations in the United States by country of birth were:

Nigeria – 109,198

Ghana – 50,649

Ethiopia – 47,791

Liberia – 30,577

Somalia – 22,646

Kenya – 21,576⁷

The terrorist attacks upon Washington and New York of 11 September 2001 inevitably had repercussions for certain classes of would-be migrants. There was a US clampdown on visas for the Middle East (other than Israel) and South Asia. Visas for migrants from the Middle East dropped by 52 per cent from 107,184 to 51,529 between 12 September 2001 and 31 March 2002 compared with the same period the previous year. For South Asia (Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka) the drop in visas for the same period was 30 per cent, from 207,936 to 144,661. South Asia had been a preferential region for migration to the United States because of the high computer skills and mathematical proficiency of those involved in the South Asia brain drain. The US State Department classified 25 countries as operational fields for Al-Qaida and potential breeding grounds for terrorists. The countries so specified were: Afghanistan, Algeria, Bahrain, Djibouti, Egypt, Eritrea, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Malaysia, Morocco, Oman, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Yemen. Meanwhile, public attitudes about immigration were heavily influenced by the 11 September 2001 attacks. The number of Americans who told the Gallup Poll they wanted immigration restricted increased 20 percentage points after the attacks. Half of Americans said that to tighten controls on immigration would do ‘a great deal’ to enhance US national security, according to a Public Agenda survey.⁸

The 11 September 2001 attacks undoubtedly had a significant impact upon American attitudes towards immigration. The public was less willing to provide government services or legal protection to illegal immigrants. Current rates of immigration are seen as moderate even though the United States admitted more legal immigrants from 1991 to 2006, some 10–11 million (according to an NBC/Wall Street Journal Poll) than in any previous decade. In the most recent decade, the 10 million legal immigrants who settled in the United States represent an annual growth of only about one-third of 1 per cent at a time when the US population increased from 249 million to 281 million. By comparison, the highest previous decade was 1901–10, when 8.8 million people arrived, increasing the total US population by 1 per cent a year as the population grew from 76 million to 92 million.

Debate in the United States about immigration often leads to a conflict of interests between those determined to stop illegal immigration from Mexico and big business that welcomes such immigrants as cheap and manipulable labour. In 2005 President Bush wanted to replace an ‘outdated’ immigration policy ‘unsuited to the needs of our economy and the values of our country’ with one that neither penalised ‘hardworking people who want only to provide for their families’, nor prevented business from hiring ‘willing workers’ able ‘to fill jobs Americans will not take’. This Bush line was not acceptable to those who wished to restore the integrity of US borders. One result of this debate was the emergence in April 2005 of an anti-illegal immigration group calling itself the Minutemen Project, which began to patrol the border. The group claimed to be a ‘neighbourhood watch’ for the nation and would report but not confront suspected illegal immigrants. The group was criticised for acting as vigilantes. The project emphasised the gulf that existed between the government’s new approach to the immigrant problem and increasing popular opposition to the flow of migrants into the United States. Opponents of this cross-border flow saw the country’s vulnerable borders as posing a thr...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Introduction
• Part I The Americas
• Part II Europe
• Part III Africa
• Part IV Asia
• Notes
• Select Bibliography
• Index