Migration

Conservative UK daily, the Telegraph, is reporting that official government immigration statistics are flawed and that UK councils are complaining:

“The leaders of Slough, Westminster, Kensington and Chelsea, and Hammersmith and Fulham say a new method of calculating immigration, introduced last month, does not “remotely” represent the true picture. The new figures suggest London is losing some 60,000 migrants to other parts of the country every month.

The ONS has reduced its estimate of London’s population from 7,517,700 to 7,457,400. But councils say the actual population is nearer to 7,600,000.

Previously the figures were calculated by asking migrants travelling into London where they intended to work. The new system uses a Labour Force Survey covering just 0.2 per cent of the population, together with a passenger survey asking migrants where they are actually working. The figures do not take into account those who have lived in London for less than a year or those living in hostels.”

Councilors feel that a shift in figures means that they do not have sufficient funds to address migrant needs and integration issues. The BBC offers a closer look in this piece (Video download).

Liam Byrne, Minister for Immigration and Asylum in the Home Office underscored his willingness to address the issue with Council representatives, but hastened to add that immigrants were a benefit to society in the UK:

“Liam Byrne, the Home Office minister, said immigrants were contributing half a billion pounds every working day to the economy, a figure later repeated by Downing Street.

	Liam Byrne, minister for immigration and asylum

This would amount to £125 billion a year - equivalent to 10 per cent of total GDP.”

In an interview with the BBC he passed the buck right back to the complaining councilors, saying that other areas knew full well how best to address the issue and that councils had to learn from one another through constructive dialogue.

Skewed figures will undoubtedly have an impact on the comprehensive measures council’s plan toward the integration of migrants. The statistics issue must be resolved immediately before embracing Mr. Byrne’s ideas of an exchange of best practice methods among local government officials.

The UK’s Daily Mail is picking up on a comment made earlier this week by London’s Mayor, Ken Livingstone, regarding the treatment of foreign business travelers by UK immigration staff, in its enlightening article “Welcome to America … from Mickey the immigration officer” .

London’s Mayor had accused immigration staff at Heathrow Airport of being racist and deterring business travel with their behavior.

While that particular aspect is not in question in the US, the recent announcement that the Department of Homeland Security will soon begin taking fingerprints of all 10 fingers from non-US visitors has led to speculations of a further drop in US tourism. Already, processing for non-US passengers to the US takes three times longer, and tourism organizations expect to see adverse effects once this new rule is enforced.

Enter the Daily Mail and its article on how officials are teaming up with Disney to make entry into the US an altogether more enjoyable experience:

“But now officials are responding to the criticism by employing Disney’s recipe for tirelessly upbeat and helpful customer service in an attempt to get the free-spending British back, particularly with the pound at nearly two dollars.

Immigration officers will be taught the secrets of Disney theme parks by learning how to welcome visitors, manage large queues and respond to ‘negative reaction’ from the public without letting their smiles slip.

A spokeswoman for US Immigration and Customs Enforcement last night confirmed the initiative.

She said: “There has been a problem in the way we have been perceived in countries including Britain, and we are working very closely with Disney.

“They have offered suggestions about how we can improve the entire arrivals process.”

The move is being run by the Discover America Partnership, set up by the US Government to tackle what it calls the nation’s ‘image crisis’ abroad. It aims to attract ten million more visitors a year to the US.

Perhaps the immigration officers at Heathrow could get a pointer or two from their American counterparts - because….”It’s a small world after all..It’s a small, small world..”

• <> The clock is ticking as Senators are meeting behind closed doors to put a cap on the much-awaited immigration reform package. An article in the Boston Globe outlines the remaining points of contention. We will have a full commentary on the likely compromise early this week.
• Think tanks are debating the ‘right’ solution to the issue Senators face. The North County Times highlights contradictory studies by the Heritage Foundation and the Immigration Policy Center on the impact immigrant workers have had on the US economy.
• With UK Prime Minister Tony Blair announcing this week that he will leave office on June 21st, analysts are busy at work reflecting on his political legacy. Over at the Migration Policy Institute, Will Somerville, does just that for immigration policy. He argues that Blair and his successive Labour governments have succeeded in building a robust immigration system, one that will shape the country’s approach to migration in the future.
• The MPI also has a brief on new French President Sarkozy’s immigration policies, which supports our commentary with a number of statistics. (This document is a PDF download and requires Adobe Acrobat).
• My friend, immigration journalist Daniela Gerson, addresses the issue of circular migration in her latest article for German news magazine, Der Spiegel. The article (in English) examines a new trend in labor migration: hiring mothers as seasonal workers to ensure they return home to their husbands and children in their country of origin. The European Union’s Justice and Home Affairs Commissioner, Franco Frattini, plans to address the issue of circular migration, which is an integral part of the EU migration strategy, in the coming days.
• Speaking of Frattini initiatives: integration and fundamental rights received a financial boost last month, when the Council gave the Commission proposal for a new budget toward the promotion of fundamental rights the go-ahead. Over 93 million Euro will be allocated to transnational projects between Member States and other NGO projects between 2007 and 2013.

Unsurprisingly, Nicolas Sarkozy has been elected French President. An article in the weekend New York Times reexamines the president-elect’s immigration policy, highlighting that despite his tough talking campaign, he does show a genuine interest in tackling some of the most pressing problems at hand. French papers are reporting that Sarkozy has reiterated his proposal to create a ‘Mediterranean Community’ to address the problem of immigration from Africa.

• The same paper carries the story of a young Indian immigrant in his quest to win the national spelling bee to help him bring his parents back from India.
• Baha Duengor, a Turkish journalist with Deutsche Welle, comments on the second Islam Conference in Berlin.  An overview of this week’s meeting can be found here.
• Switzerland is debating introducing a finger-printing scheme for migrants to assist in identifying illegal immigrants and those who overstay their visas.

In what seems like a farce, the Utah Daily Herald published an article on the recent convention of the Utah County Republicans, who closed their recent meeting with a debate on Satan’s influence on illegal immigrants. I kid you not.

Read on:

Don Larsen, chairman of legislative District 65 for the Utah County Republican Party, had submitted a resolution warning that Satan’s minions want to eliminate national borders and do away with sovereignty.

In a speech at the convention, Larsen told those gathered that illegal immigrants “hate American people” and “are determined to destroy this country, and there is nothing they won’t do.”

Illegal aliens are in control of the media, and working in tandem with Democrats, are trying to “destroy Christian America” and replace it with “a godless new world order — and that is not extremism, that is fact,” Larsen said.

At the end of his speech, Larsen began to cry, saying illegal immigrants were trying to bring about the destruction of the U.S. “by self invasion.”

Um, self invasion? Frankly, this just makes me laugh - and laugh - and laugh. Rather than take the article seriously and waste my time commenting on this hogwash, I would like to defer to Washington Post columnnist, Sebastian Mallaby, who so eloquently takes the “nativist nonsense” apart, one ridiculous argument at a time.

Mallaby notes:

The livelihoods of millions are at stake, yet most immigration pronouncements are nonsense.

People accuse immigrants of gang violence, drunken driving and a general contempt for the law. But in 2000 the incarceration rate for immigrants was just one-fifth the rate for the population as a whole, according to Kristin Butcher of the Federal Reserve and Anne Morrison Piehl of Rutgers University.

People say, contrariwise, that immigrants steal jobs from native-born Americans. But economists have patiently explained for years that there is no finite “lump of labor” in an economy. The presence of migrants causes new jobs to be created: Factories that might have gone abroad spring up in Arizona or Texas. Hasn’t anyone noticed that California, where fully one-third of the adult population is foreign born, has an unemployment rate of less than 5 percent?

I urge you to read Mallaby’s article in full, as a vivid reminder of the important role that immigrants play in sustaining the American economy, all while largely living without full access to rights and benefits. And then laugh again at the line “…illegal immigrants (were) are Marxist and unter the influence of the devil.”

On May Day, thousands of immigrants across the world took to the streets to demonstrate. While in Germany immigrant and Muslim rights groups were voices among many in the traditional May Day (Labor Day across Europe) marches, migrant organizations in the US seized the moment to remind Congress that the promised, comprehensive immigration policy reform is still outstanding.

Our fellow bloggers, Rohini Gupta (Mexico) and Cassandra Clifford (Children) have examined the impact of these protests and compiled a wide selection of press articles. While they examine the protests from different angles, they offer a comprehensive overview of some of the issues raised in the protests and we would encourage you to read their postings.

FPA Mexico Blog: US Media Coverage of Pro-Immigrant Rallies

FPA Children Blog: May Day…AKA Illegal Immigrant Rights Day

The Washington Post is reporting that remittance payments from US resident immigrants to Latin American countries has slowed down over the past two months. While remittances are subject to cyclical economics, much like any other payments, analysts are speculating whether this could signal a more profound shift:

“Many remittance-rich nations would fall into a recession if immigrants began sending home significantly less money, which could encourage more poor Latin Americans to find work in the United States, according to the study and Donald Terry, manager of the Multilateral Investment Fund at the Inter-American Development Bank.”

The article highlights the important role that remittances play in Central American economies, such as Honduras and El Salvador, where they constitute 18 percent of the national income and surpass foreign aid and investment, according to a study by the think tank, Inter-American Dialogue.

The Inter-American Development Bank is studying possible reasons for sluggish payments, noting that anecdotal evidence suggests that raids on migrant communities by U.S. law enforcement officers and fear of deportation has prompted some to curb spending. Other reasons may be saving money to pay U.S. citizenship fees, wagering that a congressional debate over immigration law would result in allowing them to pay a penalty and legalize their immigration status. A downturn in the U.S. housing industry could also be trickling down to immigrants, who fill the majority of U.S. construction jobs.”

For further reading on the role of remittances in aiding developing countries, please take a look at these documents:

• “The role of remittances in the World’s Economy”, Immigration Policy Brief, The American Immigration Law Foundation, 2003.
• The Migration Information Source of the Migration Policy Institute has a full overview of the topic, including special coverage of the ‘Year of Migration and Development’ 2006.
• “Migration and Remittances”, an overview compiled by the World Bank.
• “Close to home - The Development Impact of Remittances in Latin America,” World Bank Report, 2006 (pdf).
• “Card-based Remittances: A closer look at supply and demand,” Inter-American Dialogue, 2007 (pdf).
• “International Flows of Remittances: Cost, Competition and Financial Access in Latin America and the Caribbean–Toward an Industry Scorecard,”  Inter-American Development Bank, 2006 (please scroll down the list of documents to download the PDF from the IADB’s website).
• “Migrants’ Remittances,” Ch. 2 of a World Bank report on Migration Trends in Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union, 2006. To access the report in full, take a look at the World Bank’s website on the topic.