Migration

A legal dilemma often presents itself to officials who come into the presence of families who are both a mix of legal and illegal family members living in the same country. We encountered this a few times in our own legal consulting to refugees who came into contact with us in Canada. The International Herald Tribune decided this past week to discuss the issue regarding Ireland, focusing on a young Irish lad, George-Jordan Dimbo who was born in Ireland and became a citizen due to his place of birth, but is a son of illegal migrants from Nigeria. George-Jordan only ever knew an Irish life, but may “return” to Nigeria for the first time.

Ireland has always been seen as a country which has traditionally emigrated many of its citizenry, but in the last few years Ireland has become one of the most innovative an successful economies in the EU. As a result immigration has boomed, with an estimated 11% of the Irish populations being immigrants and masses of other EU and non-EU individuals going there to work, learn English and make a life on the Emerald Isle.

How does a new Ireland of immigrants handle these new dilemmas? In the event where such families exist in the Canadian system as the Dimbo family do in Ireland, the government must consider the best interests of the child. While the people born in Canada or Ireland a few years ago were considered automatic citizens, it did not mean that the child would stay in the country. If there were no chance of harm to the child they would return to their parent’s country of origin with their main caregiver, but have the right to return an Irish or Canadian citizen when they wish or stay with legal citizens in Canada or Ireland. The parents however would be permanently removed from the country without much recourse, and to stop the whole family being deported it must be proven that the rights of the new citizen and a move would harm the social and emotional development of the child, something which is not commonly done in the Canadian system and may not have precedent in Ireland.

So for the next St.Patrick’s Day, celebrated all around the world it would be proper to ponder the fact that the world has come to Ireland to celebrate many other festivals in the streets of Dublin. Some of these people will get to stay, and others will go but time and precedents in Irish society and courts may produce a more equal solution than how the Irish were treated as immigrants a long time ago. Over time Ireland may develop policies out of an Emigrant Nation in contrast to how the rest of the EU is turning to reverse many past open policies towards immigration. Until then, Cheers..

This week’s look at migration headlines from around the world features a critical look at France’s new quota regulations, a dilemma for policy-makers in Ireland, close scrutiny of migrant treatment by the justice system in the US and new challenges ahead for Germany’s integration policy.

• Reporting from Dublin, Jason DeParle of the New York Times examines the situation for Irish-born children of illegal migrants. Similarly to US cases we chronicled on the pages of this blog in 2007, Ireland is now debating how to deal with families in which the child is a legal resident and citizen, while the parents face deportation under changing legal frameworks.
• The Economist highlights how immigrants to the US are spreading throughout the country, rather than congregate in certain areas that once drew migrants like flies. Referencing a new book by Princeton’s Doug Massey, the Lexington column goes on to explain that much of this dispersal can be attributed to demographic shifts, the tightening of California borders and the restructuring of the US economy. For those interested, the Migration Policy Institute has compiled various indices of migrant’s global spread to urban center  as well as a search function to locate where certain groups are settling in the continental US.
• Analysts in France are watching immigration minister Brice Hortefeux’s recent moves with worry: in early February, he introduced proposals for quota regulations for would-be migrants, to be based first on skill level in line with France’s economic needs. Hortefeux left the door open on extending quotas to ensure a “geographical mix”, which critics point out could further exacerbate what is already being perceived as a racist immigration policy. In the meantime, Hortefeux has had to defend his policies against the accusation of racism with respect to expulsion practices. Following electoral promises, the country has set itself the (arbitrary) goal of deporting 25,000 illegals by the end of the year. Here, sources report, authorities are being highly selective: while Filipino cleaning ladies get to stay, African visa-overstayers must leave. More than a few eyebrows have been raised…
• We recently featured a longer piece about the inability for younger migrants to find a place for themselves in Germany society due to the structural inefficacies in the country’s education system. A recent article in the International Herald Tribune underlines that the German economy might soon be facing another problem: immigrant pensioners. The so-called guestworkers that came to the country in the 50s and 60s to help rebuild the economy never went back, as originally expected, instead, they are looking to claim their pensions here and find appropriate living spaces that cater to their specific needs, be it bilingual care-givers, or halal cuisine to coform to religious standards. Smart entrepreneurs will jump on the opportunity of creating a service industry tailored to these requirements, but, as the author points out, society as a whole is largely unprepared to address the issue. In France, the question of identity has been addressed more vocally by the pensioner community: What, if anything, do they  owe to their home country? Shifting attitudes are the sign of an integrated second and third generation, as discussed in this article from the fall of 2006.
• The UN has criticized the US for continuous racial discrimination in the criminal justice system, the Associated Press reports. Human rights experts attested that since 9/11 “immigrants and refugee communities in the United States have been subjected … to a range of systematic human rights violations directed by the federal government, local county and state governments, law enforcement agents, employers and private actors.”
• The International Organization for Migration has published a new report on the effects of climate change on migratory patterns.  Thousands lost their home after the Tsunami in 2005 and the erosion of natural resources in many countries will displace people gradually over time. This study looks at future scenerios, action plans and possible remedies.

 *This post has also been cross-posted in the FPA’s Latin America Blog.

Mexico has always had a mixed relationship with its citizens abroad. Problems dealing with poverty in Mexico have not tarnished pride in their roots. Class divisions never quelled a strong sense of nationhood with its citizens on every social strata. While many Mexican’s left the country since the 1970’s, it was often for economic opportunity which was hard to come by for many in the north of Mexico and in the southern estados, and was a way to escape living in the violent areas of Mexico City where opportunity disappeared in crisis after crisis following oil shocks and multiple collapses of the economy in the late 70s to late 90s.

What those on both sides of the border have seldom addressed in those years is the connection that those who have left Mexico have to their heritage in Mexico, and towards their new lives in the United States. Many in Mexico see those who left as abandoning the country, but with poverty rates of over 30% there was never any question that leaving Mexico was a logical decision by those who made the journey. The change in perception is stark, with new generations being born and growing up in the US often as Mexican-Americans, growing up speaking only English while listening to music in Spanish and being a mix of many diverse cultures. This relatively new culture would have never existed in Mexico, but is not seen as uniquely American by those who belong in it or those outside it. Many in this new culture love being “Mexican”, but are not treated as such in Mexico and often have a tough time becoming typically American in their own places of birth. Recently politicians in both countries have taken interest in this new community as well.

After years of not being noticed politically, since the 1990’s the Latino vote has become key in the next Presidential Elections in the US. The recent Clinton Campaign has relied on much of the Latino vote in the latest Primaries, with Hispanics in America, mostly of Mexican descent, making up a large portion of Hillary’s support in many American states. Mexico has noticed it may have influence as well, if it can re-adopt many of those forgotten Mexicans living abroad. Since the Presidency of Vicente Fox there has been efforts made by his Administration and his PAN party to generate positive relations with the United States on many fronts. Before the War on Terror, the Bush administration was seen as a key player on reforming immigration and helping re-connect Mexicans in the US and Mexico to produce closer ties. While these policies were abandoned for the most part, the interest of President Calderon of Mexico to re-initiate closer ties with the US remains. With the new President likely to be one who is open on immigration, Clinton, Obama and McCain will likely have a positive partner in Felipe Calderon of Mexico.

Calderon will not only have a positive partner in any President who is elected, but is reaching out to discuss policy initiatives and re-engage Mexicans of all backgrounds with Mexico itself. While he has an opportunity to put Mexico back on the agenda in the US, he must be careful not to be seen as dictating policy to the new American President who often lose support on their policies on immigration to the US, and must give a new respect to those Mexican-Americans who feel abandoned by Mexico and will make up a large portion of America’s educated and middle class youth in the future. While Calderon can rally all Hispanics on human rights for newcomers to the US, it will be an uphill struggle to gain complete acceptance from Americans and Mexicans in America alike.

The big story in Europe this week was Turkey’s president Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s visit to Germany and the controversial speech he gave to 20,000 of his expat voters regarding integration or assimilation into their host nation. A separate commentary on that question will follow shortly on this blog. In the meantime, Australia is stepping up its efforts to attract highly-qualified migrants, while the red tape currently tying up existing green card applications could be turning away the migrants the United States wants to bring in. More from migration related stories from around the world below:

• The Editorial in the New York Times’ weekend edition highlights modest improvements in clearing up the backlog of green card applications, that has built up over recent years. The authors rightly imply, that a way a bureaucracy treats its would-be citizens is indicative of the whether they are truly wanted or not. While that is undoubtedly true, the red tape applicants face in the US with respect to background checks by the FBI is nothing compared to the caveats future European citizens face.
• The NYT has also published an in-depth interview with Philippe Legrain, the author of Immigrants: Your country needs them, which is an extremely worthwhile read, especially alongside the views of George Borjas, whom we have quoted repeatedly in this blog for this economic arguments against low-skilled or illegal labor migration. The interview provides a good synopsis of Legrain’s book, though I would recommend you read it in full.
• The International Herald Tribune rebukes Republican presidential candidates’ views that “attrition” could be the ultimate weapon to drive out undocumented migrants.
• While other immigration countries are debating how to curtail the movement of people, Australia has announced it will increase the number of entry permits for migrants, given the high demand for their labor.
• The IHT covers a clash of immigration titans, as Marine Le Pen, the heir-apparent of the right-wing Front National in France takes on Muslim intelletual Tariq Ramadan. While their viewpoints are less than surprising, the fact that they agreed to face off in such a manner is worth reporting. Katrin Bennhold has the full story.

Among the hype of Super Tuesday, I thought a frank and brief opinion on the Republican and Democratic Candidates would be a nice relief from the overkill of information and issues coming out of mainstream media about who might be the next President. I hope my perspective, not being a US citizen and from the point of view of the Latino community and other diverse minorities may give some clarity to the issues currently being discussed.

Republicans:

Mike Huckabee: An eloquent speaker and intelligent good hearted man, he is limited to one specific community in the United States, that of the Christian right. While there are diverse opinions in that religious community as well, much of Bush’s support came from the same political groups and this has lead to very bad policies by Bush, and perhaps blurring the line between the Separation of Church and State and Freedom of Religious expression. In reality, while many good spirited people are from Huckabee’s supporters, the rest of the American people do not belong to those supporters or religious affiliations. A lot of the views also are seen by some as being the catalyst for the Iraq war. America is and always will be a diverse community, and no candidate can go forward with one community in a larger America, especially if conflict has been the result in the past. Historically, this support grew after the personal actions of Bill Clinton and his mistreatment of women collegues for decades. A new moral America under Bush after Clinton has lead to the Iraq war, so the result of each administration has its pros and cons, but changing from either one might be better than a return to Clintonism, Bush I and Bush II or Reaganism.

Mitt Romney: Clearly a good businessman, he is the biggest threat to John McCain in the Super Tuesday vote. I always see Romney as somewhat of a Swiss Army Knife. Romney is talented in many ways but nothing specific stands out about him. Romney is really the in between if you dislike the left Republican McCain, or can’t stand the right leaning Huckabee. Unfortunately for Romney, people often will just not vote as opposed to vote for the least worst candidate. He will need a lot of luck.

John McCain: No one wants to say this, but McCain, Clinton and Obama are only slightly different in their political outlook. McCain is in the midst of trying to get the Republican Right to support his campaign but with policies which are seen as soft on immigration balanced against his support for staying in Iraq, he is trying to become everyman’s Republican. He can only do this by using his past as a patriotic American and his time under Reagan to reach out to those past supporters of Bush in order to solidify his support. The thing about remembering people in the past is that they look a lot better than they actually were. Reagan was the Republican who was very soft on immigration with an Amnesty for illegal immigrants at the time. McCain, who is trying to create a reasonable and realistic compromise on immigration would do better trying to be the balanced President between the Democrats and Republicans than attempt to become the next Reagan who was by no means perfect. It is true that McCain is a real conservative, but he may not be Republican enough to capture the Right as Bush did and Huckabee is trying to do. In reality after eight years of Bush someone like McCain is the only one who can produce a long term change for the Republican party. As well, its not like any Right leaning Republicans will vote for Clinton in any case.

Democrats:

Barak Obama: Critics of Obama say that people do not know enough about him, and that he is inexperienced, but in reality he is in his late 40’s, and adult and has a young face which is no crime. No one knows how he will do as President, but if he can conquer the racial divide without having the political fate of Colin Powell or Connie Rice then he has earned a lot of respect already. Unlike Romney, Obama is offering something, a change in the opinions Americans have in the next election. When a country that is based on the Separation of Church and State and the elected official not being kings or from one ruling class or family has a religiously based Bush I and Bush II, and then Clinton I and possibly Clinton II, pulling change can only be done by someone who is not a Clinton or a Bush. Compared with McCain, the Iraq issue outstanding, Obama and McCain would do well learning from each other. Both of them can be the candidate who can bring change to their respective parties and allow for the United States to pass through the damage incurred by Bush and Clinton. In the end, the country would do better if the two ran together..not such an unnatural fit but a likely impossibility. Obama must be vigilant, as while he has much of the youth vote, who knows if they will bother voting at all. Remember, Bush won the last election and he was as unpopular with youth as ever.

Hillary Clinton: Change is not in her vocabulary, unless it will get her the votes. For someone who’s husband cheated on her which gave ammunition to the moral debate in America which did more for the Bush campaign than George Bush himself, Clinton is surprisingly popular. Much of this comes from the backtracking in the campaign to patch up any issues or errors they have made, as well as Bill and Chelsea Clinton pushing for her nomination. Obama was right to question her on whether he is running against her or Bill, but it is evident that the momentum from team Clinton is strong as Clinton in the end is not Bush. In comparison to McCain, her past support for the Iraq war will be an issue in the election but will make no difference in the end if Congress is not willing to act, but may lose her some votes in the end from Democrats. Her support for a public health system is a good policy, but despite problems in the American private system, there has not been a real debate about the pros and cons of a publicly funded system. There are bad points in both, but McCain’s push to reform and fix the current system as opposed to replacing it will always win as most Americans do have good health care. The Clintons unfortunately have been known to play dirty politics, but defaming the minority candidate will not help anyone, and has already caused damage to their campaign. Regarding Latinos, Clinton has a lot of support as they like Bill, but whether Hillary decides to be the next President or the next Clinton, the diverse communities of the United States can and will be swayed to vote for others, namely Obama and McCain who with Clinton want to be the pioneer of the Middle Way in American politics.

We encourage fair and sensible debate on our Blog…please feel free to agree and disagree and submit your comments.

Apologies for an extended absence, but this blog author has been applying to grad school (yet again) to pursue a degree in comparative migration policies. As such, I have been thinking about related issues for a number of weeks and thought I would share some of my recent writing. Please find one of my essays below:

More than 82 million people live in Germany – 19% of these have a migrant background (Migrationshintegrund). These figures imply that nearly every fifth banker, teacher, baker, engineer and manager is of immigrant descent. Even a superficial look at the German social landscape reveals that this is not the case. Structural discrimination in-built in the German education system prevents this from happening.

The German government has recently invested an undisclosed amount in an advertising campaign to raise the profile of migrants and their contribution to the German economy. In the speech launching the new initiative, the High Secretary for Integration pointed to US statistics proving that diversified companies far outperformed their peers on the stock market. She also underlined that an EU study had shown that SMEs were losing up to 11% of their export-oriented business, because they failed to bridge linguistic and cultural gaps. Thus, her argument went, migrants in Germany needed to be seen as an asset, their bicultural knowledge and understanding giving the country as a whole the tools it needed to succeed in a globalized world.

But for the 188,000 unemployed migrants between the ages of 18 and 35 in Germany (by far the largest group), the picture is quite different. Recent studies have shown, that many of the unemployed, young migrants fail job interviews because of their German language skills. Nor do most of these youths speak their native languages fluently, and often have only a rudimentary knowledge of their mother tongue’s grammar and spelling. Three quarters of the young Turkish immigrant population in Germany were educated in the lowest tiers of the three-tiered German school system, and were not offered additional linguistic coaching as children, a pan-European comparison has recently highlighted. In addition, the OECD’s PISA tests revealed that second generation migrant students in Germany had the poorest comparative reading and language skills of all countries surveyed. Almost three times as many migrant children are school dropouts, and 40% receive the lowest possible secondary degree, graduating after nine years of formal education. Only 10% go on to earn a high school degree, while more than a quarter of the Germans do. The country’s industry associations have been calling on the government to remedy this situation, as these structural inefficiencies translate into a second generation of “economic deadweight” in the German labor market.

Germany is failing to “make use of the biculturalism of its migrant population” as the minister argued, because the majority of the younger generation does not have the full command of both their native and the German language and is hampered by structural problems in the education system. This, in turn hampers mobility, which is one of the four freedoms of the European Union and a clear advantage of globalization.

A look across the border proves the advantages Germany could reap from introducing enhanced language education: A study examining the Danish situation proved that contrary to public belief, bilingual education helps students integrate quicker into their host country and learn Danish faster. Sweden has proven that the combination of special instruction in the host language coupled with 3-hour language classes in immigrants’ native language from pre-school onward enhances academic performance and later facilitates education and training.

Instead of investing in superficial advertising campaigns and creating business competitions on diversity management that offer cash prizes - as is the case in the government’s most recent campaign - it should re-invest these funds into strategic partnerships with businesses, based on already existing formulas toward enhancing early-childhood education in Germany (i.e. the so-called Wissensfabrik). These could finance specialized teacher training for German-as-a-second-language and the introduction of bilingual language training (Turkish and Italian first) into the pre- and primary school curricula.

Businesses have a vested interest in investing in such an initiative: The looming demographic crisis in Germany dictates that the country cannot afford to turn out graduates with insufficient skills. DaimlerBenz, Deutsche Bank and others have issued public statements on the value-added that diversity and bilingualism brings to their companies, from the factory floor to the management level. The advantages of multi-lingual employees and the importance that diversity has in attracting and retaining employees have been proven in a number of EU and OECD studies. These type of initiatives will undoubtedly take time, but they require a first step, a declaration of ownership and commitment to remedying the problem by designating funds, creating local, innovative partnerships toward developing best practice and extending these models across the entire country over time.