Migration

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.

PBS.org in the last few years has done a remarkable job at airing many great shows like our Great Decisions program, documentaries on the Second World War and the most recent documentary series The Jewish Americans. The Jewish Americans series goes through 350 years of Jewish history in the United States and does a great job at defining the different types of Jewish people who came to the US and the evolution of the community in line with the development of rights in the United States over its history as a nation. In the latest episode which aired the week of January 21st, the civil rights movement was placed in the context of how Jewish Americans viewed it as well as how African-Americans saw the interaction for better or for worse of the two communities. This cultural analysis allows for racist ideas to be placed into a historic context, highlighted by the recent Presidential candidates ability to leave race out of the major decision making processes for many Americans, whereas just a few years ago it would have likely determined the result of an election.

The contrast to the upcoming UN Conference on Race is stark. Due to the experience in the last UN Race conference, many countries have not been able to agree on the debate of the upcoming conference as issues on the denial of Jewish history in the Holocaust and motions attacking Jewish people from some UN members has been seen as directly Anti-Semitic in a conference which would serve the world better if it tackled real issues. Holocaust and the lack of acknowledgement of the Jewish people’s suffering in it in a UN forum to reduce racism really pushed the opportunity to help in Darfur or address real concerns for other nations away from the purpose of such a conference and makes it into an entirely politicized venue focused against many Western nations. As a result, countries such as Canada have decided not to attend and many others have taken a defensive position on many conference issues.

From debates on trade and aid and from race to the laws of space, UN debates are often split between wealthy Western nations and developing countries. This is the nature of the UN and often it creates a perfect forum to lose the opportunity to tackle any global issues. The irony of it is that if the UN did not exist, we would have to create one as it is the only way to attempt to tackle issues of a global dimension. It is only hoped that issues of a historical context would be valued as they have been by many in the evolution of race in the United States.

Some of the Republican party’s most celebrated candidates have come from lives which mirror the stereotype of a true American hero. Presidents like George Bush the First gained early notoriety as an Aircraft Carrier bomber pilot in the Second World War, being shot down in an attack on the Japanese navy. Reagan, a model for many Republican candidates at least acted as a hero on the silver screen and gained notoriety as the man who threatened the Soviets by words and by assaulting countries such as Grenada and Libya with air strikes and small invasion forces. He also gave birth to a trend which created such films as Red Dawn and Iron Eagle, the latter referring to Reagan as “Ray-Gun”, promoting his no nonsense style of dealing with threats from foreign nations and possibly extra-terrestrial attacks.

In 2008, the candidate to beat is one that was not only on a Carrier when it exploded accidentally, but was also shot down in his A-4 Skyhawk over Vietnam, and in a Ramboesque fashion imprisoned in Vietnam for a good part of his 20’s. In the upcoming Michigan Primary, John McCain is the man to beat for the next Republican nomination, but this stereotypical true American hero has one issue which is taking its share from his campaign, he is able to be tortured and beaten for almost a decade in a Vietnamese prison, but he is seen as being “soft” on immigration. With Giulani far down in the polls and Mitt Romney looking at getting his 2nd place campaign replaced, Huckabee and McCain seek to polarize Republican support between the religious right for former Pastor Huckabee, and everyone else for McCain. Republican voters however in Michigan may be an advantage in this primary, as with only Republicans in Michigan in this vote many who would be independent may vote for this Republican primary. With more centrist interested not being taken by a Democratic campaign in Michigan, immigration may not hinder McCain, but give him a small advantage.

Some Republicans like Arnie in California have taken non-traditional approaches to immigration in the Republican Party. With the fight brewing over the African-American vote amongst the Democrats, McCain may be a winner in this race because he is willing to realize that even if many foreign nationals are not legally residing in the US, many others are legal American citizens and Latinos are becoming the largest minority and more economically diverse. Like in California, the next President must address an America that is not only Black or White, but a lot of shades of American heros.

A debate on the Canadian talk show The Michael Coren Show on January 7th discussed a foreign perspective on the recent success of Democratic Candidate Barak Obama and the change in perception of children of immigrants in the larger political sphere in North America. Obama was seen not as an African-American campaigning on African-American issues, but more of what they called a “colourless” candidate campaigning on issues of the status quo. The success of Obama really comes from the fact that someone who’s parent is an immigrant can make such progress in their life as to become president of their adopted nation. In a nation where immigration is often tied into issues surrounding the failing economy and terrorism, Mr. Obama has gone beyond prejudices of origin, ethnicity and status in the United States to become the most likely candidate for the presidency. In a country with a strong history of societal divisions throughout its history, this election has gone beyond electing the first African-American or first woman in the US (It already happened this year in Chile and Argentina, why not the US?) and moved towards who is the best person to clean up 8 years of damage from the Bush era.

The open minded approach to these candidates could be the reflection of a post-modern image of how immigrants fit into society. In the article “The Great Canadian Identity Crisis” by Scott Carpenter, Canadian’s are seen as essentially being “Not” Americans, which leaves the question, how can you “Not” be a post-modern version of an American if the American itself is in the process of removing barriers to its own past? The article was responded to in the blog Roccodg.com, where the author and the responses on the blog detailed essentially how historic identities no longer exist, but in addition that this is more of an urban creation where many people have their origin in other countries due to immigration. In response, Canadians do have regional identities, but for many immigrant families like Obama’s, they are able to live in freedom within the constraints of their society. This lack of obligation to adapt may have manifested itself with Obama, where the traditional obligations to run based on your heritage and background appears to not have constrained Obama as he is able to have the complete freedom to be whoever he wants to be in the eyes of the American public. This ability rarely existed amongst locals or immigrants and is certainly the result of a post-modern candidate from a society which has not restricted his identity as an immigrant nor as an American, but as simply let him grow as a person.

The often unanalyzed result of migration 50 to 100 years after the fact often is taken as a study in Genealogy as opposed to a study in immigration, but if you had the opportunity to bring some attention to the issue, how would you go about getting people’s attention?

The obvious approach would be to get someone famous, such as the lead singer Steven Page of The Barenaked Ladies, and bring him to the city of his birth and help him trace back his family roots and air it on national television.

In the show Who Do You Think You Are? Aired on the Canadian Broadcast Corporation on December 26th this journey of the Page family was taken. Steven discovered that his family were originally from Poland/Russia and came to live in Toronto, Canada in the early half of the 20th Century. His investigation with the help of local historians, his family and the community in Poland where his family was originally from helped him find out more about his heritage, including the realization that his Grandfather was one of the first recorded Hasidic singers in Canada and finding the last traces of his family and why they left Poland in the first place.

Like Steven’s family, many Jewish people left the region of Poland/Russia at the turn of the century due to unequal treatment and Pogroms, which were attacks and killing of members of the Jewish community in Eastern Europe by local officials at random over accusations which sought to tie the alienated Jewish community towards crimes against society and state at the time. Many of the people who left at the time make up the majority of the Jewish community in North and South America, as well as a large portion of Jewish people worldwide. This look into one migrant family from 100 years ago is very interesting for students of Genealogy, Immigration and individual families as a whole.

Europe circa 1900

How does one become President in a country with more than 20 million illegal immigrants? Well, the issue is not so simple as it isn’t something that people tend to be bothered by too much. In a VOA article on the Democratic Candidates and Swing States in the US they note that only 20-25% of people would not vote for a candidate if they disagreed with them on immigration. Voters, according to the article “..by and large don’t dislike illegal immigrants..” which Senator Clinton, Giulani and Obama have taken to a new level, pushing immigrant issue into the spotlight to earn the votes of the American Hispanic community, while not offending many other Americans in the process.

This soft strategy has not been absorbed into the Republican ranks so far. Rep. Tancredo did not attend a televised Spanish Language debate to make a “mute” point, while Senator John McCain has become the immigration darling of the Republican party supporting much of the immigration reforms discussed in the policy debates this past summer. These two pariahs in the Republican Party on immigration may hinder the Republicans as a whole by alienating the Hispanic vote, with little support for immigration reform from most of the candidates, not helped by Tancredo’s silly boycott. Alternatively, McCain may give some Hispanics a reason to have faith in his party, but may alienate more hardline Republicans on the immigration issue. He is often mistaken as a Democratic-Republican, with the exception for his support on Iraq he could be an ideal running mate with a Clinton if the proposal was a realistic one.

In the middle of the debate is Romney and Huckabee, using the immigration issue to take each other to task as the polls heat up in Iowa. Immigration issues in Iowa may become a microcosm for the GOP and the Presidential election in the near future as the interest in Iraq is becoming slowly displaced with the immigration debate. Despite problems in Iraq, no candidate wants to dwell on the issue in order to distance themselves from Bush and dive into another unsolvable debate. Immigration is something candidates can use as ammunition it seems without having anything blow up in their face…a luxury which the soldiers in Iraq do not currently possess.

Like Canada and Australia, Britain has sought the adoption of an immigration points system in order to limit the number of unskilled workers entering the UK and promote highly skilled workers coming in to support the British Economy. While this idea is a logical one, it often leads to dozens of smaller issues which while limits the number of low-income immigrants, also makes life fairly intolerable in the process.

While not on a points system, the City of New York has set out to conquer an issue which is also prominent in cities like Toronto, Canada. New York has always had an issue with illegal immigrants being victims of unreported crimes because upon contacting legal officials, often the immigrant would be simultaneously placed into the removal process since they did not reside legally in New York and the US. In Toronto, while three years ago and prior to that police did not have powers to enforce immigration orders, since then they can now check someone’s legal status in Canada and detain them when responding to criminal investigations. The problem in immigrant cities like Toronto, is that due to the points system, people who used to come in as middle income workers often now come as illegal migrants. In Toronto as well as New York, immigrants not able to be personally secure because it will surely result in the end of their lives in their resident country.

Growing in great numbers due to its booming economy, the city of Calgary in Canada shows an example of how the lack of law enforcement for many illegals can lead to some undesirable situations. In the North-East part of the city, dozens of illegal Asian migrants were found working in an illegal brothel which takes advantage of many people in similar situations entering Canada without a proper legal status. Many similar organizations exist across the country, and due to the new police powers to enforce immigration rules, many more underground operations have the roots to keep them beyond the law.

The UK is likely to have many of these issues plaque their cities in the near future. While trying to crack down on immigration, there is a real threat that society as a whole will lose in the long run.

*This article has been posted both on FPA’s Migration Blog as well as the Mexico Blog this week.

Illegal immigration may be one of the hot button issues for the next Presidential election, and will favour neither party in the process. In the Democratic party debates televised widely among American networks this past weekend two things were made clear. Firstly, that immigration will likely be a key issue in the next election, and Secondly that no one has a clear idea on how to handle the situation as there is no clear solution to the problem. This has lead to many candidates being seen as slightly differing on the issue in insignificant amounts with the exception of Republican Rep. Tom Tancredo who’s recent campaign commercials make reference “that Islamic terrorists roam free in the United States because of an unsecured border”. This has made me wonder in a personal context, do Mexican’s and Islamic terrorists look similar to each other? I’ll leave it as an open question for the reader to decide. In the end the answer is as clear as the debate on the issue as neither has anything to do with securing the border in any realistic way or giving necessary rights to individuals regardless of their legal status. Of course, It will not make a difference for Rep.Tancredo as he is quite far from winning the Republican nomination and has nothing to lose making a decisive choice on an issue no one can resolve.

What did result from the debates this past weekend is that Senator Clinton is starting to assert herself against rival Edwards and Obama after losing some support in the last few weeks in her campaign. Migration issues can place candidates in a position of losing much of the Hispanic vote, or alternatively losing the vote of many Americans who desire an answer to the Immigration question. This was made evident on challenges made by the candidates of each other on specifics of the issue, knowing full well that a slight change in answer or attitude may set their campaign into a downward spiral. With Bush’s attempt to deal with illegal migration last summer to turn his legacy away from the focus on problems in Iraq, an explosive question was laid for the next election that could affect the outcome of the election at the end of the day. With such evenly matched candidates in Obama, Clinton, Romney and Edwards poised to challenge other strong candidates in Giulani, America’s 9/11 hero and John McCain Vietnam war hero and torture victim the outcome is that one of these American heros will win, but small opinions such as on Immigration may absorb thousands of votes in the process even if the issue will not be resolved itself. The only assurance in the debate on migration and the upcoming election is that people are going to be fatigued with the election well before it begins as much as they are already fatigued discussing the Immigration issue which no one can solve for the next while. It seems that next year’s big blockbuster issues are ones that we have seen for months already and will be dealing with for the next months to come.

Robert Dziekanski, a Polish immigrant to Canada who came to live with his mother on Oct 14th of this year was killed while police tried to detain him after arriving at Vancouver’s international airport. While being kept up for more than 10 hours in the airport, Mr. Dziekanski was seen as having an angry reaction for an unknown reason and after many hours he took to physically attacking a small table and a laptop computer before police responded with two taser shots at the individual, putting him onto the ground and then subsequently leading to his death for unknown causes yet to be investigated. Despite Robert Dziekanski’s behaviour for such an extended period of time, no efforts were made to communicate with him in his own language nor was it seen by many as appropriate to use such excessive force in detaining him as he was not assulting anyone at the time nor abusing any offices in the process. The incident was recorded by a teenager on his cellphone at the time and was widely published in the media on November 14th.

See the video here. 

Canadian officials emplored the public to consider other evidence besides the video regarding the case of Robert Dziekanski. In reality however, a witness account which was filmed goes well beyond DNA or other evidence in investigations of any crime of any type. The reality of the situation made clearer my the young man’s recording made new headlines yesterday on the BBC, across Canada and worldwide as a clear conflict in handling persons who are not considered to be a great threat, where no efforts were made to speaking to him in his own language in an international airport after more than 10 hours of a possible conflict, and which was a necessity in diffusing such a situation as an alternative to the use of tasers. In addition, it is well known by many in the policing and legal community in North America that tasers are a questionable tool, as it is overused in many cases due to its ability to maintain a proper distance from suspects, but also that more that 200 deaths have been attributed to the use of the devices without a proper inquiry into the dangers of tasers.
Lingisutic barriers and newcomers in societies such as Britian and Canada face many challenges integrating into society. One barrier however when considering law enforcement in the cases of the Brasilian victim de Menezes seen as a terrorist during the London bombings, or Canada’s Polish immigrant losing his life due to a lack of communication and responsility of law enforcement to take the initiave to communicate with people in communities which are very diverse. Logically, patience is required with linguistic situations to avoid death which are uncalled for, accidentally or otherwise. As seen in last week’s posting, the London Police were considered responsible for the death in their case, raising the standard of care towards immigrants or residence in communities without a uniform language spoken among all residents. In the Canadian case, some simple words in Polish may have made a world of difference to the lives of the Dziekanski family.

Like many Brazilians, 27-year-old Jean Charles de Menezes moved to London for a change of environment, work opportunities and to benefit from the ever overvalued British Pound Sterling. The fate of this young man was not one of a typical South American migrant, being chased down by the London police and shot point blank during the London bombings of 2005. Unlike others accused of terrorist acts in London who are tried at the Old Bailey for their crimes, the trial for De Menezes was done posthumously as he was killed by the police themselves who thought he was contributing to the crimes that day by running away from officials and perhaps not having the language skills in English to understand what precisely was occurring at the time.

In a surprising verdict last week, the years of contemplation and stress between the UK and the Brazilian Government and community in London resulted in a guilty verdict against the London Police as a whole, charged with more than 800,000 Pounds Sterling in damages and legal fees. The individual officers were not found guilty, despite much pressure from the family and friends of the victim in Brazil seeing the officer’s actions and criminally negligent beyond their police powers in the incident. The nature of the incident was initially hidden from the public, but when more investigations were completed it was found that de Menezes most likely did not understand what was occurring when the Police tried to detain him and took off for unknown reasons. He was pursued into the Tube Station and pinned down by officers, apparently then not being arrested but having a firearm placed against his body and discharged according to the BBC World Service broadcast of the event months after the Bombings.

Despite the victim being typically Latin American in appearance, the profile of the Bombers in one of the most culturally diverse cities in the world could not be distinguished from other minorities during the time of chaos. The event also loomed with suspicion as a clear effort to cover up the true events from the public took place for months after the death of de Menezes due to the Terrorist label being applied to the victim and the Bombings taking place the same day of the incident. With the guilty verdict, the “accident” which took place seems more like negligent behaviour than simply a mere misunderstanding. The verdict is well justified after the lack of cooperation in finding the true source of the error which led to the young man’s death.