Migration

France assumes the rotating Presidency of the European Union on July 1 of this year. Immigration policy is set to be one of the main issues to which President Nicolas Sarkozy, long-time defender of a hard-line stance, wants to find a tenable solution across 27 member states. Borrowing from the successful negotiation tool-kit established by Angela Merkel on environmental policy, Mr. Sarkozy has sent his controversial immigration minister, Brice Hortefeux, on a whistle-stop tour of the European capitals in an effort to forge compromise before key issues come to the table at the October 15 European Council meeting. Hortefeux’s intinerary has already seen him hit 18 capitals by mid-April and he hopes to bring his insights back to Paris ahead of July 1, in an effort to design an immigration compromise that could actually see it through negotiations, in which the unanimity of the Council is still required on a number of issues, thus making actual progress especially elusive. More on Mr. Hortefeux’s travels can be found here and we here at the blog will keep a watchful eye out for what might be in the works.

Across Germany thousands of young immigrants are facing one of the most difficult decisions of their young lives. Beyond the typical teenage musings on their place in their own social sphere among family and friends, almost 4,000 of the country’s teens turning 18 this year will have to make a choice on their nationality.

In 1999, the Social-Democrat/Green coalition government signed into law a compromise on dual citizenship. It was no more than that - a compromise, but it in part reversed a principle of German citizenship law, which was traditionally based on jus sanguinis, blood right. Until then German citizenship was only open to those who could prove German roots through genetic linkage. As a result newly arrived Soviet migrants with German ancestors but without language skills were granted German nationality quasi automatically, while third generation Turks, for example, who were born and raised in the country and often spoke only German or a local dialect were excluded from the right to vote and exercise German citizenship rights. Hoping to further the integration of these long-resident migrants, lawmakers decided to change existing provisions to allow a limited dual citizenship for certain cases. Thousands of young Turks born in Germany thus gained the right to carry both passports.

Over the next few years, 300,000 young dual nationals will have to give up one of their passports. As German newsmagazine, Der Spiegel, reports many are conflicted. “Until now, I haven’t had to decide more than what T-shirt looks cooler or whether to take the bus or the bike to visit my friends. But this is big,” says 17-year-old Cem Sezek. “For many teenagers the decision between the Turkish and German passport is like deciding between your mother and your wife,” explains Sevim Dagdelen, herself a turkish-born member of the German the federal parliament. “Instead of forcing them into this decision and creating stumbling blocks, we should be focusing on how to improve their career options,” argues Green Party member, Volker Beck.

Some, like 18-year-old Tuerkiz Tamalta, have vowed to take their case to the highest German court. And a number of legal experts could see the Constitutional Court deciding in her favor: Ruediger Wolfrum, Director of the Max-Planck-Institute for Human Rights Law argues that a constitutional right is at stake. The right to the freedom of free development of ones personality is in question when teenagers are forced to make this type of decision he argues. Astrid Wallrabenstein, a Constitutional Court expert believes that dual nationals are subjected to unequal treatment: “Germans don’t have to reaffirm their citizenship when they turn 18,” she says.

Dual citizenship provisions exist across the globe - some combinations are allowed, others aren’t. This is even the case in Germany - I am living proof. As the daughter of an American and a German, born in Germany, but on American soil (I was born in an American military hospital), I carry both a blue and a burgundy passport. I am slightly circumscribed in my citizenship rights, but this hardly has any bearing on my daily life. The two passports have been my ticket to a mobile life - one, I would argue that has benefitted both my countries of origin. Through both my education and my professional life, I have contributed to both societies: I file taxes on both sides of the Atlantic, I vote in the country of my residence, I take an active interest in the politics of both. The opportunity to be educated in both systems, to live and work in the US and across Europe has allowed me to be a better journalist, has allowed me to become an effective communicator across cultures. Most importantly it has increased, not decreased my allegiance to both countries and made me the kind of mobile citizen the global economy is constantly calling for.

So, why should I get to have both and young Turks shouldn’t? The fact that I have mixed parentage? In many cases we attended the same schools, speak German just as fluently and feel allegiances to both sides. Once Turkey becomes a European Member State mobility for those that chose a Turkish passport will once again be possible. But until then, their opportunities will be limited. There is an inequality at work here that will continue to separate, not integrate people.

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

Two countries have stood out in their respective regions as economically progressive policy successes in the last ten years. In Europe, Spain along with Ireland have seen much of the positive development and economic growth when the rest of the EU has been wrestling with high unemployment rates and drastic changes in governments. In Latin America, Brazil under Lula and under the former Cardoso Administration have grown at a steady positive rate, breaking the traditional Latin American plague of economic collapses and large booms that seem to be commonplace in almost all South American economies to date. With success, the importance of Spain and Brazil have taken on a new form in their regions and abroad. Traditionally the place of the United States, these emerging regional powers now seem to be inheriting some of America’s traditional problems.

Brazil has always been a country of immigration. The population of Brazil, while taking in only some immigrants from Asia, Africa and Europe in the last few years, was one of the countries that absorbed much of the world’s immigration since the 1880s. This open policy remained, and while economic problems and changes from populist, to military, to democratic governments took shape since the 1930s, immigration remained strong as long as there were jobs to be done in one of the world’s largest countries. With traditional economic instability and some recent success, many Brazilians have chosen to go abroad to either find more work or utilize their assets to enjoy life abroad. In Spain, this emigration from Brazil has taken a foothold with both emigrants coming and living illegally for work or working in legal low paying jobs, as well as those upper middle class Brazilians coming to make a life and career in Spain as professionals and entrepreneurs.

While the general impression of Brazilians in Spain is a positive one, there have been some problems against immigrants at the main Spanish airports and in society as a whole. Many immigrants, including many Brazilians often enter Spain and stay illegally. This has been a problem one many fronts, as many Latin Americans, Africans and other Europeans do not go through the normal procedures to live and work in Spain but come as temporary workers or as refugees or simply pass through the border and disappear. With Spain having some economic expansion and the closing off of the US to many immigrants, the Spanish immigration system has become overwhelmed. Since 2006, the number of Brazilians coming into Spain has nearly “tripled or quadrupled”, while at the same time in Spain eight Brazilians a day are deported.

The solution to the Brazil-Spain situation needs to be addressed by both countries. Brazil needs to reform its immigration to fit with its position as an emerging power in the world. With 3-4 millions Brazilians living abroad, Lula will have the responsibility to create and international Brazil without losing all of the most talented to other countries and still maintain funds coming from those emigrants abroad. Spain will also have to accept Brazilians and the diversity of the Brazilian social strata now living throughout the Iberian Peninsula. It will take a long time to adapt the infrastructure to treat foreigners in a respectful fashion, but attempts need to begin immediately. Brazilians and others will be challenged living in Spain in becoming Spanish. While it might be easier from some, it is doubtful that those migrants to Spain who are not seen in a positive light will be so easily welcomed in the near future.

Hugo Brady, analyst at the Centre for European Reform, one of the leading-EU think tanks, has compiled a compedium of migration issues (PDF) that affect the European Union. The ‘A-Z’ approach offers a useful look at the issues and areas that shape migration policy now, as Justice and Home Affairs policy is in constant flux. From Africa to ‘Zero-tolerance’, Brady offers a summary and additional reading, which helps in getting a handle on this complex policy area.

This week’s news roundup features the Bush administration’s last ditch attempts at addressing the immigration issue in absence of fundamental policy reform. We also look ahead to the immigration issues at stake in the Spanish elections on March 9. Germany breathed a sigh of relief, when the deadly blaze that killed nine Turks, including two children, was discovered to have originated from a construction problem in the basement rather than a xenophobic arson attack, as originally assumed.

• Despite the failure to push comprehensive immigration reform through the Senate late last year, the Bush government is stepping up its efforts to stem illegal immigration through the introduction of a “virtual fence”, enhanced border patrols and by making the use of E-Verify - the electronic system to check the status of employed immigrants - mandatory for employers.
• New demographic data by the Pew Research Center points to the fact that the United States will become ever more dependant on immigrants to float welfare programs, similar to the predictions made for Europe’s demographic development: “What such an outcome could portend, other analysts have said, is a nation riven politically between older, whiter, voting retirees who are increasingly supported by a younger, darker, working population that, as immigrants, may be disproportionately ineligible to vote.”
• Spain takes to the polls next Sunday. As a relative newcomer to the circle of immigrant receiving countries, the last two governments have struggled to define functional policies that allow the country to benefit from the influx of people, while maintaining balanced social and welfare systems. Most recently, the Socialist government has issued an amnesty for illegals living and working in the country. The conservative Partido Popular has now put up its own plans for immigration policy under its candidate Mariano Rajoy. He would like to see immigrants sign an ““integration contract”. This would oblige them to learn Spanish, to work hard to integrate—and to return home if they are unemployed for too long or commit a crime.” We will follow the immigration debate in Spain as election day draws nearer.
• The artery is clogged - that would be one way of describing the state of affairs at the Canadian-US border, which, according to the Economist, is having detrimental economic effects. Since September 11th the additional border control measures have meant that patients who need emergency medical care across the border are dying en route, red tape is tying up trade and hampering the exchange of services, as proven by the example of the volunteer firefighters held up at the border for so long, the building they were planning on saving had burnt to a crisp.
• Arson has been ruled out as the cause of the deadly housefire that killed nine Turks in Germany’s town of Ludwigshafen. Reminded of the fires that ripped through asylum seeker homes throughout the country in the early nineties the fire was not only seen as a human tragedy but had reopened existing debates over xenophobia and integration policies. In a bold political move, Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan had flown to Germany to both express his condolences to the victim’s families but to deliver two key speeches, which were contradictory in nature. While he called upon his countrymen and women to integrate into German society in one statement, he demanded they resist assimilation into the dominant society in a speech to thousands of Turkish citizens in one of Cologne’s largest arenas. More on the story can be read here.

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.

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.

Numerous stories are crossing the wires today about the erosion of the fish population off the European and African coasts. The pace at which industrial trawlers, mostly from EU member states, where fishing - like agricultural activity - is subsidized, has put the survival of entire species at peril. In September, the European Union ordered fishers haul in their nets on bluefin tuna, citing the exaustion of quotas. Fisheries had long been one of the most contested areas of the Common Agricultural Policy, so much so, that upon enlargement a separate Directorate General was created to deal only in matters of access rights to territorial waters, fishing quotas and sustainibility levels.

Consumer economics is driving the demand for fish. As many start opting for the “chicken of the sea” and its scaly counterparts for health reasons, global turnover rises. It now amounts to more than 100 million tons each year. Europe has suddenly become the world’s largest market for fish, each year worth more than €14 billion. And as appetites grow, native fish populations are declining. Europe alone is now importing half of the fish consumed on its shores, including from countries in the developing world. Still, supply cannot meet demand: Enter the flourishing black market in seafood.

What, do you ask, does any of this have to do with migration? Well, let’s see: Those best equipped to compete in a shrinking market, in which the commodity at stake is a limited natural resource are leaders in their field, i.e. industrial trawling companies, not the simple dingies available to the average Mauritanian fisherman. As the industry moves South to follow the flock, African countries have been able to squeeze a tidy sum out of the European Union in negotiations on fishing deals, often disregarding the needs of their own populations. Foreign fleets now far outnumber African counterparts in coastal waters off of Senegal and Mauritania. This, in turn, has forced many African fisherman and their wares onto the thriving black market - or pushed them out of the business completely. As the International Herald Tribune’s Sharon LaFraniere reports, many of these are literally abandoning ship in an attempt to carve out a better life for themselves in Europe. Indirectly, the EU is responsible for their loss of livelihood and now they are trying to recapture a life lost by attempting to cross treacherous open waters, often in hope of returning to the only profession they know:

“I could be a fisherman there,” he said. “Life is better there. There are no fish in the sea here anymore,” the article quotes Ale Nodye, a third generation fisherman and returned illegal immigrant from Senegal.

These stories vividly prove how the erosion of sovereignty, or renegotiation of maritime boundaries can spell economic gain for a select few and hardship for those left behind. It’s a story from the globalization picture book. The European Union cannot continue to preach a commitment to combatting the “root causes” of migration in the home countries, while supporting existing policies that make economic migration the only plausible solution for many of those left without means to subsist. If the EU fails to tackle these issues simultaneously, it will again be embroiled in a viscious cycle of useless policies at an extremly high price tag.

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