Not in control / Immigration - 11 comments

I had intended to post this on Wednesday night, but hopefully it's still relevant. Think back to the heady days of early last week, when illegal immigration was 'out of control', and Tony Blair's response to Conservative taunts was to get tough. This is how the BBC covered it:

The vast bulk of foreign prisoners should be deported whatever the dangers in their home nations, says Tony Blair.

Mr Blair told MPs he was prepared to change the law to ensure most foreign prisoners were deported automatically.

Downing Street later said some prisoners could avoid deportation in "very few exceptional cases" such as a known threat to an individual.

That isn't being in control - it's cravenly, thoughtlessly advancing down a wrong and damaging road that appeals to bigots, and disregards more imaginative solutions, a few of which are set out below.

OK, maybe the authorities are generous, and perhaps many of those who claim to be at risk in their home nation are pulling a fast one, but why should we allow people who may be able to offer this country all sorts of advantages be condemned to punishment in less enlightened countries simply so that politicians here can maintain the fantasy that they are able to control access to a highly attractive economy and society, using staff who aren't motivated, and who don't believe the task is feasible?

Let's face it, we're not really prepared to live with the consequences of erecting a (squiggly) ring of steel around the country, and why should we? The economic case as outlined here and here (do check the comments though) for opening borders - allowing free movement of labour - is very strong. Even stronger if it allows the Home Office and immigration apparatus to be dismantled.

Politicians seem to believe that their countries really are islands, and that deporting foreign criminals is a simple and effective way of reducing domestic crime. Few seem to be imaginative enough, to have a sound enough commitment to universal human rights, or indeed sufficiently capable of resisting bigoted, nationalistic public and press reaction to regard the loss of a murdered citizen in a criminal's home country to be equal to the loss of a British citizen. National police forces should co-operate internationally, tackling crime wherever it is committed, and punishing criminals as close to where the crime was committed as possible - providing the country concerned conforms to the appropriate standards regarding the treatment of prisoners - rather than foisting the problem on the home government. That's the correct approach now, with our porous borders, and once this system works, one more objection to the full opening of borders is lifted.

Wouldn't that give other governments the incentive to open their prisons and shoo their undesirables over to the UK, as suggested here? In theory, yes, but there are ways around that. The first thing you can do is, rather than open your border unilaterally, sign agreements with other governments that start the ball rolling by bringing down internal borders, as per the Schengen Agreement, but extending the agreement to new countries over time. It ties each government together in public, eliminating the incentive to cheat. Alternatively, immigration authorities could operate under central management, so that no country's border watchers may be taken advantage of for one government's advantage.

Chris Dillow raises the issue of whether economic migrants ought to be granted 'claim' rights in addition to the 'liberty' rights that all inhabitants of a 'free country' must expect. For example: access to social security, and access to free primary and secondary education for one's dependents. At least in the short term the economic advantages from immigration would be greater for a country that didn't grant these rights by default, and it might even grant popular legitimacy. But why have claim rights at all, if it wasn't to save people from starving to death on the streets or in some darkened hovel, resorting to crime, or activities that no human being ought to be forced into doing? We expect economic migrants to be smart, hardworking, and optimistic enough to stand a good chance of making a success in their new country, but not all will succeed, and with few assets, and perhaps no family at all to help them, the slide into crime and the black economy could be a very rapid one. If we deny economic immigrants rights to benefits that we give to UK citizens purely on the basis of their citizenship, and irrespective of their hard work and contribution to the economy, either because of the perceived cost (disregarding the evidence that such migrants are generally substantial net contributors) or because of the antagonism of other groups, then that weakens our claim to support universal human rights.

Another argument that's raised is that we denude the infrastructure of 'donor' countries by 'taking' their highly skilled workers to fill our own vacancies. I don't think this is too difficult a point to win, however. There are a number of points to be made:

• Economic migrancy is not necessarily permanent: skilled workers may well return, with experiences they would not have been able to gain at home. They can pass these skills on to others.
• The home country is helped even before that: money is sent home, and foreign language skills can be passed back. A new communications channel is opened.
• Donor countries will not be as squeamish as we are in a 'host' country. Provided money and skills gained are sent home, countries with few other marketable assets should not be denied the opportunity to trade their human resources with the rest of the World.
• Specialisation: the economic value of a skill depends entirely upon its context. Nursing is a worthy calling - and Malawi 'produces' them, eager for experience, in great numbers - but their economic value is derived from the unquenchable demands of our NHS. Malawi's health needs are far more pressing - in a human sense - than are our own (life expectancy at birth: 41-42 years) but their problems would be better served through immunisation, technology, organisation, and tackling HIV/AIDS, not more nurses.
  

The economic case for immigration does seem to be pretty clear - a consensus even, as Owen argues. But what about social factors? It's easy for economists to talk about a free market in immigration, such that the levels of immigration wax and wane according to the demand from host countries and supply from the 'donor' countries, but much immigration is the consequence of failed states, absolute poverty, and human rights abuse. If these issues can be tackled, that part of migrancy that is needless dislocation - and mass exodus - can be reduced.

Social disruption in host/recipient countries cannot be ignored either. Cultures - not amorphous 'national' cultures - but ones based around particular regions, quarters of cities, neighborhoods, occupations, and informal social groups, don't grow up overnight, and when they are fractured they can cause long-lasting social problems. So the ebb and flow of population movement - which absolutely need not relate to different races, religions, or even nationalities - that economists welcome may cause damage on the ebb that cannot be repaired in kind on the flow. Something is lost, and some cultures may not be easily recreated. Pub Philosopher has covered this here. What solutions can the left offer to tackle the social dislocation that migration causes, other than ridiculing the BNP, or abandoning economics in favour of tabloid headline-grabbing?

I haven't seen a lot of blog coverage of these issues, but bowblog's article is excellent:

The lesson is one we've failed to learn before: social change, when it comes, hits working class communities hardest. These communities have no buffer, no wiggle room and nowhere to go. Prosperity, once you've got it, provides insulation from nasty stresses of all kinds...

Poor communities just have to put up with it. As for mass immigration, big populations have been moving around the planet for economic reasons for hundreds of years and the poor have always held the role of unappointed welcome committees in pressure cooker communities like the North Side of Chicago, London's East End and the housing estates of suburban Paris.

[...]

Our effort, in the wealthy world, (where, let's face it, immigrants are going to continue to arrive in large numbers if we're to remain wealthy) must go into improving the capacity of our reception communities (Barking, Keighley, Burnley and all the rest), boosting the resilience of the bottom social tier, taking working class grievances seriously and easing the pressures produced by ineluctable change. The goal must be to build social solidarity, to neutralise the embitterment and disconnection that feeds the fascists.

Lance Knobel, David Aaronovitch, Matt at Dirty Leftie, and Tom at NewerLabour are also have also been talking about this.

Well, that's it for now.