Closed door policy; Example Ilegal Transits from Mexico, Central America and Africa

Today  I’m going to work on a few migratory policies that   Marmora does not mention in his book published in 2004, I’ll call this first one the closed door policy. It tries to limit or stop, as much as possible the influx of migrants or any particular group of them. It’s characterized to use an excessively rigorous criteria is used stopping migrants from getting legal residencies. One must add that there is strong emphasis on the border, especially as concept defining it as a place that divides. This way of defining the border can isolate a country from the unwanted migrants, but it affects its relation with its neighbor countries. In some extreme cases some counties get to the point of literally building walls on their borders trying to become airtight, and at their border crossings they implement a strict control of who enters and leaves its territory, most visible examples are the United States with Mexico, Greece with Turkey border, Israel with Palestine...just to mention a few cases. Whenever the authority of a territory, for whatever reasons, cannot, does not or does not know how to address issues like migratory transit, building walls seems to be the best and only viable option for some States. 

With this type of immigration policy, has a tendency to put a greater emphasis on police control over administrative control and the potential that the migrant is a possible criminal underlines most of the States actions. Many of the measures are taken trying to stop immigrants, but one  must keep in mind that some of them are willing to risk their lives, with this driving idea of a better perspective of life for him/her and his/hers family. They don’t have the means to get visas or travel with all the legal requirements; they know they will be refused at the border, for many migrants illegal transits are there only chance they get to a better life, these barriers are built with these people in mind. 

Let’s put this into perspective, the desperation and determination of some Central American immigrants is so great that it makes these people, take a train when they arrive to Mexico called the Beast (actual they are a group of trains).If they Survive the transit across Mexico on top of these trains, avoid being captured by their migratory control and having to deal with some xenophobic and criminal elements in country, and they are victim of all kinds of abuses. When they get to the US Border they have to jump a pretty high wall evade US border control which is a small army, cross a desert  without the adequate recourses and last but not least try not to run I with any crazy civilians patrolling these areas. Taking all this into account or these people are totally crazy or incredibly desperate, but one thing is a fact they have nothing to lose so dissuasion doesn’t work, build the most high-tech super killer wall, guarded by an army of terminators   and people will find a way to breach it. The Berlin wall was of the most patrolled in history, one could have risked certain death if captured or spotted and still people took the chance of crossing it.   

Another example to illustrate my point is what is happing with the States that have their coasts on the Mediterranean Sea having to deal with the influx of African immigrants.  In a very recommendable article to read in Le Monde special edition dedicated to Africa writer Jean Ziegler, a sociologist from Switzerland. Explains that European countries use Frontex, an agency of cooperation related to the European Union, to stop the influx of illegal transits coming from African countries.  The author explains that they use questionable military type actions to stop and capture migrants at sea and have on African territory special detention centers for these people that are in there custody.

Like in the other example these people a driven my desperation, and the author describes the how these people real should be considered refugees of hunger, since outside influences from Africa and internal corruption has ruined subsistence economies all across Africa, pushing people out of their lands or leaving them with places to fish, producing this mass exodus from this continent (Jean Ziegler; Refugees of Hunger; 2013).

  

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Migratory Policy: Regulation Policy Recovery and Incorporation policies; fighting the Brain Drain and the end of illegal immgrants

Now todsy we are going to start off talking about Regulation policies "they are aimed to influence the flow of migrants, whether by restricting their movement, channeling it or facilitating it" (Marmora, 2004; p 100). Here I

would locate partially Argentina’s current policy, since the country tries to foster regional migrants, helping integration with the other States of MERCOSUR and it makes frontier transit easier, especially for people that live in towns and cities next or near the border, facilitating trade among the member and associate Nations, channeling migrants to cross legally to the country. On the other hand the Argentine State tries to take control on what is happening with regional migrants its territory, there is more regulation on these people bringing more order to the migratory flow and transit, migrants most enter legally if they want a residency (Argentina has a issues with porous borders, we’ll see this in latter posts).

 Recovery policies have a specific objective "to promote the repatriation of citizens that live abroad, or activate his or hers involvement with the country of origin"(Marmora, 2004; p 100), planting the seed of a possible return one day.  In the case of Argentina has the 26.421 law, which is independent of the law that establishes its main migratory police. This particular law creates a program called

Raices or Roots one of its main goals is to repatriate Argentine scientists who have gone abroad for work or study; it’s a way to mitigate the effects of the brain drain that the country has been suffering because of its cyclical economic problems, it’s one of the very few actions that government has taken relative to argentine emigrants, a void in the country’s main law. It is an explicit attempt at retrieving highly trained human capital that has left the country for various reasons. Seven hundred scientists had recovered since 2003 up to mid-2010 and it is estimated that they there are between 6,000 to 7,000 more abroad (IECO, 2010), the last time I checked march 2016 there were 1269 repatriated citizens (http://www.raices.mincyt.gov.ar/), its seems a meager number but one must take into account that these have a great values as human capital and bring know how that they have obtained from aboard.

Now I’m going to explain two examples of a recovery where the respective States try to keep their citizens abroad involved in civil, political or cultural issues with their origin country, trying to maintain a link with them, keeping the door open for a possible return one day. In the first case we have a special program that Argentina has called Province 25 which allows   argentines to vote outside of the country, it publishes has special newsletters and promotes special events and activities of relevance for their citizen that live in the diaspora abroad. The second example to illustrate my point belongs to Uruguay that has a similar program called Department 20 which does pretty much the same thing as the argentine program but in this case Uruguay has a special office within its Foreign Ministry Affairs called Direccion de Vinculación it translates as the Office of Involvement or Linkage, where it tries to elevate its level of involmente to its citizens, personalizing it.

Finally on the list of Marmora’s migratory policies we can find all actions relative to the  incorporation of migrants, which basically pursued the objective of regularizing the situation of migrants and achieve its proper insertion into society, and to achieve optimal integration with the host country, especially entering the economic system, these migrants are able to work legally and pay tax and compete fairly in the job market. They are no longer forced to be part of the informal economies which implies a great disservice for the migrant, that is exposed to questionable job conditions  and the host country has to spend large amounts of money on finding them and expelling them because of their illegal status ( the right term is irregular, a person cannot be illegal).

In the case of Argentina it has achieved regularization of thousands of foreigners without resorting to an amnesty (this presupposes that migrants are criminals), and the initial society inclusion has been remarkable migrants from MERCOSUR countries have been flowing constantly to get there residencies, and thanks to this being able to work legally and establish themselves in the country without the fear of deportation.

Massive and Selective Migration Policies Example: H1B, Germany and Turkish Migrants

Today we are going to work on the second type of migratory policy that Lelio Marmora explains, are promotion policies that aim to 'promote the entry or voluntary departure of migrants to or from a given country' (Marmora, 2004, p. 100). The author divides this type of immigration in two groups: massive and selective. In the case of massive migration, is usually related to programs of colonization, where it promotes the potential recipient country as a viable option to migrate, normally international agreements can be signed to facilitate the provision of migrants, and the receptor country facilities economic and logistic assistance so people can establish themselves in their territory, (Mármora, 2004), especially unpopulated areas that need to be developed.

On the other hand there is selective immigration that responds to the necessity that a State may need "qualified human resources" in any specific field (Marmora, 2004; p100). As in the previous case the receiving State can take a series of measures deemed necessary to attract a particular type of migrants that have strategic importance for qualified human capital. 

Examples:

I found a good example for selective migratory policies in a very odd place, in a book about Popular Science called Physics of the Future: How Science will Shape Human Destiny and Our Daily Lives by the Year 2100, written by Michio Kaku. The author explains that most scientists the work in the US come from abroad, and this constant provision highly prepared human resource has been fundamental in helping the United States being a super power and keeping the country on the frontier of science. The US keeps this flow of scientist and investigators, with a special visa called H1B or called the “genius visa” in scientific community. One most add that this also fuels the brain drain of many other nations.

So this selective police tries to pick the best and brightest from around the globe, if a person can show they have the skills or the knowledge then they can be eligible for this visa and have the possibility to reside in the US. Kaku to illustrate this point writes that about 50 of the people that work in Silicon Valley where born outside of the US, most of these being from Taiwan and India (P 440; Kaku 2011). He adds that that also 50 of university students that study Physics are also born abroad (P 440; Kaku 2011).

Michio Kaku, then starts talk about that how some politicians complain that this particular visa takes jobs from people born in North America, but the author explains that there are very few qualified American Scientists and they can’t cover the demand for qualified human recourses needed in places like Silicon Valley. “The immigrants that have the H1B visa don’t take jobs from natives; on the contrary they create completely new industries” (P440; Kaku), that obviously generate many jobs. This selective migratory policy, is very important political  tool for the United States of America  it actually helps the country position itself on the world stage and show us how to correctly administrate the flow of migrants liberating there potential. As we can observe a migratory policy most serve the interest of the country that forges it, or it must be discarded.         

Now another selective policy that has been the center of a strong debate over the years and has been accused to have wasted too many opportunities has been the German migratory policy towards Turkish migrants. After the Second World War countries like England and France, took the decision in taking migrants from their colonies and ex-colonies to help them in their reconstruction and jump start their economies, Germany had virtual no colonies to draw people form so they looked to other poorer countries to the east draw cheap labor from, and Turkey was one of those countries.

The first international agreement between the two countries was signed 1961, establish a “guest worker program” (Yanina Gutmann, Le Monde; 2014), one must take into account the transitory nature of this type labor, there for they are not considered migrants, yet. These new guest workers had to satisfy the demand of the lower end of the job market, they where low skilled labor, and most of them where provided dormitories by the companies that needed them. So as we can see, from the start there was no intention to integrate these visitors because they were temporary workers, but as we are going to see this transitory nature transforms and the German government didn’t do much to accommodate this new situation, they found themselves with a mass of migrants in their territory and had no idea how to manage the problem.

The policy that was established 1961 originally let Turkish works to stay for two years in the country and send them back and bring in another batch Turkish workers, but this never really took shape those who arrived stayed, their bosses and business owners opposed to sending them back because they didn’t want to lose trained employs, the rotation clause was removed in 1964 because of industrial lobby. Also the migrants had very little incentive to go home, do to the political instability Turkey was going through, many diced to bring their families overtime, also leaving there dormitories creating Turkish neighborhoods over time, further segregating themselves.  

And one must add that the German economy was a sponge and it needed more and more workers especially in the three D’s type jobs (Dirty, Dingy and Dangerous), they also increased tax revenue, social security contributions and these workers accepted low wages just to be able to stay in the country. One must  take into account that in Germany there is no minimum wage so these works could compete unfairly in the job market.

 In the 90’s, even though Germany had a prosperous economy, it had some unemployment issues; it had more than 4 million jobless people (Yanina Gutmann, 2014). So inmigration started to become a hot issue and as usual a scapegoat, politicians used these migrants as cannon fodder for their platforms, these people where a menace for the countries national identity, some alleged. But this wasn’t the first time in the 70’s when the oil crisis menaced the German economy and Turkish works became a political punching bag, but the thing was that at the same time these migrants where being offered permanent residencies, so you can observe the strong and obvious contradiction, and when you do not have a proper policy, all you get are socially segmented reactions.

During the 90’s the German government started to promote the “desired return home” and in some cases offering a monetary incentive for people to go back to Turkey, now this probably didn’t go to well with these people, most of them have children growing up in Germany and the center of their lives, there home was in this country, it’s not that easy to get up and leave.        

In an article for Spiegel Online (07/09/2010), the authors Mathias Bartsch, Andrea Brant and Daniel Steinvorth explain that these particular migrants that are about 3 million, and Germany as a country has done very little integrate them, there was even a strong denial that there was a problem in the first place, but it was a fact there was an important part of their population that had serious issues integrating themselves. A migratory policy must not only bring the people and make them part of the economic circuit; they must integrate them culturally so there is no friction with the local population. In the Spiegel article explains Schools added the Turkish langue as part of this policy to send these people back, not as a multicultural incentive of integration.

Another aspect of the problem that is illustrated in a article in the New York Times written by Judy Dempsy , published the 15/04/2013 explains that German authorities do not allow Turkish inmigrants to have dual passports, and that they most choose, unlike citizens from countries that are part of the European Union. “They most choose by the age of 23 or they lose their German passports”, this is for children Turkish inmigrants  that were born in Germany after the first of January 2000 (Dempsy, 2013), those who were born before that date may retain their dual passports. German politicians from the right defend this policy argumenting that before integration you most show loyalty.       

All the measures that I can find that the German government has tried  during the 2000’s was to take initiative in integrating Turkish migrants and there descends had a strong economic aspect, it revolved around how to better integrate these people in the labor market, and try to kick start their social mobility making things better for everyone, only time will tell if this strategy will work.