On the Morality of Immigration, By Andrew Leonard (Slate)

Some statistics on population density:

Germany -- 600 per square mile
United Kingdom -- 600 per square mile
Japan -- 830 per square mile
Netherlands -- 1200 per square mile
Bangladesh -- 2600 per square mile
The United States -- 80 per square mile.

Based on these figures, Mathias Risse, a professor of public policy and philosophy at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, concludes in "On the Morality of Immigration," published in the March issue of Ethics & International Affairs, that "the United States is severely underusing its chunk of three-dimensional, commonly owned space." From which it follows, argues Risse, that it is unfair for the U.S. to restrict immigration, legal or illegal, across its borders.

This is a perspective one is unlikely to hear espoused by presidential candidates in the U.S., no matter how liberal their views on immigration are. For one thing, it requires that one think about the world as if it was collectively owned by all of humanity, rather than divided into nasty little nation-states dedicated to protecting their most cherished NIMBY values with armed forces, fences and elaborate visa regulations. It is hopelessly utopian to imagine that national politicians would ever make decisions on topics as explosive as immigration policy on the basis of what would be best for the world.

But even as one shakes one's head at the uber-ivory-tower-ness of it all, one can still admire the sheer courage of such a stance. Risse argues that "as long as a country underuses its resources and refuses to permit more immigration in response, illegal immigration cannot be morally condemned."

Indeed, he turns the whole concept of fairness, as it is normally applied to the question of illegal immigration, completely on its head.

To speak of the United States specifically, one might also argue that the opposition to illegal immigration is based on commonly accepted notions of fairness -- including the notion of due process -- which loom large in the American psyche. For example, searches on Google using the keywords "wrong," "illegal," and "immigration" delivered a number of American Web sites on which the unfairness of illegal immigration was emphasized. Illegal immigration makes a mockery of those who abide by the rules, so this argument goes. To pardon illegal immigrants would be unfair because it lets them get away with their offense on the basis that they have succeeded thus far. This standpoint, however, presupposes that immigration is indeed a matter for the respective country alone to sort out, and that the "insiders" are entitled to determine how many and exactly who enters their country. But the argument offered here implies that this is not so. If would-be immigrants are being illegitimately excluded, one cannot complain that they are violating due process if they come anyway.

I'm going to amuse myself right now by imagining the sight of Lou Dobbs' head exploding after reading that last paragraph. Of course, the right to decide "how many and exactly who" enters their country is one of the foundational benefits of having a nation-state in the first place. Maybe someday this will no longer be so. Maybe the challenges of climate change and the constraints of finding enough food and water and clean air for nine billion people will force the world to deal with all its problems in a fashion that puts collective welfare above the interests of any isolated community. But we've got a ways to go before we get there. And is that John Lennon on the piano I hear in the distance?

**Story Link

How NOT to link the environment, population control and immigration

From Feministing.org:

From a half-page ad in the NY Times:
One of American's Most Popular Pastimes. Americans spend a lot of time in their cars. Not because they want to. But because of massive traffic congestion. And almost daily gridlock. For many people, commutes to work and school and daycaer can take up to three hours a day. According to traffic management experts, it's only going to get worse if our population continues its present growth rate. In many American cities, it's the same stress with our schools, our emergency rooms, our public infrastructure, even our water resources. A majority of Americans agree that runaway population growth threatens their quality of life. But with US Census projects indicating our population will explode from 300 million to 400 million in thirty years and 600 million in 2100, quality of life for future generations will be gone unless we take action today. The Pew Hispanic Research Center projects 82% of the country's massive future population increase will be a result of immigration between 2005 and 2050. And for every four new U.S. residents whether from births or immigration, approximately three more cars are added to our roads, increasing gridlock, energy use and greenhouse emissions. Together we can do something about it. We're the nation's leading experts on population and immigration trends and growth. Visit our websites to learn more and find out how you can help. Because wasting hours in your car is one pastime you can do without.

The organizations sponsoring: American Immigration Control Foundation, Californians for Population Stabilization, Federation of American Immigration Reform, NumbersUSA and Social Contract Press.

Complexity of Immigrants' National Ties Explored, By Karin Brulliard (WP)

The majority of Hispanic immigrants maintain ties to their native countries by sending money, calling or traveling to their homelands, but most see their future in the United States despite these long-distance links, a new study has found.

Just 9 percent of Latino immigrants are "highly attached" to their birth countries -- defined by researchers as doing all three "transnational activities": dispatching funds, phoning weekly or going home in the past two years. Most sustain moderate bonds by doing one or two. But those attachments fade with time, according to a Pew Hispanic Center report based on a nationwide survey of Latinos.

"What's striking is that although the long-term trend is toward disengagement . . . most immigrants are involved in some form of contact with the place which they're from," said Roger Waldinger, a sociology professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, and author of the report. "What we have is a population that, as we tried to describe, is between here and there."

Although research on transnationalism -- having a life that straddles two countries -- is fairly recent, scholars debate how new the phenomenon is. Some say Latino immigrants are in the vanguard of a phenomenon fueled by advances in communications and transportation. Many others, including Waldinger, say this behavior is similar to that of 19th- and 20th-century European immigrants, who often sent letters and money across the Atlantic and later returned home to live. But no one collected the data back then, so direct comparisons are impossible, he said.

There are also disagreements over how transnationalism affects newcomers' commitment to their adopted lands. In the case of Latino immigrants, the Pew study found, transnational activities do not hinder bonds to the United States. More than 60 percent -- recent and long-term immigrants, U.S. citizens and noncitizens -- say they plan to stay and are more concerned about politics and government in the United States than in their native countries.

But the report makes clear that immigrants' interactions with and feelings about their homelands are complicated and varied. The longer Latino immigrants live in the United States, the more their transnational activities drop off and they see this nation as their "real homeland," the survey found. Still, nearly all consider themselves first Peruvians or Mexicans, say, rather than Americans. Although recent arrivals are more likely to send money home, they are less likely to travel home than are established Hispanic immigrants.

As the report puts it: "Home country and host country options coexist among many immigrants and may indeed be mutually compatible."

Just ask Mabelon Obregon, a Peru native who owns a Fairfax City bagel shop. After 15 years in the United States, he said, he rarely sends money to, calls or travels to Peru. Most of his relatives have died or moved, he said. Obregon, 38, is certain his children will always call the United States home. But he said that once he and his wife retire, they might spend time in Peru. "Half year there, half here," he said.

The complexity is further illustrated by variations among different national groups, whose paths are often dictated by country-specific situations, the report says. For example, Cubans, who are mostly exiles, engage in few cross-border activities, because U.S. policies limit travel and money transfers to Cuba. But their identity as Cubans remains very strong, Waldinger said.

Although 70 percent of Salvadorans send money home, only a small percentage travel and call home regularly. That is probably because they are often poor and in the United States illegally or on temporary permits that do not allow most international travel, Waldinger said.

Then there are the Colombians, who maintain the deepest ties, Waldinger said, and who are more likely to be affiliated with ethnic organizations in this country and to own property in their homeland than are most other immigrants. They are also likely to have legal status and greater wealth, he said.

Among them is Fidel Hurtado, 44, who moved to Reston eight years ago from Pereira, Colombia. Hurtado, a bank employee and permanent U.S. resident, said he phones home several times a week, sends relatives money every two weeks and travels to Colombia often, most recently to deliver to Colombian children scholarship money raised by a Northern Virginia nonprofit group.

Hurtado said he will consider himself both American and Colombian once he becomes a U.S. citizen. And he will stay.

"My heart is there, but my strength and my energy are here," Hurtado said.

**Story Link

M.I.A. from the Immigration Debate, Creating Economic Opportunity in Mexico, By James Ridgeway (MJ)

Washington Dispatch: Could an influx of foreign aid to Mexico solve America's immigration problem?

For all the talk about immigration reform on the Hill, there has been notably little discussion about what is driving Mexican immigrants to pour over the border into the U.S., let alone any debate about measures that might go to the root of the problem. According to Laura Carlsen, the director of the International Relations Center's Americas Program, the reason behind the "massive out-migration" is fairly clear. Put simply, she wrote not long ago, "Mexico is not producing enough decent jobs for its people—and the United States is hiring." It would seem, then, that one potential answer to the United States' so-called immigration problem would be an effective development policy toward Mexico (whose citizens make up 56 percent of America's undocumented population, according to the Pew Hispanic Center), including both private investment and foreign aid. As it stands, Mexico receives the bulk of its aid not from the U.S. government or corporations but from immigrants themselves.

Despite having incomes well below the national average, many Mexican immigrants regularly send a portion of their earnings home to support their families and sometimes entire communities. Remittances from immigrant workers now stand approximately equal to oil revenues as one of the two largest sources of foreign income in Mexico. According to Guillermo Ortíz, head of Mexico's central bank, they totaled $23.54 billion in 2006.

These remittances – the vast majority sent from the United States, primarily in payments of $100 to $200 -- exponentially exceed foreign aid to Mexico. According to the Century Foundation, for every dollar in official foreign aid that goes to Mexico, immigrants send home $150. The bottom line is that these remittances have become a substitute—and a poor one at that—for effective development policies aimed at generating employment and stimulating rural production.

While the United States frequently grouses to the Mexican government that it ought to provide economic opportunities at home that will keep its citizens from teeming over our border, we've been less quick to provide Mexico with much help in doing so. To the contrary, the U.S. continues to exploit Mexico's resources for its own needs. Those resources, of course, include the very undocumented workers we complain about, which, like the illicit drugs we likewise condemn, would soon cease to flow north across the border if there were no demand for them here.

The 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) was supposed to be a tremendous boon for Mexico, as well as for the United States and Canada, creating the beginnings of a common market for the benefit of all. More than 13 years later, though, the relationship still smacks of colonialism. Howard Zinn, the author of A People's History of the United States who has documented the history of U.S. colonialism in Latin America, says of the current immigration debate, "Why should capital go freely across borders while people cannot? These are human beings trying to make a better life, for god's sake. Why is the wall on the Mexican border more acceptable than the Berlin Wall?"

Contrast all this to what's happened in the European Union, which was formed just two years prior to NAFTA, in 1992. Through the post-war years and well into the 1980s, most of the huge number of foreign guest workers in then-richer nations like Britain, Germany, France, and Switzerland came not from the so-called Third World, but from current European Union member-countries like Italy, Spain, Portugal, Greece, and Ireland. Instead of just employing foreign workers, though, the wealthier European nations also jumpstarted the economies of their poorer neighbors with billions of dollars in investments. As Douglas Massey, a Princeton University sociologist and co-director of the school's Mexican Migration Project, told the San Francisco Chronicle last year, if "the United States had approached Mexico and its integration into the North American economy in the same way that the European Union approached Spain and Portugal in 1986, we wouldn't have an immigration problem now."

**Photo Courtesy of Mother Jones
**Story Link