US-EU: Mirror Images on Illegal Immigration

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Gary Weaver is a co-author

Illegal immigration is not only a US concern.

In the first 9 months of 2008, the number of illegals landing on the Italian island of Lampedusa, a short but dangerous 65-mile Mediterranean Sea crossing from Libya, doubled over the 2007 totals. This has swamped its facilities but also raised both humanitarian and political concerns in the European Union. Nearly 90% of EU-bound seaborne illegals land at Lampedusa, most coming from North and East Africa, and paying up to 2,000 Euros for passage. Land routes tend to run through Russia and Turkey to Eastern Europe, using sealed long-haul trucks, bringing migrants from Central and South Asia.

Against this backdrop, the recent German Marshall Fund study, Transatlantic Trends: Immigration 2008 (see http://www.transatlantictrends.org/trends/) reveals that the nature of the issue is very different on each continent, just as the American and European experience with immigration is very different.

In Europe until recently the primary focus has been on Muslims who legally immigrated from the Middle East and Africa – although there is increasing anxiety about the recent rise in undocumented Muslims from North Africa and Central Asia. In Europe there is broad concern that immigrant Muslims tend not to acculturate or assimilate, as they are concentrated with other Muslims in urban areas with higher unemployment than in the US. Their economic impact has also been much greater because of the more generous housing and other social-welfare benefits offered immigrants by European countries. The high concentrations of Muslim immigrants, who have replicated their home cultures in European urban areas, also create security and cultural-values fears for some Europeans, who believe that extremists will reject the European way of life and may create a “clash of civilizations” within European countries.

By contrast Arab and other Muslims comprise a very small part of the overall US population. They tend to come from many different countries, and to intermix with the larger population centers. Their greatest concentrations have been in Michigan, although within one generation they have been spreading more broadly through the country. In the US, most Arabs are Christian and their income and educational level is often higher than the American average. Moreover, many of those who are Muslim have gained a reputation of being moderate and patriotic Americans. For example, there was broad condemnation from Arab- and Muslim-American leaders of a message from al-Qaeda second-in-command Ayman al-Zawahiri posted on the internet on November 19th that called President-elect Barack Obama and Secretaries of State Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice “house Negroes,” a demeaning, racist phrase implying they are black Americans merely doing the bidding of whites.

According to the German Marshall Fund survey, over 80 percent of respondents on both sides of the Atlantic want better border controls and most favor stronger punishment for employers of illegal immigrants. They also believe that the increased flow of immigrants leads to more crime and jobs losses for hardworking citizens. But, Europeans, especially British and Italians, are more likely to favor repatriating illegal immigrants, while more than half of the Americans polled believe that undocumented immigrants ought to be offered a way to become legal.

No doubt the American attitude reflects public pragmatism – as contrasted with the political rhetoric from some. It would be almost impossible to round up over 12 million undocumented immigrants in the US and “send them home” – and not only because it would seriously undermine the American economy. In contrast with most European countries, anyone born in the US is automatically an American citizen. Deporting millions of undocumented parents and leaving their American-born children in limbo is simply unacceptable to most Americans. Given the multicultural structure of their society, most Americans would prefer that immigrants -- once documented – could remain permanently.

At the same time, Americans have a history of viewing the most recent wave of immigrants as problematic and as a threat to society overall. The English and Dutch looked down on the Irish, who then looked down on the Italians, and so on. The most recent wave, including most undocumented immigrants, comes from Mexico.

Some current commentators take up this theme. Samuel Huntington, Pat Buchanan and Lou Dobbs view illegal immigrants as an economic and cultural threat. In his book, Who are We?, Huntington claims that they not only take jobs from taxpaying citizens but they also refuse to “assimilate” by learning English. In fact, over 97% of all Americans speak English and less than half of the children of Mexican immigrants can speak Spanish. Over a third of these immigrant children marry non-Hispanics. This is certainly similar to the experiences of Italian, Greek, Polish and other immigrant groups in the US.

Nonetheless, there is a real problem with illegal immigration in the US. The undocumented population increased more than 40 percent since 2000. Obama’s position is that there is no reason to fear immigrants, but there needs to be a comprehensive reform of the immigration system. This means securing the borders, punishing employers who exploit immigrant workers with low wages and unfair labor practices, and bringing those who are in the US illegally “out of the shadows” by inviting them to become legal by paying a fine, learning English, and applying for citizenship behind all those who have already applied.

All this calls for a dramatic improvement of the immigration bureaucracy which is already stretched beyond capacity. There is a huge backlog of applicants for visas, and legal immigrants must often wait for years before qualifying.

Obama also supports improving the relationship with Mexico to help strengthen its economy to provide more jobs on its side of the border so that illegal immigration would be less of a temptation. And while he believes that every citizen should learn English, he also recommends that every American ought to learn a second language. Both these positions reflect broad European attitudes about decreasing immigrant flow by strengthening the economies of countries from which immigrants come, as well as recognizing the reality of global interdependence through practical multi-lingualism.

It appears that Obama, a multicultural and biracial man who has lived outside the US, can view the immigration issue from various viewpoints. And, just as European countries can benefit from America’s hundreds of years of experience with immigrants, chances are that the Obama Administration’s approach will reflect many of the best practices of European countries. In an interdependent and mobile world, we are all immigrants.

Theodore Couloumbis is vice president of the Hellenic Foundation for European and Foreign Policy and professor emeritus at the University of Athens, Greece; Bill Ahlstrom is an executive at a US multinational; Gary Weaver is professor at American University’s School of International Service; these views are their own.
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