5-26-06, 10:09am
The whole gamut of immigration proposals that have been bandied about in the past month have one thing in common. From the muscular plans to deploy National Guard and build extra fencing on the border to the softer guestworker visas and paths to citizenship, they are all purely domestic measures. Nowhere in the debate has there been any acknowledgment of the fact that reducing poverty and joblessness abroad is the only real solution to immigration concerns in this country.
Giving people the opportunities to stay in their home countries is no small task. And for U.S. politicians, it has the distinct negative aspect of being unachievable before the mid-term elections. However, if we don't start developing a long-term strategy for lifting up living standards in our neighboring countries now, we can expect the same excruciating debate, ridden with knee-jerk remedies and crackpot xenophobia, for years to come. And how many more discussions of whether the Star Spangled Banner should be English-only can we really endure?
U.S. leaders can find some lessons on narrowing the gaps from Europe. Today it is taken for granted that a citizen of any European Union country has the right to live and work in any other member state. Achieving this open-door policy wasn't easy. When Spain and Portugal wanted to join the EU in the 1980s, there was widespread fear that migrants from these poorer countries would flood northward, stealing jobs and straining public services.
In response, the EU postponed lifting borders for five years after both countries were accepted as members in 1986. What happened during that transition is key. Determined to narrow the gaps with their southern neighbors, the richer countries poured in aid for infrastructure and workforce training. They also encouraged Spain and Portugal to strengthen their social safety nets.
These efforts helped level the playing field so that when borders were lifted, there was no exodus. If anything, the migration flows went in reverse, as thousands of Spaniards and Portuguese who had been working in northern Europe went back home to take advantage of new job opportunities.
In 2011, the EU will be opening borders to 10 additional countries in Eastern Europe, most of them quite poor. The income gaps between Germany and Poland, for example, are nearly as vast as those between the United States and Mexico. And yet once again, the EU is making sizeable investments in its neighbors to level the playing field.
How much can we learn from the EU experience? First, it's important not to over-romanticize a region that has its own xenophobia problems. Nor should we attempt to simply copy the EU approach. A massive aid fund is a political non-starter in the U.S. political context. Fortunately, there are other creative ways to help cash-strapped nations.
One good step would be to expand the U.S. commitment to liberating impoverished countries from the stranglehold of extreme debts. Last year, President George W. Bush joined other leaders in wiping away the foreign debts of 18 countries, most of them in Africa. Others should now be included, particularly the heavily indebted countries that are leading sources of undocumented migrants.
One beneficiary should be El Salvador, which is second after Mexico as a source of undocumented migrants. This small nation is strapped with more than $7 billion in foreign debts, accumulated in part under a brutal military government. Lifting that burden would give El Salvador a better chance of providing the basic services and opportunities that would reduce migration pressures.
Honduras, the fifth-largest source of undocumented migrants, has even more staggering debts, amounting to 83 percent of GNP. That country has used effectively the limited debt relief it has already received to provide three extra years of public education for its children. But more help is needed.
Mexico's some $140 billion foreign debt is one of the worlds largest. Although the government has made some progress in managing this burden, further debt relief would go a long way towards helping our neighbor reduce the grinding poverty that drives so many to risk crossing the border. Abolishing or renegotiating the North American Free Trade Agreement could also help. That deal has been devastating for Mexican farmers who have had to compete with a flood of heavily subsidized corn imports. It also prevents the Mexican government from putting conditions on U.S. investment that would benefit the domestic economy. For example, it is illegal under NAFTA to require that investors use a certain amount of local supplies in production processes.
Once migrants arrive in the United States, they deserve respect for the contributions they make to American society. Given a choice, however, most people would prefer to stay home. Helping to create the opportunities that will give more people that choice is a far better solution than building a Fortress America.
Sarah Anderson directs the Global Economy Project at the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, DC, and is the co-author of Field Guide to the Global Economy (New Press, 2005).
