A Turning Tide?
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A SHARP-EYED coyote, dollars sprouting from his ears, glowers at the roadside. Beside him a muscle-bound American border agent, clad in green and with pistol drawn, looms over a cowering migrant. Nearby a man-sized dollar sign flits away on silver wings. That graffito on a concrete border wall in Nogales, on the Mexican side of the frontier with the United States, tells a simple story: the business of migration in this part of the world is both lucrative and increasingly dangerous.
Residents of Nogales advise visitors to avoid “Buenos Aires”, a hillside quarter controlled by violent gangs, where smugglers corral their human cargo in safe houses. At dusk the migrants sneak across a dry river bed and through scrubland for the hazardous trip into Arizona. They are increasingly likely to carry arms or drugs. A resident grumbles that there are more desperate types around. “They will take your socks when they steal your shoes.”
The smugglers may feel increasingly bad-tempered, too. For years a flow of migrants has waxed when the American economy is in rude health, waning only slightly during recessions; it flows north in the spring when agricultural and construction jobs need filling and goes south for Christmas. Where illicit traffic has been heaviest, the migrants’ many footfalls have worn narrow, winding paths into the rocks. But now a big change is visible: the flow of migrants from Latin America to the United States appears to be slumping.
For the third successive year, America’s Border Patrol reports a sharp drop in arrests on and near the frontier. In 2006 the figure dropped 8% to around 1m. Last year it dropped by a full fifth. The six months to March showed a year-on-year drop of 17%. In short (and by the imperfect measure of border arrests) the migrant flow today is roughly half the torrent seen in 2000, when 1.64m arrests were made.
Such figures miss those who cross successfully and recount those detained several times, but they show a clear trend. So does evidence from remittances. Mexico’s central bank reports that, after years of eye-popping growth, the amount of cash sent home by migrants inside America is falling. Last year such flows were worth $24 billion—more valuable than tourism. But in the first quarter of this year the year-on-year figure was down 2.9%, according to a new report by Goldman Sachs.
Better scrutiny of flows across borders after 2001 probably exaggerated the real rate of growth, so it was bound to taper eventually. But even with that in mind, it is clear that migrants really are sending less money home. A poll of migrants across America published by the Inter-American Development Bank in April confirmed that fewer are sending money back regularly: in 2006 three-quarters of migrants did, this year only half report doing so. Nor is it only Mexico; Brazil, the second-largest recipient of remittances in the region, saw them slide by 4% last year, to $7.1 billion.
Two factors, each as ugly as the other, probably explain the double downturn in flows of people and money: hostility to migrants, especially illegal ones, and America’s deepening economic gloom. The impact of the former is plain: state-level laws that make it illegal to employ migrants without documents, ever more aggressive raids on businesses that hire such workers, and better technology to share information that will lead to catching them.
High spending on border defences is the most visible example. The Department of Homeland Security is budgeting $12 billion in the next fiscal year to guard the frontier against job-seekers (and the odd mythical terrorist walking to his target). The idea is to use more drones, helicopters, hi-tech sensors and cameras, 20,000 agents (on horseback, in jeeps, on bicycles and on foot) and of course the big metal fence that unfurls along several hundred kilometres of dustblown territory. All this discourages foreigners, as did the failure last year of the Senate to pass an immigration-reform bill.
No surprise, then, that polls show migrants feel less welcome and more worried by xenophobia. Many fear deportation and picking up a criminal record. Those who would once have been sent back now risk jail. As the border gets harder to cross, migrants are pushed further into the hands of smugglers and the natural hazards of the desert.
Hostility and fences would matter less if the economic draw remained strong. Instead America’s economy appears to be in the dumps, even if it avoids a recession. Jobs figures in May showed unemployment had risen to 5.5%. The slump in housing and construction—where many migrants, especially newer arrivals, work—has been especially painful. The Pew Hispanic Centre published a study in June showing a 7.5% jobless rate among immigrants, rising to 8.4% among Mexicans and to 9.3% for those who came to the country after 2000. Over 220,000 migrants lost construction jobs last year. And those in work are earning less: wages of Latino construction workers tumbled in 2007.
Beyond America
That trend is part of a bigger picture. Many places, including Australia, the Persian Gulf, parts of Asia and much of Africa will no doubt see migration continue apace for some time yet. Where economic growth remains strong, as in most emerging markets, migrant workers will be drawn in, just as they will keep on surging out of dirt-poor places with more people than jobs. Even in South Africa, where anti-migrant riots have sent tens of thousands of foreigners fleeing into camps (or back home to Mozambique, Zimbabwe and elsewhere) and have led to dozens of deaths, migration is likely to stay high.
But where recent economic booms had been strongest, and where the inflow of migrants had reached record highs, the prospects for a sharp decline are clear. This is particularly the case in western Europe. Ireland and Spain, both historically countries of emigration, have seen massive arrivals of foreigners in the past decade. Romanians, in particular, flocked to man Spain’s building boom; Poles and Lithuanians went to Ireland. Britain has drawn an exceptionally large number of migrants from Europe’s east, especially Poland; Greece attracted Albanians; Italy drew in Romanians and others. The rush of people on the move went hand-in-hand with the expansion of low-cost travel in Europe, especially by air.
Now some of these flows are slowing, even reversing. A study by the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR), a British think-tank, this year noted that of the 1m or so East Europeans who came to Britain since 2004, around half have already left—some for better economic prospects back home, others because they intended to stay only to learn English or to work temporarily, or because they wish to return to their families. The inflow of migrants to Britain from this region has also dropped sharply, by 17% last year. Danny Sriskandarajah of the IPPR concludes that “After one of the most intense periods of migration there has to be a natural end. The dominoes are starting to fall.”
Mr Sriskandarajah believes that what is true for Britain probably holds in much of continental Europe, too. In part, the factors in Europe match those in America: more hostility to migrants, including tougher policing, and an economic downturn in many recipient countries.
Greater hostility comes in various forms. As with America’s border fence, the European Union border operations, known as Frontex, boast of more success in turning back (or at least displacing) flows of would-be illegal migrants from north Africa. Nicolas Sarkozy is planning more pan-European co-operation to deter unregulated migration: in July, when France takes over the EU presidency, he will push for closer collaboration on this, for example with better sharing of information on migrants across borders.
National initiatives are also making life tougher for migrants. In Britain officials hunting for illegal workers have stepped up raids of factories, farms, restaurants and other workplaces. The names of those who run companies that employ illegal migrants will now be published on official websites, to “shame” those involved in the practice. In Italy Silvio Berlusconi fought his way back into office in April allied to the anti-immigrant Northern League and promising a crackdown on clandestine migrants. The first meeting of his new cabinet, on May 21st, approved a string of measures that made unauthorised entry into Italy a crime, introduced discriminatory sentencing for illegal aliens and imposed draconian penalties on Italians who provide accommodation to migrants without papers. The package also made it easier to expel EU citizens—a measure aimed at the 50,000 or so Romanian Gypsies, who are widely and sometimes unfairly blamed for a large share of crime in Italy. Similar rules have been imposed in other European countries.
Zloties and pounds
As economies slow, too, their attraction for migrants drops. Ireland and Spain are especially vulnerable to a painful downturn: in both countries construction and housing-related employment made up 13% of all private-sector jobs at the end of last year. As in America, these sectors, which have both seen a slump, are heavy employers of migrants. In Spain some 100,000 migrants were pushed out of their jobs in the year to May: migrants accounted for half of those who joined the Spanish unemployment register in that time. Although the country has not seen any Italian-style xenophobia, the government is now trying to persuade some 20,000 migrants to go home for at least three years, by offering lump-sum advances of unemployment benefits. Spanish officials are also looking for ways to restrict the number of relatives of migrants arriving in the country.
Beyond the euro zone there are also currency worries. In Britain the economy is slowing, and the sharp drop in the value of the pound has cut the attraction of the country to foreign workers. Every pound a Pole sent home in May 2004 earned him seven zloties; today he gets little more than four. Similarly, as the value of the dollar has tumbled, the attractions of moving to America to work have declined.
Some worry about a huge new wave of migration when Romania and Bulgaria at last get full membership and freedom of access within the European Union. But in fact people from these countries have already been working abroad in large numbers. Demetrios Papademetriou, head of the Migration Policy Institute (MPI) in Washington, DC, and a close observer of people movement in Europe, concludes that “Most of what will happen, has happened. We won’t see big new movements. The migration shock has ended.”
Nor is this only about illegal or low-skilled migrants. For the best educated ones, too, the attractions of working in Britain, for example, may be sliding, with the outflow of foreigners boosting emigration. Mr Sriskandarajah points to new research by the IPPR showing that a fifth of migrants from Britain to America, and nearly a tenth of those to Australia, are not British citizens. He adds that the country is finding it hard to keep foreign-born graduates who study in the country. In 2006 35% of EU graduates of British universities left for jobs abroad; just 25% of them stayed on in Britain to work. And three-quarters of all doctors who deregistered in Britain last year were foreign-born.
And supply, too
The global supply of migrants is not running short. Although rich-country labour forces are now at their peak (in Europe they will now decline for the foreseeable future) the worldwide labour force continues to grow rapidly; today’s stock of 200m migrants may easily become 300m in a few decades. But big migrant flows are mostly between nearby countries.
For America there is little prospect that the supply of workers from south of the border will dry up; Latin America remains relatively poor and young. In contrast, for western Europe, the supply of well-educated people from the east may now sputter as the immediate neighbours become the sort of middle-income and relatively elderly countries that need to import workers, not export them. Rates of migration westwards from the new members of the EU, in 2004 and since, far exceeded the expectations of most experts and officials. But the high rates need not continue, and may reverse. East European economies have grown relatively fast in recent years, their labour forces are shrinking fast (partly because of emigration, partly because of ageing populations) and unemployment has dropped quickly in the past half-decade. All this makes it more tempting to stay (or return) home.
Two Polish academics, Pawel Kaczmarczyk and Marek Okolski, have studied demographic changes in the region with a particular emphasis on migration. They note that remittances from migrants in western Europe have risen fast (although they are probably not responsible for more than a small share of the growth in the east). They also point out that wages are rising fast in the Baltic states—by an average of 9% a year in the three countries recently—and elsewhere. And in some sectors, such as the construction industry in Poland, a shortage of workers is becoming acute. Romania’s government, in January, started a recruitment drive in Italy for (Romanian) construction workers to return home to fill vacancies there.
Previous migration movements, such as that from southern to northern Europe, suggest that countries stop sending large numbers of migrants once they get to a certain level of wealth. Kathleen Newland, also of MPI, suggests that “based on the experience of countries like Spain, Portugal, Greece and South Korea, emigration usually slows when income per person approaches a threshold level in relation to income in the richer countries where the migrants are heading.” The tipping point, she says, is when the ratio of incomes reaches about 1:4 or 1:5, especially if the upward trend seems stable. “For migrants looking to go to western Europe and North America, this would imply a threshold level of $6,000-7,000.” Once average incomes pass this point, migration flows are most likely to tail off.
The richest country in eastern Europe, Slovenia, produced few migrants after its accession to the EU, perhaps because its wealthy citizens—with an average income approaching that of western Europe—saw least to gain from moving. As other parts of the region catch up, and as the novelty of heading west wears off, the heavy flows of recent years may be ending.
Slowing migration will probably affect the world’s poorest the most. A World Bank report in early June noted that $1 trillion of private money flowed to poor countries in 2007, but predicted that, as a result of the economic slowdown in rich countries, that figure will probably fall back to around $800 billion by 2009.
Some of that drop is explained by the expected decline in remittances. For some countries, notably in South Asia, where such funds account for a large part of national incomes (16% of GDP in Nepal in 2007, 9% in Bangladesh), the fall will be painful indeed when combined with higher fuel and food prices. The result will be more people falling back into poverty.
For richer economies a cyclical downturn in migration may not hurt. One of the great benefits of the easier movement of workers is that they help to keep labour markets flexible. When economies grow and need more labour, migrants step in. When they slow, migrants shift if they can, rather than hang around on welfare.
Silencing the xenophobes
Politically, too, a downturn in migration may be just what is needed to avoid a much nastier xenophobic backlash in some countries. One risk, however remote, is a return to the sort of hostility that followed record rates of immigration to America in the early part of the last century. Today in America the foreign-born share of the population is around 13%, not far off the peak of 15% just under a century ago. That peak was followed by much tougher legislation (aimed, in particular, at darker-skinned migrants and those from Asia) that all but choked off mass immigration for decades, coinciding with an upsurge in protectionism in America and beyond. If anti-foreigner politicians have less to grumble about, the pressure to impose laws that would do long-term damage to migration flows may also lessen.
But even rich countries might worry about a downturn in migration that is more than temporary. Their workforces are ageing and shrinking. A recent report from Goldman Sachs notes that as America’s labour force grows more slowly, overall economic output will also slow. It suggests that new migrants have typically added 0.5% to American GDP each year in the past decade, as the foreign-born population has grown to nearly 40m people.
When ready, America has a big pool of labour to dip into again. Its migration downturn is most likely to be a temporary one. For Europe, it may be a different story. To find people to do the jobs that Europeans dislike—such as working in care-homes for the elderly—governments and others are recruiting from farther and farther afield. Italy has recently signed a contract with Sri Lanka’s government to supply, on temporary contracts, guest-workers for old-people’s homes. Expect Britain to turn again to traditional sources of migrant labour in South Asia. Moldova is next in line to supply temporary migrants to the EU. If the supply of willing workers from neighbouring countries dries up, the rich world will need more such deals with more remote countries.
(Posted on July 2, 2008)
Comments
An article that completely misses the point. Even if immigration was good for the economy (which it isn’t), it wouldn’t be good for the country, because of its genetic and cultural consequences, which this writer never even mentions.
Posted by at 6:44 PM on July 2
It isn’t peasants who lose when the economy goes south. The mestizo will do well in hard times. The middle class and blue collar Americans are those for who a recession means something.
Posted by Roman Holiday at 7:55 PM on July 2
I agree with a comment posted weeks/months back. This downturn, even depression, in our economy/country might be just what the doctor ordered. Let’s start with a clean slate. It would be the worst thing that could happen in the present. But we can’t keep increasing, ‘progressing’, or survive amongst all of this irresponsibility forever.
Posted by at 8:16 PM on July 2
So the aliens head south of the border as the economy goes south. Gee, I wonder if they are a contributing factor to the economic downturn?
Posted by truthbetold at 11:18 PM on July 2
I have heard every different figure on the number of illegals, from 12 to 30 million. It is assinine to even assume they have any real idea of what is going on. The Mehicanos will continue to enter in vast unknown numbers, as long as it looks like the grass is greener on the north side of the border, unless we build a fence and post armed and dangerous guards, period…
Posted by at 12:33 AM on July 3
There are 63 million latinos wandering the country right now. In 1930 there were less than 2 million. 20 million of them are illegal. What they appear to be saying, imo, is that 17% fewer illegals came in this year than in 2000. So what? The country is still being flooded and nobody can do anything about it. Nothing has changed.
Posted by Unemployed WASP at 2:06 AM on July 3
I hope the economy gets so bad, that all of these illegals as well as the legal 3rd world immigrants leave. However, unless white americans change their attitude, when the economy improved, they’d just come back. That is why I hope it bites white yuppie america in the backside because that is the only way things will change. White yuppie america, those in the burbs or gated communited, sipping wine and watching their flat screen tvs are going to have to get hit hard.
Posted by at 6:08 AM on July 3
Unlikely…Immigrants will come no matter how sucky our economy is. They don’t care - they just want to get into the U.S. anyway possible. Once here they will take any job, live ten to a house, etc…to survive.
The only way to control immigration is to secure the borders, deport the illegals here now and pass restrictive immigration quotas.
But we all know none of that is going to happen because our government doesn’t represent us anymore.
Welcome to the New Third World America of the 21st century.
Posted by at 6:51 AM on July 3
I’m skeptical about the slowing economy being responsible for less remittances going to mexico. It is not just men who are swarming our southern borders. Think of those signs you have seen that warn motorists of illegals crossing roadways. There is the man, woman , and children. You do not need to send remittances back to the home country to your family when you have already smuggled them in to the United States.
I was talking to a social worker about welfare stuff and she dropped a bomb on me. She mentioned that in her state, there were laws that were forcing blacks to work if they wanted social assistance. She said there were no laws requiring illegal immigrants (the females) to find work but that they and their children had access to all types of benefits. Isn’t it just wonderful? Illegal Mexican women getting fat off the American taxpayer while breeding more recipients of our generosity
Posted by Drew at 12:22 PM on July 3
“For America there is little prospect that the supply of workers from south of the border will dry up; Latin America remains relatively poor and young.”
That’s news to me, since the US is no older than the most of the other nations in the Western Hemisphere.
This reporter is really super sloppy. He’s inobservant of very important elements necessary to a complete story, and he is obviously an open borders advocate which he really shouldn’t be since this is supposed to be an unbiased report.
Too, his most blaring error is in neglecting to explain why these people are leaving Mexico and points south, nor does he elaborate on the fact that Latin countries are shamefully guilty of being unable to provide for their hordes.
That so many millions of people are desperate to leave Mexcico is a story in itself, much more important than migration patterns into this country fromn the south, yet this reporter writes not a word of it.
Incomplete, poorly researched, and his obvious biases lend not one iota of credibility to what he has to say. He could have done everybody a favor and gone to work at the car wash instead of the Economist.
Posted by ice at 3:14 PM on July 3
While some of our readers might gain false home — that an economic downturn would slacken the flow of illegal immigrants… the side-effect will be just as bad, not worse.
Think about that angle before you get too happy, friends! Next time you’re in a store, watch for that friendly Mestizo group help themselves to some five-finger discounts, as we heard shoplifting called, when we were kids. Yes, the store does take losses — and makes it up by racking up prices a notch or two.
Ever wonder WHY stores hardly ever call the police when apprehending shoplifters? Because the police usually are too busy to worry about the petty shoplifter to respond in a timely manner. Plus should the store manager detain the thief(s), the store would be SUED for illegal arrest or something! Yeah, ASK some store managers if you have a problem believing that one. Or that Hispanic females, in particular, are very adept in pilferage and theft in stores.
Posted by Fed Up at 3:40 PM on July 3
Many white yuppies won’t do anything about illegal immigration, or anything else that affects them for that matter, because so many are simply too doped up to do anything constructive but work at their jobs and crash when home and watch basketball, baseball, football, or any other thing that sublimates their fears. Don’t count on them for anything.
Posted by Bobby at 2:25 AM on July 5
“So the aliens head south of the border as the economy goes south. Gee, I wonder if they are a contributing factor to the economic downturn?”
Posted by truthbetold at 11:18 PM on July
> Yes, they have performed their real work - as have those business leaders who exported jobs to the East. But now, European companies are moving onshore because the weak dollar and strong Euro presses them to. So the world turns.
I can’t help thinking about how the coming Olympics might finalize Western perceptions regarding Chinese products?
Posted by Whiteplight at 5:02 PM on July 5
Many white yuppies won’t do anything about illegal immigration, or anything else that affects them for that matter, because so many are simply too doped up to do anything constructive but work at their jobs and crash when home and watch basketball, baseball, football, or any other thing that sublimates their fears. Don’t count on them for anything.
Posted by Bobby at 2:25 AM on July 5
With respects Bobby, these people you refer to usually have jobs that require urine tests, etc. They either never did drugs or exchanged them long ago for wine sipping and cheese sampling. Having known many people you could term “Yuppies” - I think you have the images wrong, as well as outdated. Yuppies were not hippies - they were/are a generation of post ’60s adults who did everything to succeed, meaning following all the rules and being very materialistic, but retaining the liberalism that the ’60s invented or came to represent to all the “Johnny come lately’s.”
That sports viewing lifestyle sounds more like the blue-collar and beer and brats crowd to me.
The people who do drugs today have a hard time keeping any job. That is because for one thing, the drugs are so much potent (pot) or addicting (meth) that maintaining a “normal” lifestyle is pretty much impossible. Other drugs are even worse. I have learned through some family law training that white women are often meth users for the purpose of loosing weight. But they most often get into trouble with it - health and legally.
Posted by Whiteplight at 5:12 PM on July 5
Ever wonder WHY stores hardly ever call the police when apprehending shoplifters? Because the police usually are too busy to worry about the petty shoplifter to respond in a timely manner. Plus should the store manager detain the thief(s), the store would be SUED for illegal arrest or something! Yeah, ASK some store managers if you have a problem believing that one. Or that Hispanic females, in particular, are very adept in pilferage and theft in stores.
Posted by Fed Up at 3:40 PM on July 3
You’re right, we have plenty of stay behind and second and thrird generation immigrants who will go on causing damage to the economy. All the immigration slow down means is that we have a little time to attempt to deal with the masses we have within now - which is unlikely.
Posted by Whiteplight at 5:16 PM on July 5
I know quite a few people who use marijuana nowadays, even on a regular basis, and do just fine. They are self-employed, or working class, or run businesses, or work at regular jobs in the service economy. For instance, one guy runs a business, another is a plumber, another installs carpets, another is a painter, another a plumber’s assistant, another works in an old folks home, another works in a store, a woman works as a paralegal and another works for a travel agency, etc. You might be surprised how many folks around 40-50 use it once in a blue moon.
I’ve noticed that a lot of young people, esp young men, get really devastated by heavy pot use. They lose all motivation, don’t work, don’t go to school, and just become bums. They use pot to avoid life.
As people get older, you see this type less and less. Most older users, even heavy users, have come to an accommodation with the drug. They use it to enhance life, not to escape. With most of these folks, it’s really hard to say how it’s effecting them adversely. For the most part, you don’t notice much of anything.
The pot around now is pretty strong, but a lot of people consequently use very small amounts of it. It’s really expensive anyway.
Meth is one nasty drug, and it’s epidemic in White working class communities communities such as I live in. Yes, many White working class women are on this stuff.
Posted by Robert Lindsay at 3:08 AM on July 6
Whiteplight, thank you for forcing me to clarify my post. I made the mistake, unintentionally, of using the word “yuppies”, when I meant “Baby Boomers”, though I realize there is some commonality between the two. I still stand by what I said in my post, after changing the main object it addressess, “in general”, to the BABY BOOMERS, and their utter uselessness in changing this nation for the better. In fact, I would not just say that most of them cannot be relied on for positive change, but are downright helping in the destruction of the country. After all, Bush, Clinton, and hundreds of others of our “leaders” are baby boomers and have millions of faithfull followers?! It seems generation X’ers are going to be looked to for any positive change, if it’s not too late already.
Posted by Bobby at 4:42 PM on July 8
so the opportunists’ are showing their true colors, I wonder if all those supporters of illegal aliens are now disillusioned
to learn the mexicans didn’t come here because they loved the country
Posted by at 4:05 AM on July 13