Migration was a key issue in Europe’s recent elections. In April, the European Union (EU) had voted for reforms in its migration policy to tackle how the bloc handles the influx of refugees fleeing conflict zones in Africa and Asia. From international organisations such as the United Nations to the media which show us overcrowded boats of immigrants crossing the Mediterranean Sea or politicians who ring the death knell of the ‘European way of life’ due to massive ‘encroachment’ of ‘illegal’ immigrants, migration policies have been at the top of every electoral agenda in the EU in the recent past.
One of the main factors being attributed to the resurgence of the right-wing in Europe and elsewhere in the Global North is ‘uncontrolled’ immigration. An issue which compounded after the migrant crisis of 2015-16, post the civil war in Syria, has been used by right-wing parties and groups to stoke fears of replacement, unemployment, invasion, culture clashes, crime, religious fanaticism and so on. Even sections of the left have raised apprehensions of jobs being taken over by immigrants who might be willing to work for cheaper rates and longer hours.
Not a new spectacle
However, is migration really a new phenomenon in Europe? Why do immigrants make the risky journey putting their lives at stake? Scholars are grappling with these questions and trying to spread awareness and quell fears on the impact of migration on Europe.
One such scholar, Hein de Haas, tackles these questions head-on in his book How Migration Really Works. He places the debate historically and states that during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, in the era of colonisation of the Global South by various European nations, Europe was a region of net out-migration, a continent of emigrants flowing to different colonies. Haas talks about how people from the colonies were first forced to immigrate to European countries or other colonies as indentured labour, especially after the abolition of the Atlantic slave trade post the American civil war. It is only after the Second World War and the establishment of the welfare state that emigration from Europe stopped.
Analysing the current situation, he deconstructs the myth that Europe is going through a phase of unprecedented migration. Using global migrant population data from the Trends in International Migrant Stock: The 2017 Revision database, compiled by the Population Division of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs of the United Nations, he states that the percentage of migration as a share of world population has remained stable at 3% from 1960 till 2017. This effectively means that there has been no sudden rise in immigration, it has just increased with the increase in global population, making the rate constant. The only novelty is that the flow of migration has changed — where now instead of immigration to the Global South, it’s the reverse.
On human rights
The road to Europe is fraught with dangers. Fleeing repressive governments and inhumane conditions, immigrants from West Asia and North Africa try to reach the European continent via sea in overcrowded boats. These boats are mostly provided by illegal smugglers who extort huge sums of money from refugees in order to get them to Europe. However, even then safe passage is not guaranteed. Most of these boats are intercepted and routed back while some even drown in the perilous sea. Since 2014, the International Organization of Migration has recorded over 20,000 deaths in the Mediterranean Sea.
To place a deterrent for illegal immigrants coming via boats, the government of Italy has struck a deal with Libyan coastguards to stem the influx of immigrants. The EU pledged a sum of almost 100 million euros to train and equip these coastguards over the years. These coastguards are authorised to intercept these boats and take the people in them to detention centres in Tripoli, the capital of Libya, indefinitely.
In My Fourth Time, We Drowned, Sally Hayden chronicles the lives of people held for years in such detention centres without any clarity, and most often undergoing torture, hunger and sexual violence. She documents how the EU and the UN are complicit in the human rights violations such detention centres commit. Hayden tells us the story of Kaleb, an Eritrean refugee fleeing an oppressive government, and his journey — not only from Libya via sea to Italy but also his journey from Eritrea to Libya via Ethiopia and Sudan. Braving smuggling rings, trafficking attempts and the moral apathy of international humanitarian organisations, hundreds of refugees like Kaleb make the journey hoping for a better life somewhere else.
A melting pot boiling over
It is not only Europe that is rallying against the boogeyman of immigration. Even in the U.S., illegal immigration has been the top agenda in the ongoing electoral race. Former President Donald Trump’s ‘Build the Wall’ campaign and his Muslim travel ban is testament to the fact that U.S. society is growing increasingly intolerant of immigrants and refugees.
In the light of increasing polarisation around the issue, economist and graphic novel aficionado Bryan Caplan attempts to break down myths regarding immigration and its history via data and numbers through the visual medium of a comic book. Open Borders: The Science and Ethics of Immigration, written by Caplan and illustrated by Zach Weinersmith, advocates for complete freedom for people to move and work wherever they want without restrictions.
People fleeing repressive governments or aspiring to increase their economic stature are never a threat to democracy or prosperity.
After all, countries of the Global North still depend on their labour.
As these books clarify, it is easy for politicians and the media to point fingers at immigrants for a country’s fiscal irresponsibility and incite fears of invasion and lack of integration.
There needs to be a clear restructuring about how one talks about immigration — from a perspective of fear to one based on human rights and dignity.
Published - July 25, 2024 08:30 am IST
