The Facts About the Most Divisive Issue in Politics
| In some previous posts, I provided an analysis of global risks from the OECD’s 2024 Global Risks Report document. What stood out in previous analyses of risks is migration. How did this stand out? It kept coming up as a phenomenon that is triggered. And the focus on it then makes it seem like that migration is increasing dramatically. Is it? And is migration bad? Is migration decreasing with the measures we are taking? And why? Or why not? The answer to that is nuanced. But no one has the answer until the facts materialize. That challenged me to delve into the subject. To that end, I read the book “How Migration Really Works” by Hein de Haas. | In this contribution, I express my own opinion, not that of any organization. |
What does “Migration” mean?
A first problem with approaching the situation is defining “migration”. There is more than one kind of migration, so we need multiple definitions.
I base these definitions on the work “How Migration Really Works” by Hein de Haas. Some of his reasoning has stuck with me. I reproduce here what seems to me most relevant from this work.
Definitions
Migration: when people change residence and stay at the destination for a certain period of time – usually six or twelve months – regardless of the main migration motive.
Geographic mobility only counts as migration when changing permanent residence across administrative borders.
Immigration: people come from abroad to live in a new place.
Emigration: people leave the country.
Illegal migration: the clandestine crossing of borders.
Human smuggling: for a fee, migrants use intermediaries to help them cross borders without prior official authorization.
Illegal stay: e.g., when legal travelers stayed longer than their visa or residence permit allowed.
Forced migrants: those who have had to change their place of residence due to violence or persecution in their country of origin.
What are the facts?
According to the author, there is an interplay of several things.
First, most migrations are legal. Moreover, most illegal migrants come on tourist visas, not by the dangerous road overseas or through the desert.
Second, it takes a lot of money if you don’t migrate internally, but externally to distant countries. Migrating costs relatively a lot of money. Therefore, poor people cannot take on the remote migration project because they do not have the resources for the passports, the tickets, living without a minimal income… There is a lot of planning involved. One does not take this decision lightly. Most have a job waiting for them. They are not unprepared adventurers.
Third, better wages in the country of origin are not a direct solution as a strategy of the West. After all, it is when wages rise that the people who cannot now afford to migrate far away are going to have opportunities to do it anyway. The first effect of a better economic climate with medium rather than low wages will probably be an increase in the flow of migrants to the West.
Fourth, surplus labor is the biggest attractor. People migrate because there are opportunities. Mexicans do claim the violence in their country as a factor, but when asked further, the tremendous labor supply comes to the fore, of labor that natives no longer want to do. The opportunity to send money back home, and the chance to put the children through college also play a part. What the migrants know is, there is a surplus of labor in the USA that natives no longer want to do. They are super motivated by their goals.
Fifth, the vast majority of migration is internal migration, or to neighboring countries. Most don’t want to go far, because they want to stay with their family and friends. Most also cannot go far because they do not have the budgets for it.
Sixth, politicians shout loudly, but governments allow a lot of migration because they know the labor force is needed. Every so often in the USA, the government then organizes a legalization of illegals, who can then officially contribute to the economy. The deportations only happen to a few.
These, and many other facts, dust off the 22 myths that the author refutes one by one in a reasoned manner.
Conclusion in the context of ‘Global Risks’ discussed earlier
My point here is that most of the migrations mentioned in my analyses of global risks in the OECD’s Global Risk Report 2024 are internal migrations or to close neighboring countries. And that the arguments to migrate have been a fact of life for some time. Much of it is a wicked problem rather than a risk.