“Mass Immigration – Follow the money”

Just like the war on drugs and the war on terror, efforts at stopping population movement by force often just fuel the problem. But for many claiming to confront the perceived threat, that suits all too well

… In 2010, when Ruben first arrived in Senegal to study migration to Europe, he was struck by something people kept telling him. Four years earlier, in one of Europe’s earlier “migration crises”, 30,000 west-African migrants had arrived at the Spanish Canary Islands in wooden fishing boats, sparking a large-scale deportation campaign. On the outskirts of Dakar, the capital of Senegal, one of those deported from the Canaries told Ruben that he was, as an anthropologist studying migration, part of a system that was profiting from the migrants’ misery. “There’s lots of money in illegal migration,” said the deportee, pointing out, on long walks through his seaside neighbourhood, all those who fed off this system: academics, journalists, NGOs and European and Senegalese maritime forces stationed just beyond this fishing community.

At the time, the word on the street was that Senegalese politicians, both locally and nationally, were using Spanish aid money – meant to ensure Senegal’s collaboration in deportations and border patrols – for their own private or political gain. In coming years, the pattern would be replicated as major partners in European immigration control – such as Libya, Turkey and Sudan – leveraged their promised cooperation, not just for a windfall of aid, but also for wider strategic and economic ends.

Worth a read, and just set aside that it’s in the Guardian.

Believe it or not, there is something that might hurt President Biden’s re-election chances more than inflation. In the latest Wall Street Journal poll, twice as many respondents named immigration as the biggest issue in next year’s election as inflation. His disapproval on the border exceeded approval by 37 percentage points, compared with 36 points for inflation.

Historic levels of immigration shouldn’t be on autopilot.

Do you remember the big national debate on whether the United States would adopt a policy to make the foreign-born share of the population the highest it’s ever been?

Neither do I.

For the simple reason, of course, that there wasn’t one.

I’m fascinated by the subject of immigration because I’m a sucker for moral complexity. For decades, too, I’ve been an immigrant myself, though I’ve played by the rules (at some cost), and I’ve never been a burden on the state (to the contrary). Besides, I am by nature territorial. Even having perfectly agreeable house-sitters in London during my summers in Brooklyn has been painful, and the first thing this Goldilocks has always done on returning home is expunge every reminder that bears have been sleeping in my bed and eating my porridge. That said, we’re all territorial. Hence the moral complexity.