Migration, beneficial for everyone

Guardian News Service, London

One of the many hidden consequences of the events of Sept. 11 has been to change the nature of the debate in many parts of the world about race, asylum and migration.

George Bush has quietly shelved some sensible proposals to grant a wide-ranging amnesty for America's illegal immigrants, so it is hardly a surprise to find the UK home secretary, David Blunkett, playing to the gallery with some populist tub-thumping of his own. This is a shame, not least because behind the scenes David Blunkett's department is engaged in a welcome re-think of Britain's immigration rules. Last week, the home office minister, Lord Rooker, outlined the government's plans to increase legitimate migration to deal with skill shortages. For too long, the debate has been based on the false premise that there is something wrong with economic migration, resulting in the demonisation of people who have simply decided to "get on their bikes and look for work".

Ignoring the problem fuels the rise of criminal syndicates prepared to smuggle the desperate across borders. It results in massive government bureaucracies to tackle what should be regarded as a non-problem. And it leads to bodies being found suffocated in container trucks (as happened again in Ireland at the weekend) and falling out of jets. Instead of grabbing the headlines by pandering to the purported xenophobia of middle England, Blunkett should be making the positive case for migration, based on economics and demographics, not prejudice and fear.

Greater labour mobility can bring benefits to both donor and recipient countries and is a precondition for making globalization work.

Bush's u-turn on his amnesty is all the more regrettable because America is the living example of a nation that has benefited from a liberal approach to migration. Legal and illegal flows into the country during the 1990s were the highest on record, yet it was a period of unparalleled expansion and full employment. States like Texas which saw the strongest migrant flows showed the biggest increase in employment. No sign there of immigrants "taking our jobs".

Nor is there any evidence from the U.S. of migrants being a drain on the welfare state or turning up in their millions hoping to live off taxpayers. Research from the U.S. indicates that the tax payments of migrants and their children exceed the cost of services by an average of US$80,000. Adjusted for family size, age and education, migrants are only marginally more likely to receive some form of welfare assistance than ordinary Americans.

So what do immigrants come in search of? They come in search of what they have always come in search of -- the opportunity to make a better life for themselves and their families through work. Countries that create lots of jobs, like the UK, act as magnets for migrants. In most cases the migrants do the jobs that the locals will not. Inevitably, the west tends to attract the brightest and the best from developing countries -- those with the desire, the ingenuity and the money to leave their own countries. There are legitimate concerns that this represents a brain drain, but again the evidence from America is that the brain drain is not permanent. Indian computer programmers drawn to Silicon Valley want to stay on average five years before returning home with their money and their enriched skills.

This is how globalization is supposed to work, and we should welcome it. A lop-sided system where capital is free to move at will while labour absorbs all the economic shocks is what gives globalization a bad name.