Moving beyond borders
June 21, 2002

By Tamar Jacoby

A turbulent political spring in Europe has driven immigration to the top of the agenda for today's European Union summit. Tony Blair and Josý Marýa Aznar, the UK and Spanish leaders, hope to steal the issue from the far right by co-ordinating national policies on illegal immigration. This is not a bad idea but it is far from enough.

The long experience of the US with immigration suggests that gaining control of borders is only a first step toward a successful policy. At least as significant in the long run as the number of immigrants are the terms under which they come and what happens to them once they arrive. Most critically, are they allowed and encouraged to assimilate?

The US experience can be distilled into five principles.

First, immigration policy should be based on work. The primary criterion for admission ought to be whether the person is coming to do a job that native-born people do not tend to want. Of course, humanitarian concerns and the reuniting of families are part of the calculus. But the main reason people move to another country is to improve their lot economically; and the only enduring interest a foreign country has in accepting them is their economic contribution.

Allowing immigrants to work is critical to their successful assimilation. People who work establish roots and relationships, learn the language and eventually better themselves. They also earn the respect of their new countrymen.

Second is an obvious corollary: too much government assistance is a mistake. Refugees who cannot work may need help from the government but, for economic migrants, assistance can be as much a curse as a blessing. All too often, welfare discourages work and the assimilation that comes with it. In the case of government housing—whether accommodation centres or elsewhere—the supposedly helping hand of the state encourages segregation.

Too warm a welcome creates a false incentive for other would-be migrants, luring more people into the country than can productively work and integrate there. And the native-born look down on foreigners who receive too much government assistance, adding to the difficulty of assimilating.

Third, excluding migrants from full legal status only slows their absorption. This is simply common sense: the law-abiding are more likely to fit into society and be accepted than people who live outside the law and adopt the habits of law-breakers. About 1m immigrants come each year to work in the US but the law recognises only two-thirds of them. The other third are forced to live like fugitives.

Not only does this criminalise badly needed productive activity and make an ass of the law; it also creates no end of obstacles to assimilation. This also applies in Europe where many are forced to work illegally and even those seeking asylum often live as outlaws. If such people are going to come anyway, it is better to recognise reality and create legitimate channels.

Fourth—a lesson to which several European countries are paying greater heed than the US itself—there is nothing wrong with making demands of immigrants. It is fair to demand that they learn the language of their new country, adopt its manners and mores and eventually become citizens. This need not be done in a harsh or xenophobic manner; after all, most immigrants understand that these are the keys to success.

But there is an important caveat, which underlies the fifth point. Making such demands will work only to the extent that newcomers are also allowed to maintain some attachment to their home culture. The US has never asked people to obliterate their old loyalties. On the contrary, Italian-Americans remain Italian, Jewish Americans remain Jewish and in the 21st century, Latino Americans will remain Latino. What we ask in return is that people balance the two sides of their identity: the ethnic side and the American side.

The US tradition was that at home, on weekends and in your neighbourhood, you were free to live in accordance with your ethnic background. But when it came to the workplace, or any public or official role, you were a citizen among citizens and you were accepted as a full member of society, no matter who you were in private. Thanks to multiculturalism, this traditional balance is somewhat disturbed in the US today. But it is hard to see how immigrants can be absorbed without having a notion of citizenship that allows for such "hyphenated" identities.

Can these principles work in Europe, with its different habits and beliefs? There is little question that immigration poses a harder challenge there. But it is not clear that the challenge can be avoided. For demographic reasons, immigration may be in Europe's future whether Europeans like it not.

If that is so, surely it makes sense to acknowledge the influx of immigrants, regulate it, bring it above ground and get on with the hard business of helping the newcomers assimilate.

©2002 FT.com

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