The New Untouchables (Penguin politics & current affairs)

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Immigration is seen as a serious problem by the vast majority of people. A Professor of Development Studies at London University, Nigel Harris argues that if the West is to advance as its people age, and if the poor of the world are ever to gain, governments will have to ensure the freedom of people to come and go as they choose. Harris concludes that migration is a necessary response to changes in the world economy.

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Review by Christine Saalbach, 2001-02-14

I live just an easy two hours' drive north of the US-Mexico border, so the subject of immigration is a cogent topic. I enjoyed applying what Nigel Harris says about immigration to events in my daily life and to debates appearing in San Antonio's media.

You cannot deny that there are recent immigrants from Mexico when you see the Mexican license plates on cars on San Antonio's highways. Some Mexicans, like my next-door neighbor, own property. Strange to me, my neighbor visits his San Antonio home about once a year for only a few days. While I struggle to pay a mortgage, he paid cash for his home. A Realtor explained to me that many wealthy Mexicans purchase real estate because of the peso's instability when weighed against the relative stability of the US real estate market.

Was the fellow who installed marble on my kitchen floor an illegal Mexican immigrant? I don't know, but he did a crackerjack job and his price was competitive. Where do I go to get my family's prescription drugs? To Mexico, because in Mexico I can buy for five dollars what will cost me $50 at the drug store two miles away from my home. My actions are echoed as the basic premise of Nigel Harris's book. The immigration question is basically one of supply and demand. As soon as Christopher Columbus set foot in the New World, there was a call for immigrants to come from the Old World. They came first to conquer, then to settle. Settlement was, and is, power.

The trepidation about the closing of Kelly Air Force Base and the reopening of its facilities to private industry is tied to the existence of polluting maquiladoras operating in Mexico. In Mexico, the industries are free from scrutiny of the US Environmental Protection Agency. Why would a manufacturer want to move to Kelly, when cheaper labor and less regulation exist only two hours further south? A recent article in the San Antonio Express News talked about the amount of pollution in the air at Big Bend National Park; sulfur dioxide and other pollutants from Mexican factories are affecting the people who live in Alpine, Texas. A Mexican worker who makes car parts spoke at a stockholders' meeting about the 90 cents per hour Mexican wage versus Detroit's union scale. When visiting Aguascalientes in Mexico a few years ago, I saw many Japanese people in the mercado. Curious, I asked about their presence and was told they produced automobile parts there.

Harris addresses all aspects of immigration in a tidy, organized fashion. He contrasts voluntary immigration with the status of involuntary refugee. Harris's only weakness is his view of national sovereignty. He thinks that government regulation of immigration is a major inconvenience to free labor force movement. Economic growth occurs, as Harris states, because of legal and illegal immigration. If governments stand in the way of immigration, they are obstructing economic growth. Harris would like to see nations behave more like large corporations, rather than as restrictive governments.

The current US debate about immigration has to do with two aspects of the USA. First, US citizenry expects inhabitants to integrate into US society - to naturalize. This fosters individual cooperation rather than separatism. Citizens are supposed to celebrate their ethnicity, not to segregate themselves because of it. Second, citizens view individual income tax collection like membership dues, as if the US government were a vast mutual benefit cooperative. The US government and its citizenry are certainly concerned about immigration, especially if immigrants do not pay taxes, their dues, yet are provided with government services. The US is a participatory democracy; whether or not a US citizen chooses to vote does not make it less so. Government provides infrastructure, such as subsidies for roads, to increase the economic benefit to its people. Citizens have a right to expect that all those who use the infrastructure pay their dues.

We truly live in a global economy. Business, family, communications and transportation networks are making our world smaller. Immigration may eventually level the playing field, or it may cause greater international tensions, or both. Reading this book will give you greater insight into the effect of immigration on the global economy.