No Borders

Most people see the world as being divided up into a number of different nations. These nations are distinct from each other, and divided on the basis of their different histories, traditions, cultures and languages. It is assumed that nations are natural. It is now considered natural that countries should have the right to stop people entering their territories, but it was not always so. It was not until the beginning of the twentieth century that immigration controls were introduced. Historically states have needed immigration to expand their economies. Most European countries actively engaged in the recruitment of workers from abroad. But by the early 1970s, with recession and growing unemployment, the European countries which had previously imported labour had all set up controls to stop further migration for work. Legal immigration for employment largely ended. The apparatus of controls to stop people entering Europe and other rich areas without permission grew. Immigration prisons now exist in all of the rich, or “developed,” countries to which refugees flee. Immigration controls  give rise to some of the worst abuses of human rights.

The ageing of the population, and the worsening ratios of working to non-working populations, are expected to cause serious economic and social problems in most European countries. The United Nations Population Division has estimated that to maintain existing ratios of young to old people, European countries would need extra immigration of several million people per year. Their governments usually accept that more, rather than less immigration is needed if their economies are to prosper. It is at first hard to understand why governments are thus recruiting and encouraging foreign workers, and at the same time redoubling their efforts to keep foreigners out. The explanation appears to be that they want to control, or “manage,” migration flows: to select desired migrants and reject others. Some supporters of the free market argue that the movement of labour should be free in the same way as the movement of capital and goods is in theory supposed to be free. They do not agree that governments should determine the availability of labour to employers or attempt to set quotas according to some estimate of the needs of the economy, and believe recruitment decisions should be left to employers. They say free movement of labour across borders as well as within countries would greatly increase prosperity; not only for the migrants themselves but also in the countries the workers migrate to and in those they migrate from, and in the world as a whole.

One possible economic rationale for immigration controls is that their existence makes immigrant workers precarious, and therefore more exploitable and “flexible,” as the official euphemism has it. Illegal workers can be employed in exploitative conditions, at the mercy of employers, and denied basic employment rights. If they make an attempt to improve their situation, for example by joining a trade union, or to obtain redress against employers who fail to pay them the agreed amount (or at all) or in other ways mistreat them, they can be sacked. Immigration controls are used, quite deliberately, by governments and employers to divide and weaken the working class, and to help to create scapegoats to distract attention from their own failure to permit decent wages, employment and housing, and to facilitate the current massive increases in inequality and wealth of the elite.

But it is not clear that the policy benefits the economy, and employers, as much as allowing free entry to workers from abroad would. It also does not adequately explain why governments are apparently so anxious to crack down on “illegal” immigrants, who are the ultimately exploitable workforce, and “illegal” working, and to increase the rate of deportations and deter asylum seekers. The explanation is almost certainly that governments’ attempts to prevent the entry of asylum seekers and other clandestine migrants have more to do with electoral than with economic considerations. They apparently believe they must demonstrate that they are being “tough”: that they are adopting progressively more vicious measures to deter asylum seekers and others who might come into the country (to do the dirty and dangerous jobs which employers cannot find locals to do), and that they are doing their utmost to keep them out, or to evict them if they nevertheless succeed in getting past immigration controls. Ultimately, the inescapable conclusion is that immigration controls, and government repression of migrants and refugees, are explicable only by racism, or at least by attempts to appease the racists. Politicians constantly reiterate that the way to deal with racism is to demonstrate to the racists that their concerns are being met. When politicians lament the recent increase in racism, they fail to acknowledge that it is precisely their own actions, their constant complaints about the supposed “abuses” committed by “bogus” asylum seekers that explain the rise in racism. Their actions and their words feed the parts of the media whose political agenda it has long been to stir up racism.

Immigrant workers do not usually take the jobs that might otherwise be available to existing residents and immigration does not usually lead to any worsening of wages and conditions in the countries they go to (on the contrary there is much evidence that it increases prosperity for all by enabling economies to expand and industries to survive). Nevertheless if there was any threat to the wages and conditions of the existing workforce, it would come from the fact that migrants, if they have no or few rights, can be forced to work in bad conditions and for low wages and cannot fight for improvements without risking deportation. They can come to constitute an enslaved underclass, which employers may hope not only to exploit directly, but to use as a means of weakening the position of all workers. The way to prevent any possibility of this happening is for trade unions, and all of us, to argue for full citizenship rights for all workers and residents, regardless of their nationality or how long they have lived in the country.

Immigration controls are inherently racist. Any scheme which tried to make them “fair” or non-racist must fail. Every country in the world is the product of successive waves of immigration. There are few places where there is any such thing as a pure, “native” culture. There are many who say that the abolition of immigration controls is politically impossible in a world in which there are severe international inequalities. But the argument that, without controls, there would be “floods” of migrants who would overwhelm the rich countries some of them go to is little more than scaremongering. The great desire of many who do migrate is to return to their own countries, when they have saved enough money, or if conditions there improve. Immigration controls mean that they are less likely to do so, because they cannot contemplate the struggle of crossing borders again if they find they need to. Human beings have the right to decide freely for themselves where they wish to live and work. Having made that decision, they should not be condemned to be second-class citizens and to virtual enslavement in exploitative conditions, divided from the rest of the population.

Adapted from here