WORLD ON THE MOVE: ‘GOING THROUGH THE MOTIONS’

I have been a member of a Global Commission on International Migration and our report several years in the making will be published soon. The history of our species is the history of the movement of people. People move now for the same reasons they have always moved. They seek more from life, a better opportunity for their children, a safer existence, they move out of hope. In an ideal world people would move because of choice not fear. Not many subjects bring out the worst and best in people as does migration. Prejudice is not logical, it’s emotional, that’s why it’s always an election issue in Australia and New Zealand attracting the worst kind of politics.. Economists can prove a more open labour market would bring great gains in global wealth as has trade and investment, up to 200 million people do not live in the country of their birth. But people are not just another product. The issue strikes at the very identity, functionality and reasons for the legitimacy of the Nation state. Social cohesion is a fundamental responsibility of the state as is the control of borders. Societies and economies that have been open to migration have always done better. Migrants are worth more to the United Kingdom than North Sea oil, the fastest growing cities and regions are those which welcome diversity and new ideas, tolerance attracts talent and technology. Migration is the oldest form of technology transfer. This has always been the strength of the U.S., U.K. and The Netherlands although their politicians are under extreme pressure due to our new age of terror and fear. U.S. business groups say that the delays in visa applications over the past 2 years has cost the U.S. economy $30 billion.

The history of U.S. economic success is the history of migrants Andrew Carnegie-steel, Samuel Goldwyn-movies, Helena Rubenstein-cosmetics, Kodak, Atlantic Records, RCA, NBC, Google, Intel, Hotmail, Sun Microsoft, Yahoo, EBay, all started or were co-founded by migrants. A third of the Fortune 500 companies have migrants as CEO’s. Half the richest Americans ever, were migrants, that’s the genius of America.

More Africans have gone to North America over the past 20 years than in 200 years of slavery. Refugees from Albert Einstein to Madeleine Albright have filled universities and provided stimulus for spectacular success. Sobering though, to discover most of the world refugees are in the poorest placers, the generosity of developing countries continues to inspire. Of the 9.5 million refugees, 75% are in the poorest countries. 2 million Somalis in Egypt, over a million Zimbabweans in South Africa, 4 million Afghans, now going home, in Pakistan. India is home to an estimated 20 million irregular migrants and sends over 3 million migrant workers to the Persian Gulf alone which returns over $7 billion home. Yet there is a fundamental question which this Commission can’t answer other than a noble call for a better world. What do you do with evil, wicked leaders and governments? It’s a long time since someone risked their life to swim from Florida to Cuba, not many people tunnel from South Korea to the North, smuggling of people from South Africa to Zimbabwe or to The Congo, and when’s the last time we found some irregular Dutch or Singaporean workers in dormitories in a foreign land? Removing the real reasons people flee won’t go away, no borders or laws will ever be totally effective totally - never have. It’s not all bad - migrants remittances home outweigh many times development aid - this will increase. Italy, Ukraine and Bulgarian populations will drop by a third over the next 40 years. Italy’s population will drop by 30% in 20 years. Simply, migrants are entitled to all the labour, human and civil rights as are other residents in the country. To do this requires compassion, capacity and commitment.

We don’t need more laws, conventions or agreements, we just need governments to implement their existing obligations to migrants. Migrants too need to accept their obligations to accept and appreciate the standards, laws and values of their new home states. What Nations do when a tiny minority of migrants, and in particular their children, frequently born in their new land, despise the societies they were born into, is the single most difficult question policymakers must face. Face it they must and will. The Commission’s report should provide the focus for this debate.