Immigration Ain't Going Away

Immigration is inevitable in light of our innate desire to look for new worlds beyond our own. Whether it is the rigours of our native climate, conflict and famine or just our sense of 'what if?', people have been crossing oceans and borders for pretty much all of human history.

Perhaps inevitably, people don't just have to overcome the elements and the geography, but anyone who happens to have already claimed a stake to the land. Clashes between natives and newcomers can probably dated to when homo sapiens (people just like you) ran into the the hairy brows of the Neandethals around the ice age.

The first 'modern' humans didn't just like different foods and worship different gods, but by most accounts 'ethnically cleansed' Europe of its natives. By our standards of successful integration, this would not be held up as a beacon of achievement, and those who grumble about today's immigrants should probably put that historical case-study to the back of their mind.

Putting quips to one side for a second, problems inevitably rise when it comes to our instinctive nationalism. Much is made of of our national character and what values it holds. No surprise that we often view interlopers from the outside with a beady eye of resentment. They look different. They cook different foods. They sound different.

At one time, immigration could be easy as climbing aboard a ship, stepping off in another country and finding some means of employment. But as the modern idea of the 'nation' grew from the 17th century onwards, this free-spirited world was over-run by one of control. The ideas of gloomy prognosticators like Mathus, who believed that the world was running out of resources and that therefore overpopulation would lead to death, governments began to impose controls on those who entered their country.

While we are still affected by millennial panics, Malthus' day is over. We know that we can generate ever more return from resources we once thought were finite. We also understand that sometimes people are not motivated purely by finanical reasons to uproot themselves for new horizons.

Despite these understandings, governments around the world continue to tighten their immigration laws. Perhaps more obviously, the system of visa applications has become almost crazily complex. Each new requirement brings new opportunities that the canny can use to their advantage. With better, more freer travel and communications, our notions of "borders" suddenly seems a bit quaint.

Perhaps its time we cut immigrants a little more slack.

Erroll found his spiritual home in the USA (burgers, gridiron and Twinkie bars!) after having had a 3 year battle to get his US visa application granted. It was worth it in the end as his ever-expanding waistline will attest!