tag:theconversation.com,2011:/uk/topics/emigration-63/articlesEmigration – The Conversation2023-11-10T09:18:21Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2172012023-11-10T09:18:21Z2023-11-10T09:18:21ZVisa-free travel for Africans: why Kenya and Rwanda have taken a step in the right direction<p>President William Ruto of Kenya recently <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-67254349">announced</a> that Kenya’s borders would be open to visitors from the entirety of Africa, with no visas required, by the end of 2023. He said</p>
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<p>When people cannot travel, business people cannot travel, entrepreneurs cannot travel, we all become net losers.</p>
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<p>A few days later, President Paul Kagame of Rwanda <a href="https://apnews.com/article/rwanda-visa-africans-actfa-africa-09edb93691babd5e0cebd2e131fd7ecb">followed suit</a>, saying all Africans would be able to enter Rwanda without visas.</p>
<p>Neither Kenya nor Rwanda will be the first. By the end of 2022, <a href="https://www.afdb.org/en/documents/africa-visa-openness-report-2022#page=38">Benin, The Gambia and Seychelles</a> had already implemented a system of visa-free access for all Africans. Perhaps more will follow soon. Some regions, some sub-regional groups and some bilateral arrangements have also resulted in visa-free access and even passport-free access in certain cases. </p>
<p>Within the broader East African Community, Uganda, Rwanda and Kenya <a href="https://immigration.go.ug/services/interstate-pass">allow</a> cross border travel without passports. Botswana and Namibia recently <a href="https://www.tralac.org/blog/article/15940-botswana-and-namibia-concluded-an-agreement-on-the-movement-of-persons.html">signed</a> a similar agreement. </p>
<p>Despite this progress, by the end of 2022 <a href="https://www.visaopenness.org/fileadmin/uploads/afdb/Documents/VOI%E2%80%932022_final2_9dec22.pdf#page=12">only 27%</a> of African routes allowed Africans to travel visa-free. </p>
<p>Actions such as those of Kenya and Rwanda take the African Union’s agenda further. Regularising freer movement of people across African borders is one of the continent’s great developmental challenges. It is one of the flagship projects of the African Union’s <a href="https://au.int/agenda2063/flagship-projects">Agenda 2063</a>. </p>
<p>But even if all African countries no longer required visas from Africans, this would not necessarily give the visitors a right to apply for jobs, establish a business or build a home in the receiving country. The 2018 African Union Free Movement of Persons protocol <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10220461.2021.2007788">aims</a> for full free movement, through three phases – entry, residence and establishment. This includes full economic rights, including employment. It has not been widely ratified, however. </p>
<p><a href="https://nsi.org.za/publications/analysis-trends-patterns-migration-africa/">Our new study of migration trends</a> underscores the potential contributions of migration to economic development in the countries of origin and destination. This is realised through the transfer of skills, knowledge and remittances. The study also shows that intra-African migration is firmly rooted in geographical, social and economic ties. Movement is predominantly within regions, and moderately between them.</p>
<h2>Free trade and movement of people</h2>
<p>African Union policies support freer intracontinental trade, investment and movement of people to promote the continent’s economic, social and political development. The continent has <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10220461.2021.2007788">made progress</a> on the aspects of the African Continental Free Trade Agreement that deal with trade and investment. There hasn’t been much progress on the free movement of people. And yet the success of the trade agreement requires freer movement of people.</p>
<p>This interdependence between trade and free movement of people was the focus of the recent <a href="https://au.int/en/pressreleases/20231031/8th-pan-african-forum-migration-pafom8-kicks">Pan-African Forum on Migration</a> held in Gaborone, the Botswana capital. The forum brings together African Union member states, the continent’s regional economic communities, UN agencies and intergovernmental organisations <a href="https://www.iom.int/pan-african-forum-migration-pafom">to deliberate on migration and human mobility issues</a> in Africa. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/free-movement-of-people-across-africa-regions-are-showing-how-it-can-work-197199">Free movement of people across Africa: regions are showing how it can work</a>
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<p>The conference noted that most African countries had failed to ratify the African Union’s <a href="https://au.int/sites/default/files/treaties/36403-treaty-protocol_on_free_movement_of_persons_in_africa_e.pdf">Free Movement of Persons protocol</a>. At the same time, there was evidence of improvements in policies and practices at national, bilateral and multilateral levels that facilitate the freer movement of Africans.</p>
<p>Apart from recent announcements by Rwanda and Kenya, other instances would be a growing number of <a href="https://theconversation.com/free-movement-of-people-across-africa-regions-are-showing-how-it-can-work-197199">reciprocal</a> arrangements between countries.</p>
<h2>Regional migration a norm</h2>
<p>The history of African statehood, with strong social ties across national boundaries, makes regional mobility a norm rather than an exception. This can be seen from the migration routes, mostly found within the same regions and which proceed in both directions. </p>
<p>For example, Burkina Faso to Côte d’Ivoire is the largest migrant route in the continent and within the Economic Community of West Africa (<a href="https://ustr.gov/countries-regions/africa/regional-economic-communities-rec/economic-community-west-african-states">Ecowas</a>) – the economic bloc of 15 west African states. Côte d’Ivoire to Burkina Faso is equally popular. This trend is ubiquitous throughout the continent, except within the <a href="https://www.sadc.int/">Southern African Development Community</a> region, where most migrant routes tend to lead to South Africa.</p>
<p>Among the major regional economic communities, Ecowas has the most intense regional migration. It is followed by the Southern African Development Community and the East African Community. By contrast, Ecowas has the least inter-regional migration while the East African Community has the most.</p>
<p>Variations in development across Africa mean that some countries experience contrasting patterns, particularly in extra-continental migration. While most African migrants migrate to and from other parts of the continent, in middle income countries such as South Africa, Kenya and Nigeria extra-continental emigration is greater.</p>
<p>Immigration and emigration are generally <a href="https://nsi.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/An-analysis-of-trends-and-patterns-of-migration-in-Africa.pdf#page=6">low in low income countries</a> and higher in middle income countries. In rich countries, people tend not to emigrate. The relatively low level of migration in Africa follows this pattern.</p>
<p>Only <a href="https://nsi.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/An-analysis-of-trends-and-patterns-of-migration-in-Africa.pdf#page=11">14% of total world emigrants</a> come from Africa. The average migrant density, or percentage of migrants living on the continent, is 1.89% compared to a global average of <a href="https://nsi.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/An-analysis-of-trends-and-patterns-of-migration-in-Africa.pdf#page=6">3.6%</a> where Europe and North America are at 12% and 16% respectively. African migration is thus not only comparatively low compared with the global averages, but characteristically depicts low income.</p>
<p>High income countries tend to have more immigrants than emigrants. The converse is true for low income regions. Africa as a whole has more emigrants than immigrants, confirming the link between migration and development. </p>
<h2>Legal restrictions matter little</h2>
<p>Much migration in Africa is impervious to legal constrictions or definitions of national boundaries, and even to logistical constraints. Government dictates succeed in making much of this migration irregular but fail to stop it. Though regional integration and liberalisation of migration rules are helpful, they do not yet solve this challenge.</p>
<p>The main migrant sending country to Kenya is Somalia, despite not being in the same regional economic community. And despite efforts by the government of Kenya to deter Somali migrants to Kenya. The main destination country for Nigerian emigrants in Africa is Cameroon, even though it does not belong to Ecowas.</p>
<p>While African migration governance reforms are making <a href="https://theconversation.com/free-movement-of-people-across-africa-regions-are-showing-how-it-can-work-197199">considerable progress</a> it will still be a while till they catch up and are able to deal fairly and rationally with the reality of migration patterns in Africa.</p>
<p><em>Michael Mutava of the New South Institute authored the report on which this article is based.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/217201/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alan Hirsch is employed as a research fellow at the New South Institute where he supervised some of the research on which this article is based.</span></em></p>Regularising freer movement of people across African borders is one of the continent’s great developmental challenges.Alan Hirsch, Research Fellow New South Institute, Emeritus Professor at The Nelson Mandela School of Public Governance, University of Cape TownLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2134222023-09-18T14:54:09Z2023-09-18T14:54:09ZTears, compromise, divorce – what it’s like to leave the UK because of Brexit<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/547822/original/file-20230912-5779-74mjw1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=21%2C7%2C4723%2C3151&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock/NicoElNino</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Nicole and Hemmo have two children. Our team visited them at home just a few days before they moved to the Netherlands. Piles of boxes filled every room of the house, ready to be shipped over the coming days. Althought they had lived in the UK for several years, Brexit forced them to reassess where their family’s future lay.</p>
<p>Nicole, who is German and has two children, told us:</p>
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<p>Leaving feels like a funeral, because you don’t realise what’s going to happen until too late, because you’re so busy with doing things beforehand, preparing for it and then once it has happened, you only realise weeks and weeks later what you lost, what you’re missing.</p>
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<p>The whole family had agreed to leave the UK but choosing a destination proved more laborious, not least because “going back home” was not an option – at least not for everyone at the same time. Nicole is originally from Germany, her husband Hemmo is Dutch and her children were born in the UK.</p>
<p>Nicole’s family, <a href="https://eurochildrenblog.files.wordpress.com/2019/10/eurochildren-brief-3-llp-ns-2.pdf">like thousands in the UK</a>, embodied the EU aspiration of a pan-European citizenry, moving across multiple nations and settling together in another. These families had to come to terms with what the UK’s 2016 decision to leave the EU meant for them and their future. </p>
<p>But leaving was rarely straightforward. Exit trajectories, our research recently published in <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/00380261231194506">The Sociological Review</a> shows, are far from linear. They often require numerous adjustments based on the configuration of the family unit. Our study delves deep into these untold stories revealing a complex web of hopes, challenges, sacrifices and entanglements.</p>
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<p>Faced with diverging interests, needs and expectations, families who eventually moved away from the UK due to Brexit pursued two main strategies of accommodating their differences. Some sought to compromise spatially, negotiating and choosing a destination that would suit most family members. </p>
<p>“Going home” was the main choice for same nationality families, although even for them, there were several challanges to overcome. This was particularly the case for children who were born in the UK and had never lived in the country of origin of their parents and were not fluent in the country’s language. </p>
<p>For mixed-nationality families, the choice was often guided by work opportunities and strength of family networks, as in the case of Nicole and Hemmo. </p>
<p>Others sought to find a solution temporally, planning the exit strategy not as a one-off event but something taking place over a longer period. Some members of the family would emigrate first and the rest of the family would join at a later stage.</p>
<h2>When Brexit leads to divorce</h2>
<p>Our study shows that these accommodations were not always successful. Diverging and or conflicting aspirations leading in some cases to family breakups.</p>
<p>Maria, a French mother, told us how the UK’s divorce from the European Union was the reason she ended up divorcing her British husband. When Brexit happened, Maria wanted to talk about its consequences with her husband, but he was not interested. </p>
<p>She then started to think about buying a place in France where she could feel at home, where she could feel safe. As she felt unsupported and dismissed, eventually she decided to return to France alone and divorced her husband. She hoped that her grownup children would want to join her at some point in the future but that is far from certain:</p>
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<p>This is what Brexit is costing me really. This is the biggest thing. To force me to not live in the same country as my children and possibly to not live in the same country as my future grandchildren as well, if they might settle down in the UK, which looks fairly probable.</p>
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<p>Maria’s story and the many others we collected show that going “home” is easier said than done. Return journeys can expose intricate intergenerational tensions, challenges, and accommodations, especially for people who have had children in the UK and don’t know any other home.</p>
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<img alt="Two women holding up protest signs in London against Europeans being used as Brexit 'bargaining chips'." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/547825/original/file-20230912-7671-865oqt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/547825/original/file-20230912-7671-865oqt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=423&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/547825/original/file-20230912-7671-865oqt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=423&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/547825/original/file-20230912-7671-865oqt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=423&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/547825/original/file-20230912-7671-865oqt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=531&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/547825/original/file-20230912-7671-865oqt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=531&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/547825/original/file-20230912-7671-865oqt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=531&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">EU citizens were often seen protesting in the pre-Brexit years.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock/Ms Jane Campbell</span></span>
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<p>The experiences of the EU families who left Britain show how a major political event such as Brexit reverberates in the lives of real people. Thousands of EU-born Britons who often had lived in the UK for years no longer felt welcome. Many of them eventually left. </p>
<p>As Olga, a Polish woman with two UK-born children, put it: </p>
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<p>In the day of the referendum results, my husband and I looked through the window and realised that at least half of those people had voted against us. That’s how it was. So, despite owning a house in the UK, what else, having a wonderful job, in six months we decided to leave.</p>
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<p>To many of them, Brexit was a seismic event, and its aftershocks are still being felt after years, but their voices have hardly been heard in the public conversation on Brexit.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-uks-island-identity-has-long-shaped-its-political-outlook-is-that-why-it-currently-feels-so-adrift-209276">The UK's island identity has long shaped its political outlook – is that why it currently feels so adrift?</a>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nando Sigona has received funding from the Economic and Social Research Council for "EU families and Eurochildren in Brexiting Britain" (<a href="http://www.eurochildren.info">www.eurochildren.info</a>) (ES/R001510/1).
Godin, M., & Sigona, N. (2023) 'Infrastructuring exit migration: Social hope and migration decision-making in EU families who left the UK after the 2016 EU referendum'. The Sociological Review, available at <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/00380261231194506">https://doi.org/10.1177/00380261231194506</a></span></em></p>The plight of those who felt compelled to leave when that reality ended is often overlooked.Nando Sigona, Professor of International Migration and Forced Displacement and Director of the Institute for Research into Superdiversity, University of BirminghamLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2074552023-06-28T12:55:45Z2023-06-28T12:55:45ZAlbania’s brain drain: why so many young people are leaving and how to get them to stay<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/534581/original/file-20230628-24-j1ng53.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">SHV_photo/Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>About <a href="https://euronews.al/en/instat-statistics-show-that-every-hour-5-albanians-leave-their-country/">46,460 Albanians</a> left the country in 2022. This exodus was 10.5% higher than in 2021, with the majority, about 36,000, being young people, according to new data from the Albanian Institute of <a href="https://www.instat.gov.al/media/11654/population-of-albania-on-1-january-2023.pdf">Statistics</a>. </p>
<p>This data also shows that fewer Albanian young people are entering the labour force and completing their studies. For example, in the academic year 2021-2022, about <a href="https://www.euractiv.com/section/politics/news/albanian-demographic-challenges-show-in-shrinking-graduation-enrolment-first-time-worker-rates/">30,910 students</a> graduated from higher education, marking a 5.4% decrease from the previous academic year. </p>
<p>Other <a href="https://albaniandailynews.com/news/youths-leaving-albania-due-to-lowest-income-in-europe">sources</a>, such as EU data, suggest <a href="https://www.monitor.al/emigracioni-po-zbraz-vendin-instat-zbulon-se-ka-7-1-mije-familje-me-pak-se-ne-2018-n/">families</a> may also be leaving. Enrolment rates for the upcoming academic year 2022-2023 have <a href="https://www.euractiv.com/section/politics/news/albanian-demographic-challenges-show-in-shrinking-graduation-enrolment-first-time-worker-rates/">declined by 4%</a> for pupils in elementary schools. </p>
<p>A significant factor in rising migration is likely to be the high rate of youth unemployment, according to a report from the <a href="https://www.wfd.org/what-we-do/resources/cost-youth-emigration-western-balkans">Westminster Foundation for Democracy</a>. Albania has the second highest youth unemployment in the western Balkans (Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, North Macedonia, Montenegro, Kosovo and Serbia).</p>
<p><a href="https://www.unicef.org/media/135301/file/Albania-2022-COAR.pdf">Unicef</a> reported that about 17% of Albanians aged 18–24 had dropped out of school in 2021–2022, and more than a quarter of those aged 15–24 were neither employed nor enrolled in any education degree. </p>
<p>Overall, Albania’s population has declined every year <a href="https://www.instat.gov.al/media/11654/population-of-albania-on-1-january-2023.pdf">from 2001 to 2023</a>. Recent polling on the reasons for leaving Albania, conducted by the non-profit foundation <a href="https://www.swisscontact.org/en/projects/new-perspectives-in-kukes-county-perspektiva-te-reja">SwissContact</a>, and included in a UK home affairs <a href="https://committees.parliament.uk/committee/83/home-affairs-committee/news/195596/no-case-for-routinely-offering-asylum-to-claimants-from-safe-albania-home-affairs-committee/">select committee report</a>, suggests that <a href="https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/beyond-trafficking-and-slavery/the-other-albanian-migrant-crisis/">Kukës county</a> in northern Albania has seen more than half of its population emigrate since 1990, with the majority heading to the UK. About 35% of current residents wish to leave Kukës, and 59% want to migrate to <a href="https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm5803/cmselect/cmhaff/197/report.html">the UK</a>, it found.</p>
<h2>Economic obstacles</h2>
<p>Polling also provided some insights into the <a href="https://politiko.al/english/e-tjera/59-e-banoreve-te-kukesit-duan-te-emigrojne-ne-mbreterine-e-bashkuar-i485009">Kukës</a> community’s desire to leave. About 37% said it was because of youth unemployment, followed by 35% indicating poverty, but the number one issue was the <a href="https://euobserver.com/rule-of-law/152967">high cost of living</a> (58%). The latest <a href="https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/22b58515-c50c-584f-85fe-46bc965ffa51/content">World Bank</a> report on the region suggests that the pandemic has pushed more than <a href="https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/22b58515-c50c-584f-85fe-46bc965ffa51/content">one third of Albanians</a> into poverty.</p>
<p>But Albanians also have the lowest level of <a href="https://albaniandailynews.com/news/per-capita-income-albania-the-poorest-country-in-europe#:%7E:text=For%20Albania%2C%20the%20indicator%20is,PPS%204%2C385%20and%20half%20more">disposable income in Europe</a>. According to the latest data by Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union, the median disposable income in the EU was €18,019 (£15,528) per inhabitant, reaching a high of €32,132 (£27,690) in Luxembourg and just <a href="https://www.euractiv.com/section/politics/news/albanian-youth-have-lowest-disposable-income-in-europe-as-migration-row-continues/">€4,385 (£3,780) in Albania</a> in 2021.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/534578/original/file-20230628-28-s25t9d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="An Albanian rural landscape." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/534578/original/file-20230628-28-s25t9d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/534578/original/file-20230628-28-s25t9d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534578/original/file-20230628-28-s25t9d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534578/original/file-20230628-28-s25t9d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534578/original/file-20230628-28-s25t9d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534578/original/file-20230628-28-s25t9d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534578/original/file-20230628-28-s25t9d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Young Albanians from rural areas facing high levels of unemployment are moving to other countries.</span>
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<p>But the repercussions of youth migration and a brain drain are severe and are more apparent than ever in the <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/370845372_Emigration_of_Medical_Doctors_from_Albania_A_Segmented_Brain_Drain">Albanian healthcare system</a>. According to some <a href="https://euronews.al/en/mass-exodus-of-albanian-doctors-to-germany-3-500-have-left-in-the-past-10-years/">reports</a> around 3,500 healthcare personnel have moved to Germany from Albania in the last ten years. The <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/21632324.2019.1677072?journalCode=rmad20">brain drain</a> is also affecting other important sectors such as tourism and agriculture. </p>
<p>In the past five years Germany has attracted many young Albanians, particularly after it introduced the <a href="https://www.schengenvisainfo.com/news/skilled-workers-from-western-balkans-benefited-most-from-germanys-skilled-immigration-act-in-2020/">Skilled Immigration Act</a> aiming to bring more highly qualified professionals to Germany to fill industry shortages. <a href="https://www.anerkennung-in-deutschland.de/html/en/pro/skilled-immigration-act.php">Germany</a> has gone further, recently signing agreements with Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo to make employment of healthcare professionals from <a href="https://www.gmfus.org/news/toward-new-youth-brain-drain-paradigm-western-balkans">those countries even easier</a>. In 2022 Germany also began to recognise <a href="https://albaniandailynews.com/news/germany-to-approve-recognition-of-albanian-driving-licenses-starting--1">driving licences</a> from the western Balkans to help fill vacancies for drivers.</p>
<h2>Driving migration</h2>
<p>The <a href="https://theconversation.com/albanias-ghost-towns-the-crisis-that-caused-the-exodus-194003">decision to migrate</a> can depend on social and individual circumstances. However, <a href="https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/20c066e3-c85a-5006-a228-67cd734c3e77/content">poverty and exclusion</a> are driving forces. <a href="https://www.wfd.org/sites/default/files/2022-06/national-survey_young-people-and-politics-in-albania-final.pdf">Political parties</a> pay little attention to policy that could increase opportunities. For example, in the <a href="https://www.osce.org/odihr/elections/albania/543564">local election held in May 2023</a>, Albania’s brain drain and youth migration were not discussed in depth.</p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/albanias-developing-tourism-industry-could-help-stop-its-young-people-from-leaving-and-boost-its-economy-203871">Albania's developing tourism industry could help stop its young people from leaving – and boost its economy</a>
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<p>Albania needs to value its young people differently. They are often seen through the prism of how they contribute to the <a href="https://www.bis.org/ifc/publ/ifcb55_15.pdf">GDP through money they send home</a>. But a change of policy could make a difference. For example, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2010/mar/02/ireland-young-migrate-work">Ireland</a> experienced a brain drain in the 1990s, losing highly skilled young people to the UK and US. </p>
<p>To tackle this Ireland <a href="https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg18825282-000-science-in-ireland-reversing-the-brain-drain/">offered financial guarantees</a> and support for migrants that returned. While <a href="https://www.gmfus.org/news/toward-new-youth-brain-drain-paradigm-western-balkans#:%7E:text=For%20example%2C%20Albania%2C%20Bosnia%20and,those%20from%20Bosnia%20and%20Herzegovina.">Estonia</a> also reversed the trend, remaking its image into one of technological leadership to attract its youth back.</p>
<p>However, Albania cannot tackle the brain drain and youth migration without help. The EU must take responsibility as the key beneficiary of that brain drain and share the burden of finding a solution.</p>
<p>The EU pays little attention to the vast benefits it receives from attracting Albania’s young people. Meanwhile, it has kept <a href="https://carnegieeurope.eu/strategiceurope/84049">Albania</a> waiting for <a href="https://carnegieeurope.eu/2022/06/20/what-has-stopped-eu-enlargement-in-western-balkans-pub-87348">EU membership</a> for more than two decades.</p>
<p>The solution is not to prohibit migration, but to encourage more investment, while also providing the region with access to the <a href="https://kluwerlawonline.com/journalarticle/Legal+Issues+of+Economic+Integration/49.3/LEIE2022015">EU single market</a> to inject economic growth and opportunities for investment and social development.</p>
<p>The EU has concerns about the western Balkans’ lack of reform on <a href="https://neighbourhood-enlargement.ec.europa.eu/news/eu-support-rule-law-western-balkans-has-contributed-reforms-important-fundamental-challenges-persist-2022-01-10_en">fundamental rights</a>, particularly stopping corruption and <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40803-020-00148-w">having a working and fair legal system</a>, the current rate of migration is jeopardising the region’s future, and by the time all the EU’s reforms are completed, there will be few Albanian young people left. </p>
<p>At the same time, Albania must view its youth not just as contributors to GDP from <a href="https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-84091-4_7">overseas</a>, but also as a force for social change and a stronger economic future.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/207455/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Andi Hoxhaj OBE does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Facing incentives to leave and high unemployment at home, Albania’s young people are migrating in large numbers.Andi Hoxhaj OBE, Lecturer in Law, UCLLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1973412023-01-24T13:22:12Z2023-01-24T13:22:12ZNew passport rankings show that the world is opening up – but not for everyone<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/505903/original/file-20230123-25-d6r6ng.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=14%2C7%2C4905%2C3268&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Muslim pilgrims go through passport control in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, on June 5, 2022, prior to the annual Hajj pilgrimage in the holy city of Mecca. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/muslim-pilgrims-go-through-passport-control-upon-their-news-photo/1241119045">Amer Hilabi/AFP via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Salman Rushdie, the celebrated Anglo-Indian writer, once declared that <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Step-Across-This-Line">the “most precious book” he possessed was his passport</a>. </p>
<p>Rushdie had already published dozens of works, including novels, short stories, essays and travelogues, to wide acclaim and considerable controversy. But he acknowledged that it was his British passport, doing “its stuff efficiently and unobtrusively,” that enabled him to pursue a literary career on the world stage. </p>
<p>On the other hand, Rushdie viewed the Indian passport he had held as a boy in the 1950s as “a paltry thing.” “Instead of offering the bearer a general open-sesame to anywhere in the world,” he recalled, “it stated in grouchy bureaucratic language that it was only valid for travel to a specified – and distressingly short — list of countries.” </p>
<p>Today, global mobility is on the rise. According to <a href="http://passportindex.org">The Passport Index</a>, an interactive ranking tool created by the investment firm <a href="https://www.artoncapital.com/">Arton Capital</a>, the “<a href="https://www.passportindex.org/world-openness-score.php">World Openness Score</a>” reached an all-time high at the end of 2022. And the score has only continued to increase.</p>
<p>This means that passport holders around the world are receiving permission to travel to more countries without first obtaining a visa than ever before. As pandemic-related travel restrictions waned in 2022, the total number of visa waivers increased 18.5% globally. Nearly every passport on the index, which includes 193 United Nations member countries and six territories, became more powerful, with holders receiving immediate access to 16 additional countries on average.</p>
<p>But there’s still a massive <a href="https://www.worldwideerc.org/news/global-workforce/minding-the-mobility-gap">mobility gap</a> between the most and least powerful passports – and it has big implications for where people can travel, reside and work. The <a href="https://www.un.org/en/about-us/universal-declaration-of-human-rights">United Nations</a> may proclaim that “everyone has the right to leave any country, including one’s own, and to return to one’s country,” but the fact is, not all passports are created equal or treated with equal respect. </p>
<p><iframe id="fN8Fh" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/fN8Fh/3/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<h2>Mobility for some</h2>
<p>In my book “<a href="https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520375857/license-to-travel">License to Travel: A Cultural History of the Passport</a>,” I explore the evolution of travel documents and how passports have influenced the emotions and imaginings of those who hold them. Writers and artists like Rushdie have played an important role in identifying and contesting disparities in freedom of movement. They have also led the way in envisioning new forms of international openness.</p>
<p>Despite ongoing <a href="https://www.oxfam.org/en/what-we-do/issues/refugee-and-migrant-crisis">migrant crises</a>, <a href="https://www.marketplace.org/2023/01/05/chinas-zero-covid-whiplash/">disease outbreaks</a>, <a href="https://www.crisisgroup.org/europe-central-asia/conflict-key-understanding-migration">military conflicts</a>, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2021/feb/03/decades-of-progress-on-extreme-poverty-now-in-reverse-due-to-covid">economic challenges</a> and <a href="https://www.fordhampress.com/9780823287482/crimmigrant-nations/">rising nationalist movements</a>, the world is trending toward greater openness. Still, the international community has dedicated little effort to collapsing persistent inequities in the global passport regime. </p>
<p>Whether we like it or not, our passports define who we are in the geopolitical order. And unsurprisingly, the world’s wealthy have better prospects. </p>
<p>Firms such as Arton Capital and Henley & Partners, the curators of a <a href="https://www.henleyglobal.com/passport-index">competing passport ranking index</a>, have arisen in recent years to assess these prospects. They also advise investors, businesspeople and other affluent individuals on ways to attain a second passport when it is advantageous. </p>
<p>At the top of Arton’s <a href="https://www.passportindex.org/byRank.php">power ranking</a>, holders of a United Arab Emirates passport can travel visa-free or obtain visas on arrival in 181 countries and territories. U.S. passport holders rank a bit lower, with access to 173 countries. </p>
<p>At the bottom of the list is Afghanistan, whose passport holders have direct access to just 39 countries. Holders of Syrian, Iraqi, Somalian and Bangladeshi travel documents fare only slightly better.</p>
<p>Nations sink to the low ranks for <a href="https://discover.passportindex.org/reports/why-afghanistan-syria-and-iraq-had-the-weakest-passports-in-2022/">many reasons</a>, including struggling economies, large displaced populations and turbulent histories of foreign invasion and civil war. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/505898/original/file-20230123-17-w0rdtw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A hand holds a passport and airline ticket." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/505898/original/file-20230123-17-w0rdtw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/505898/original/file-20230123-17-w0rdtw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505898/original/file-20230123-17-w0rdtw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505898/original/file-20230123-17-w0rdtw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505898/original/file-20230123-17-w0rdtw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505898/original/file-20230123-17-w0rdtw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505898/original/file-20230123-17-w0rdtw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A passenger prepares to board a flight at Sanaa International Airport in Yemen on May 16, 2022. A truce in Yemen’s civil war enabled commercial flights to resume in 2022 for the first time in six years.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/passenger-holds-his-passport-and-boarding-pass-as-he-news-photo/1240718778">Mohammed Mohammed/Xinhua via Getty Images</a></span>
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</figure>
<p>In effect, Arton’s passport index has codified the disparity that Rushdie remarked on. Even today, after the Brexit referendum, a U.K. passport still allows for travel to 173 countries without a prior visa. An Indian passport provides access to just 71. </p>
<h2>Envisioning mobility for all</h2>
<p>How do we account for the human costs associated with these passport scores and rankings? </p>
<p>Renowned German choreographer Helena Waldmann explored this divide in her 2017 dance work, “<a href="https://www.helenawaldmann.com/works/goodpassports-badpassports/">Good Passports Bad Passports</a>.” This production stages a series of dramatic encounters between two groups of dancers, sometimes separated by a wall of other performers. It evokes frontier crossings, border patrols, passport checks and other aspects of the global migrant crisis. </p>
<p>Waldmann’s inspiration was the mobility gap. Traveling with dancers and crews from various parts of the world, she has frequently witnessed those with “bad” passports being delayed and subjected to intense questioning. Meanwhile, with her “good” German passport, Waldmann has navigated the customs and immigration process quickly and easily. </p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/qNUsAut801Q?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Trailer for the dance production ‘Good Passports Bad Passports.’</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>“Good Passports Bad Passports” ends with a remarkable gesture of human solidarity. As a spectral voice proclaims, “I believe that one day national borders won’t exist,” the entire cast steps to the front of the stage, interlocks arms and gazes out into the audience.</p>
<p>Famed Chinese artist Ai Weiwei highlighted these issues in his award-winning 2017 documentary, “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mha7FvpCDeA">Human Flow</a>,” which captures the overwhelming scale of the migrant crisis. In a striking scene, filmed in a rain-swept migrant camp on the Greek-Macedonia border, Ai chats with a Syrian refugee. To demonstrate their kinship, the men take out their passports and playfully offer to exchange them on the spot. </p>
<p>It’s a devastating parody of the familiar passport control ritual. Rather than inspecting the document and interrogating the holder, Ai extends a gesture of radical hospitality. He offers, if only symbolically, his own passport, his own citizenship – his own place in the world.</p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/mha7FvpCDeA?wmode=transparent&start=3" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">In this clip from ‘Human Flow,’ Ai Weiwei and Mahmoud, a Syrian refugee, pretend to exchange passports and identities.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>An alternative ‘Passaport’</h2>
<p>A world without borders or passport controls may be a utopian dream, but that hasn’t stopped other artists from imagining correctives to our current situation. </p>
<p>In 2009, Maltese writer Antoine Cassar published a protest poem titled “<a href="https://antoinecassar.net/passport-2009/">Passaport</a>,” printed in a small format and bound in a red cardboard cover mimicking the Maltese passport. Rather than enclosing a photograph, personal data and the legalese of the nation-state, it contains about 250 lines of verse that object to the wounding force of the international passport system and its often brutal forms of exclusion and expulsion. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="InstagramEmbed" data-react-props="{"url":"https://www.instagram.com/p/But86pDn1TX/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link","accessToken":"127105130696839|b4b75090c9688d81dfd245afe6052f20"}"></div></p>
<p>“Passaport,” as Cassar puts it, envisions “a world without customs and checkpoints, without border police out to snatch away the dawn, without the need for forms, documents, or biometric data. … A world without the need to cross the desert barefoot, nor to float off on a raft, on an itinerary of hope all too quickly struck out by the realities of blackmail and exploitation.” </p>
<h2>Opening up the future</h2>
<p>In 2022, Arton Capital co-founder <a href="https://www.globenewswire.com/en/news-release/2022/12/06/2568139/0/en/The-Passport-Index-reveals-that-Despite-Conflict-in-Europe-and-Global-Border-Anxieties-99-5-of-the-World-Experiences-Growth-in-Global-Mobility-in-2022.html">Hrant Boghossian</a> commented that “the rise in passport power that we have seen this year brings great cause for optimism.” This is surely true. </p>
<p>“The world has surpassed the benchmark of ‘openness’ set prior to the pandemic,” Boghossian continued, “and there are strong indicators that this upward trend is here to stay.” He finds particular encouragement in the fact that this has happened during a time of increased economic tumult and political tension, as well as lingering concerns regarding homeland security and mass migration.</p>
<p>Indeed, as we emerge from the COVID-19 pandemic and face the devastating <a href="https://theconversation.com/as-more-climate-migrants-cross-borders-seeking-refuge-laws-will-need-to-adapt-159673">effects of climate change</a>, the motivation to leave home in search of work and safety will only continue to grow. But the world still has a long way to go to open itself to the entire global community.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/197341/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Patrick Bixby does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A passport from the United Arab Emirates will get you into far more destinations than one from Afghanistan. Gaps like this have big implications for people’s ability to travel, reside and work.Patrick Bixby, Associate Professor of English, Arizona State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1952812022-11-30T19:09:41Z2022-11-30T19:09:41Z‘Earth’s empty quarter’: many Pacific nations now have falling populations<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/498171/original/file-20221130-14-kswgwv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=104%2C0%2C5637%2C2940&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In 1989, distinguished Australian geographer Gerard Ward wrote that the Pacific was emptying out. As people on smaller islands left to seek opportunity elsewhere, the region risked becoming <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/635065">Earth’s empty quarter</a>. He wrote:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Perhaps 100 years hence, almost all of the descendants of today’s Polynesian or Micronesian islanders will live in Auckland, Sydney, San Francisco and Salt Lake City. Occasionally they may recall that their ancestors once lived on tiny Pacific islands … set in an empty ocean.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Ward’s prediction <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/23706864">attracted criticism</a> for its doomsday tone. But was he right? </p>
<p>For some countries, he may have been spot on. Populations are now falling in many of the smallest states. On tiny Pitcairn Island, with a <a href="https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20221118-uk-s-remote-pitcairn-islanders-see-no-brexit-bounty">population of fewer than 50</a>, it is well over a decade since the last child was born. </p>
<p>But it’s not the same everywhere in the Pacific – while <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micronesia">Micronesia</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polynesia">Polynesia</a> are broadly shrinking, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melanesia">Melanesian</a> nations are booming.</p>
<p>Migration isn’t new, of course. What will be new is the prospect of so many people moving that small nations effectively cease to exist. Climate change will only intensify these shifts. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/498168/original/file-20221130-24-u0xn2v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Pitcairn sign" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/498168/original/file-20221130-24-u0xn2v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/498168/original/file-20221130-24-u0xn2v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=745&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/498168/original/file-20221130-24-u0xn2v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=745&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/498168/original/file-20221130-24-u0xn2v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=745&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/498168/original/file-20221130-24-u0xn2v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=936&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/498168/original/file-20221130-24-u0xn2v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=936&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/498168/original/file-20221130-24-u0xn2v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=936&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Pitcairn Island is a long way from anywhere – and the population is not getting any larger.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Who’s leaving – and where are they going?</h2>
<p>Just in the past six months, populations have declined in two US territories, American Samoa and the Marshall Islands as well as the French overseas collectivity of New Caledonia. </p>
<p>American Samoa’s population has fallen from around 56,000 in 2010 to less than 50,000 in 2020, according to US census data. This is due in part to younger people moving to the US mainland and having children there. Just 6% of the territory’s population were born in the United States, indicating very few people return once they move. </p>
<p>Populations are falling even faster in the Marshall Islands to the north, down 20% between 2011 and 2021 to around 42,000 people. Where are people going? Predominantly to the US, where Marshall Islanders are scattered from Hawaii to Arkansas. </p>
<p>There are good reasons for people to move. The Marshall Islands’ 2021 census found <a href="https://www.rnz.co.nz/international/pacific-news/477097/preliminary-census-results-in-the-marshall-islands-show-poverty-worry">almost half</a> of all families on the islands worried about not having enough to eat. Islanders are moving to escape poverty. </p>
<p>New Caledonia’s population has <a href="https://www.rnz.co.nz/international/pacific-news/475135/new-caledonia-population-keeps-shrinking">now fallen</a> below 270,000. Birth rates have fallen, while COVID drove death rates up. When people migrate, they tend to move to France. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/498172/original/file-20221130-18-qnisxd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="pago pago" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/498172/original/file-20221130-18-qnisxd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/498172/original/file-20221130-18-qnisxd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=411&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/498172/original/file-20221130-18-qnisxd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=411&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/498172/original/file-20221130-18-qnisxd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=411&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/498172/original/file-20221130-18-qnisxd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=516&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/498172/original/file-20221130-18-qnisxd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=516&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/498172/original/file-20221130-18-qnisxd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=516&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Places like Pago Pago, the capital of American Samoa, are farewelling young people overseas.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Is the same trend visible elsewhere?</h2>
<p>Longer-term declines are visible in the neighbouring <a href="https://countrymeters.info/en/Federated_States_of_Micronesia">Federated States of Micronesia</a> and <a href="https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/palau-population/">Palau</a>, although not at such dramatic rates. Following New Caledonia into decline are the Pacific’s other two French territories, French Polynesia, where the population has <a href="https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/french-polynesia-population/">plateaued</a>, while the population at the much smaller territory known as Wallis and Futuna is <a href="https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/wallis-and-futuna-islands-population/">steadily declining</a>. </p>
<p>For other states, the major migration has already happened. More than 90% of all Niue residents <a href="https://www.dfat.gov.au/geo/niue/niue-country-brief">live in New Zealand</a>, where they hold citizenship, leaving only around 1,600 living on the islands as of 2017. For the people of this isolated, rocky island, migration has become normal, expected and even necessary. </p>
<p>Tokelau, too, has the <a href="https://www.mfat.govt.nz/en/aid-and-development/our-aid-partnerships-in-the-pacific/tokelau/about-tokelau/#:%7E:text=Tokelau%20is%20located%20about%20500km,Tokelauans%20living%20in%20New%20Zealand.">lion’s share</a> of its people on New Zealand – 7,000, compared with just 1,500 remaining on the islands. It’s <a href="https://www.mfat.govt.nz/en/countries-and-regions/australia-and-pacific/cook-islands/new-zealand-high-commission-to-the-cook-islands/about-cook-islands/#:%7E:text=Cook%20Islands%20is%20part%20of,M%C4%81ori%20live%20in%20New%20Zealand.">the same</a> for the larger Cook Islands, with more than 60,000 in New Zealand and fewer than 15,000 people on the islands. The populations on all three of these island nations are holding relatively steady. </p>
<p>What about the larger states? Long sandwiched between smaller Polynesian and larger Melanesian states, Fiji’s population growth has now slowed dramatically. Many people are moving internally, leaving smaller islands further out in favour of the <a href="https://www.fijitimes.com/rural-to-urban-shift-leads-to-rise-in-urban-poverty/">two main islands</a>.</p>
<p>Both Tonga and Samoa are <a href="https://teara.govt.nz/en/pacific-islands-and-new-zealand/page-2">steadily losing people</a>, many to New Zealand. These nations still have the majority of their population resident on their islands, for now. </p>
<p>Why do people leave even larger island states, where there are better economic opportunities? </p>
<p>One answer is remittances: the money migrants working overseas send back home to support their families. Remittances were particularly important during COVID lockdown periods when tourism collapsed – and even more so for Tonga after this year’s giant eruption of an <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-the-volcanic-eruption-in-tonga-was-so-violent-and-what-to-expect-next-175035">undersea volcano</a>. On the world stage, Tonga and Samoa are among the top remittance-receiving countries. The World Bank estimates <a href="https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/BX.TRF.PWKR.DT.GD.ZS?locations=TO-WS">remittance flows</a> are equivalent to 40% of Tonga’s GDP and 25% of Samoa’s. </p>
<h2>What about climate change?</h2>
<p>Rising sea levels are affecting the lowest-lying nations first, such as the atoll states of Kiribati and Tuvalu, which are only a few metres above sea level. </p>
<p>Already, storm surges have forced people to move to higher ground, while flooding from the sea has made some farmland <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2019/may/16/one-day-disappear-tuvalu-sinking-islands-rising-seas-climate-change">too salty</a> for crops. That’s why Kiribati’s former president, Anote Tong, <a href="https://www.climatechangenews.com/2016/06/21/anote-tong-migration-is-the-brutal-reality-of-climate-change/">has sought</a> “migration with dignity” – essentially, wholesale relocation of all Kiribati people.</p>
<p>You might expect the populations of these threatened nations to be dropping, but they’ve <a href="https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/kiribati-population/">actually grown</a> in recent years. Despite this, people are moving wherever possible – one by one, household by household. A third of all Tuvaluans now live in Auckland.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/498169/original/file-20221130-24-a01yyq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="tuvalu" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/498169/original/file-20221130-24-a01yyq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/498169/original/file-20221130-24-a01yyq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=567&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/498169/original/file-20221130-24-a01yyq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=567&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/498169/original/file-20221130-24-a01yyq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=567&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/498169/original/file-20221130-24-a01yyq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=712&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/498169/original/file-20221130-24-a01yyq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=712&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/498169/original/file-20221130-24-a01yyq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=712&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">There’s not much between Tuvalu and the sea.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The exception: Melanesia</h2>
<p>Only the independent Melanesian states of Vanuatu, Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea are resisting this trend. Here, populations are still growing and few people are leaving permanently. </p>
<p>In part, that’s because their former colonisers aren’t interested in encouraging migration. Australia, which governed Papua New Guinea until 1975, has shown interest mainly in bringing migrants to Australia temporarily, to help with the farm labour shortage. </p>
<p>That means the largest islands in the Pacific – and the islands closest to Australia – will continue to grow, with the attendant pressure on resources.</p>
<h2>What does mass emigration do to a country?</h2>
<p>Losing skills, farmers and the next generation overseas is <a href="https://theconversation.com/underpaid-at-home-vulnerable-abroad-how-seasonal-job-schemes-are-draining-pacific-nations-of-vital-workers-194810">not conducive</a> to national development. Remittances are not the same as actual people. Children born overseas often have little interest in “returning” to a home they’ve never seen. </p>
<p>Remarkably, this is happening when the Pacific has become geopolitically crucial, as China and the US vie for influence over a massive and valuable space.</p>
<p>Gerard Ward foresaw what these alarming trends would mean for the blue continent. Even as the world’s population has just shot past eight billion, one part of the world is contracting.</p>
<hr>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/underpaid-at-home-vulnerable-abroad-how-seasonal-job-schemes-are-draining-pacific-nations-of-vital-workers-194810">Underpaid at home, vulnerable abroad: how seasonal job schemes are draining Pacific nations of vital workers</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/195281/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>John Connell does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
</span></em></p>Drawn by jobs - or escaping climate change - many people from the Pacific are moving elsewhere.John Connell, Professor of Human Geography, University of SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1879542022-08-11T12:14:50Z2022-08-11T12:14:50ZRussia’s threats to shut down Jewish Agency raise alarm bells for those who remember the past<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/477976/original/file-20220808-68796-8pl6q9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=15%2C9%2C2101%2C1400&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">During the Cold War, Jewish emigration from the Soviet Union was tightly restricted. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/male-hand-holds-israeli-and-russian-international-royalty-free-image/1389932182?adppopup=true">Dzurag/iStock via Getty Images Plus</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Russia’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-did-russia-invade-ukraine-178512">invasion of Ukraine</a> in February 2022 sparked a surge of refugees fleeing the war zone, but political repression and economic uncertainty have also prompted <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2022/07/14/russians-flee-putins-regime-after-ukraine-war-in-second-wave-of-migration.html">emigration from Russia itself</a>. Among the emigrants are Russian Jews, 16,000 of whom <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jul/26/russia-closure-israel-migration-jewish-agency-ukraine">have left for Israel</a> in the nearly six months since the war’s start.</p>
<p>Now, Russia’s Justice Ministry is threatening the organization that helps the emigrants leave. A Moscow court held <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/07/29/russia-jewish-agency-israel-ukraine/">a preliminary hearing</a> on July 28, 2022, about the ministry’s application to dissolve the Russian branch of <a href="https://www.jewishagency.org/">the Jewish Agency for Israel</a>.</p>
<p>The Jewish Agency, a nonprofit with government ties that is older than the country itself, helps Jews around the world who want to immigrate to Israel. The <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/07/29/russia-jewish-agency-israel-ukraine/">move to shut down</a> its <a href="https://www.jewishagency.org/ru/">operations in Russia</a> has <a href="https://www.thejc.com/news/world/get-out-now-soviet-refusenik-natan-sharansky's-warning-to-russia's-jews-as-crackdown-fears-grow-5VS51v8pkfWI9EkwdYv0wO">raised alarm</a> – particularly among people who see it as turning back the clock to a time, not so long ago, when Soviet Russia forced Jews to endure state-sponsored antisemitism while <a href="https://www.harpercollins.com/products/when-they-come-for-us-well-be-gone-gal-beckerman?variant=39934628429858">trampling on their right to emigrate</a>.</p>
<h2>Soviet antisemitism</h2>
<p>On paper, the Soviet Union vowed to create an egalitarian society. In reality, it <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/713677598">denied rights to minority populations</a>, including Jews. </p>
<p>The government <a href="http://www.bu.edu/law/journals-archive/international/volume23n1/documents/159-176.pdf">closed down Jewish schools and cultural institutions</a>, criminalized the <a href="https://www.upi.com/Archives/1983/05/06/Soviets-arrest-Hebrew-teacher/1764421041600/">teaching</a> <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1985/02/05/world/soviet-said-to-sentence-popular-hebrew-teacher-to-labor-camp.html">of</a> <a href="https://www.jta.org/archive/jewish-section-blamed-for-the-hebrew-language-persecutions-in-russia">Hebrew</a>, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110820805.485">murdered</a> <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1998/01/14/theater/a-jew-stalin-killed-now-symbolizes-rebirth.html">Jewish leaders</a>, orchestrated <a href="https://yivoencyclopedia.org/article.aspx/doctors_plot">anti-Jewish campaigns</a> in the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/13501677208577110">press</a> and in the <a href="https://yivoencyclopedia.org/article.aspx/Economic_Trials">courts</a> and created glass ceilings that blocked Jews’ ability to advance at <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/001312457801000206">school</a> and in the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/13501678508577476">workplace</a>. In 1966, during a telephone address to Jewish Americans, <a href="https://digipres.cjh.org/delivery/DeliveryManagerServlet?dps_pid=IE1094744">Martin Luther King Jr. called it “a kind of spiritual and cultural genocide</a>.”</p>
<p>Cold War politics made the predicament worse. The Soviet government’s domestic persecutions of Jews were bound up in its <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/13501677808577276">foreign policy toward Israel</a>. When the country declared independence in 1948, the U.S. and USSR each raced to secure its allegiance. After Israel aligned with the West, however, the Soviet Union became patron of the Arab states and <a href="https://www.wilsoncenter.org/publication/the-soviet-union-and-the-six-day-war-revelations-the-polish-archives">broke diplomatic ties</a> with Israel in 1967.</p>
<p>During the string of Arab-Israeli wars from the 1950s to 1970s, the USSR accompanied military support for Egypt and Syria with anti-Jewish campaigns at home. Using “<a href="https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/arts-letters/articles/soviet-anti-semitic-cartoons">anti-Zionism” as a dog whistle</a>, Soviet propaganda <a href="https://fathomjournal.org/soviet-anti-zionism-and-contemporary-left-antisemitism/">resurrected classic antisemitic stereotypes</a> of <a href="https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/protocols-of-the-elders-of-zion">Jewish conspiracies for global domination</a>.</p>
<h2>International pressure</h2>
<p>In the 1960s, Soviet Jews began trying to escape their predicament by applying for exit permits to emigrate. A movement for emigration rights sprang up among Jews in the USSR, led by activists who sought to go to Israel. <a href="https://www.un.org/en/about-us/universal-declaration-of-human-rights">Article 13 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights</a> gives all people the right to leave their country, but the Soviet government refused the applications for emigration permits and heaped more troubles on those who had dared to ask.</p>
<p>Stuck in the Soviet Union, these “<a href="https://refusenikproject.org/history/#historical-overview">refuseniks</a>,” as they came to be known, lost their jobs and housing and were harassed by the secret police. Leaders of the emigration rights movement – including <a href="http://content.time.com/time/covers/0,16641,19780724,00.html">Natan Sharansky</a>, who went on to become <a href="https://archive.jewishagency.org/executive-members/natan-sharansky-honorary-member">chairman of the Jewish Agency</a> and deputy prime minister of Israel – were arrested and sent to prison camps or Siberian exile.</p>
<p>As Soviet Jews fought to emigrate, <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/40207022">a global human rights campaign</a> mobilized on their behalf – a movement I have <a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9780429201127-6/foreign-tourists-domestic-encounters-shaul-kelner">written</a> <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/685280">about</a> as <a href="https://as.vanderbilt.edu//jewishstudies/people/faculty/shaul-kelner/">a scholar of modern Judaism</a>. Marching under slogans like “Let them live as Jews, or let them leave” and “<a href="https://mjhnyc.org/events/let-my-people-go-lessons-we-learned-from-the-soviet-jewry-movement/">Let my people go</a>,” political leaders, clergy, civil rights activists, labor unions and <a href="https://blog.nli.org.il/en/ingrid_bergman_35/">celebrities</a> joined Jewish people in embracing the cause.</p>
<p>On a congressional delegation to Russia in 1979, then-Sen. <a href="https://digital.bentley.umich.edu/djnews/djn.1979.09.21.001/8">Joe Biden</a> <a href="https://digital.bentley.umich.edu/djnews/djn.1979.09.21.001/8">visited Leningrad’s synagogue</a> to meet Soviet Jewish emigration-rights activists. In December 1987, at the start of the summit between U.S. President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, a quarter-million Americans gathered on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., to demand freedom for Soviet Jewry. Republican Vice President <a href="https://www.c-span.org/video/?c5026758/user-clip-vp-george-hw-bush-addressing-1987-freedom-rally-soviet-jews">George H.W. Bush</a> and Democratic U.S. Rep. <a href="https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4893792/user-clip-rep-john-lewis-addresses-freedom-rally-soviet-jewry-washington-dc-december-7-1987">John Lewis</a> shared the podium.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A black and white photo shows a closely packed crowd at a protest, with a large sign that says 'Their fight is our fight.'" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/478133/original/file-20220808-20-un4tsx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/478133/original/file-20220808-20-un4tsx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478133/original/file-20220808-20-un4tsx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478133/original/file-20220808-20-un4tsx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478133/original/file-20220808-20-un4tsx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478133/original/file-20220808-20-un4tsx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478133/original/file-20220808-20-un4tsx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Tens of thousands of people gather in front of the United Nations in New York in 1975 to call for more rights for Jewish people in the Soviet Union.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/these-are-some-of-the-estimated-100-000-persons-who-news-photo/515296322?adppopup=true">Bettmann via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>A trickle, then a flood</h2>
<p>The human rights campaign succeeded, but not all at once. In 1964, <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Let-My-People-Go-The-Transnational-Politics-of-Soviet-Jewish-Emigration/Peretz/p/book/9780367598266">the USSR let only 537 Jews emigrate</a>. In the 1970s, it let around <a href="https://daviscenter.fas.harvard.edu/sites/default/files/files/2021-04/Tolts%20M.%20A%20Half%20Century%20of%20Jewish%20Emigration%20from%20the%20Former%20Soviet%20Union%20-%20Harvard4%20_0.pdf">25,000 out on average each year</a>, bending to the international outcry and hoping to advance détente with the West. But in the early 1980s, the Cold War chilled, and the Soviet Union closed the gates again.</p>
<p>With Gorbachev’s liberalizing reforms in the late 1980s, however, the USSR walked back its anti-Jewish policies, <a href="https://tass.com/politics/1112015">reestablished ties with Israel</a> and opened the gates to unrestricted Jewish emigration.</p>
<p>Once Jews were free to leave, most chose to go. About 400,000 left in 1990 and 1991, when the USSR collapsed, and the flow continued afterward. All told, between 1970 and 2022, <a href="https://daviscenter.fas.harvard.edu/sites/default/files/files/2021-04/Tolts%20M.%20A%20Half%20Century%20of%20Jewish%20Emigration%20from%20the%20Former%20Soviet%20Union%20-%20Harvard4%20_0.pdf">almost 2 million Jews emigrated</a> – mostly to Israel, but also in the hundreds of thousands to the U.S., Canada and Germany. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A man in a suit smiles and holds a young girl in a white jacket, who waves at the camera." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/477977/original/file-20220808-23-p87hi4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/477977/original/file-20220808-23-p87hi4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=396&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/477977/original/file-20220808-23-p87hi4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=396&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/477977/original/file-20220808-23-p87hi4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=396&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/477977/original/file-20220808-23-p87hi4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=497&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/477977/original/file-20220808-23-p87hi4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=497&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/477977/original/file-20220808-23-p87hi4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=497&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Soviet refusenik Yuri Balovlenkov, who had to wait nearly a decade for an exit visa to leave the USSR, holds his daughter after arriving in the U.S. in 1987.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/soviet-refusenik-yuri-balovlenkov-with-his-daughter-and-news-photo/50682904?adppopup=true">Cynthia Johnson/The Chronicle Collection via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Emigration has ticked upward since the Ukraine war began. Fewer than <a href="https://www.jewishdatabank.org/content/upload/bjdb/2019_World_Jewish_Population_(AJYB,_DellaPergola)_DataBank_Final2.pdf">150,000</a> Jewish people remain in Russia today. <a href="https://www.thejc.com/news/world/get-out-now-soviet-refusenik-natan-sharansky%27s-warning-to-russia%27s-jews-as-crackdown-fears-grow-5VS51v8pkfWI9EkwdYv0wO">Another 450,000 or so</a> who do not necessarily consider themselves Jewish but have Jewish ancestry are also <a href="https://archive.jewishagency.org/first-steps/program/5131">eligible for immediate Israeli citizenship</a>.</p>
<h2>Political dance</h2>
<p>Throughout all these decades, the Jewish Agency for Israel has been the main organization helping Russian Jews emigrate – working in Russia itself since 1989, and before then, when Israel and the USSR did not maintain diplomatic ties, from transit stations in <a href="https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/arts-letters/articles/camp-tale">Austria</a> and <a href="https://cis.org/Report/Refugee-Resettlement-and-Freedom-Choice-Case-Soviet-Jewry">Italy</a>.</p>
<p>For most of the post-Soviet period, Israel and Russia have maintained cautiously friendly ties, and the Jewish Agency’s work has proceeded smoothly. This, and <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-02-11/israel-says-u-s-not-in-syrian-game-as-russia-seen-dominant#xj4y7vzkg">Russia’s military presence</a> <a href="https://www.wilsoncenter.org/article/coping-the-russian-challenge-the-middle-east-us-israeli-perspectives-and-opportunities-for">in Syria</a>, along Israel’s northern border, have <a href="https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/article-712561">muted the Israeli response</a> to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. </p>
<p>Nevertheless, the war has <a href="https://www.jpost.com/international/article-705688">stoked tensions</a> between Moscow and Jerusalem. Increasingly isolated, Russia has also <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/07/20/putin-meeting-iran-turkey-russia-middle-east-syria-ukraine/">drawn closer to Iran</a>. As a result, a new relationship between Russia and Israel may be taking shape.</p>
<h2>An old technique, made new?</h2>
<p>Russia’s Justice Ministry claims that the Jewish Agency’s collection of data about Russian citizens <a href="https://www.haaretz.com/world-news/europe/2022-07-05/ty-article/.premium/russia-threatens-to-bar-jewish-agency-operations-in-the-country-cites-law-violations/00000181-cf10-d982-abb3-efb726380000">violates Russian law</a> and denies the case is political. The next hearing is scheduled for Aug. 19, 2022.</p>
<p>Outlawing the Jewish Agency is unlikely to end Jewish emigration, since people are still able to leave the country. The gates are still open, for now. Passing through them may become a bit harder. </p>
<p>During the Cold War, the Soviet Union knew that Jewish emigration symbolized something important to the West. It used that to its advantage, <a href="https://jewishstudies.ysu.edu/?page_id=733">treating Jews as “pawns</a>,” in the words of historian <a href="https://en.jewish-history.huji.ac.il/people/jonathan-dekel-chen">Jonathan Dekel-Chen</a>. The Kremlin <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/07/putin-russia-jewish-agency-emigration-israel/670948/">let them go or held them back</a> as a way of telegraphing its interest or lack thereof in good relations with the West. </p>
<p>Now, it seems Vladimir Putin’s Russia has found the old telegraph from the Cold War attic, dusted it off, and discovered that it still works for tapping out signals today.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/187954/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Shaul Kelner has received funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities and Brandeis-Genesis Institute for Russian Jewry. He has consulted and contributed writings to research and education projects supported by the Jewish Agency for Israel.</span></em></p>During the Cold War, Russia’s refusal to allow Jews to leave the country reflected its political aims. The same is likely true today, a Jewish studies scholar explains.Shaul Kelner, Associate Professor of Sociology and Jewish Studies, Vanderbilt UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1846582022-06-16T13:50:33Z2022-06-16T13:50:33ZHow climate change, overfishing and COVID drove irregular migration from West Africa<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/467710/original/file-20220608-11-sm6gka.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Crossing the Mediterranean has taken thousands of West African lives</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/cne-cna-c6f/28539011542">Flickr</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Throughout 2020, <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/5/9/several-migrants-missing-off-coast-of-spains-canary-islands">23,023 irregular immigrants</a> arrived on the coast of the Canary Islands, 757% more than the previous year. In 2021 the figure fell slightly to <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/5/9/several-migrants-missing-off-coast-of-spains-canary-islands">22,316 people</a> but it is still much higher than previous years.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17565529.2022.2076644">data collected</a> from 2020 indicates that apart from the migrants who reached the Canary Islands, or who were rescued, about 1,500 stayed on the road and about 600 died through drowning or dehydration .</p>
<p>The migrants left from the coasts of West Africa especially from Senegal but also from the Ivory Coast, Morocco, the Sahara or Mauritania.</p>
<p>This increase in the arrival of migrants has been viewed more as an institutional and organisational migration crisis in the receiving country than as a manifestation of important problems in the countries of origin.</p>
<p>Very little attention has been paid to the reasons that motivated and continue to motivate the increase in the arrival of migrants. </p>
<p>In a <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17565529.2022.2076644">recent study</a>, I analysed the triggering factors of this migratory tragedy. I have focused on three essential aspects that are operating synergistically: climate change, overfishing and the COVID pandemic.</p>
<h2>Climate change</h2>
<p>Climate change is strongly affecting West Africa. It is <a href="https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpls.2016.01262/full">generating impacts</a> on agriculture by reducing harvests and fishing, with <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/srep32607">reductions</a> of 4 to 8% in catches. It is <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11852-020-00742-y">accelerating coastal erosion</a> , which affects buildings. It also affects beaches, tourism and fishing infrastructure.</p>
<p>This strong incidence is due to the <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13504500903354424">vulnerability of the region</a> and its low adaptive capacity although its contribution to the causes that are triggering climate change is very low.</p>
<p>In conclusion, climate change has an effect on essential economic activities that not only reduces the possibilities for the population to prosper but also leads to worsening conditions, which becomes a factor that supports the option to migrate as an alternative to improve the quality of life.</p>
<h2>Overfishing</h2>
<p>The fisheries sector is essential in West Africa. It <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0964569115001039?via%3Dihub">employs</a> more than 1.7 million people directly and 6.7 million indirectly. There is an artisanal fishing sector which employs the vast majority of workers and is growing continuously. Then there is the industrial sector which operates with a smaller number of workers but is still a significant contributor in terms of weight of catches. </p>
<p>There is a <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17565529.2022.2076644">broad consensus</a> that West Africa’s fish stock is over exploited . The depletion of fish stocks in other parts of the world has increased the pressure on this area and as a consequence, <a href="https://www.fao.org/3/i9705en/i9705en.pdf">more than a third</a> of the stocks are exploited in an unsustainable way. </p>
<p>Traditional fishing activity is competing with foreign fleets which possess mammoth fishing capacity using both legal and illegal methods.</p>
<p>Illegal fishing on the banks of the eastern Atlantic <a href="https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0004570">reaches 37%</a> compared to a global average of 18%. Most of the industrial fleets operating in the area belongs to the European Union, China, Russia, Taiwan and Korea. Although these fleets operate through fishing agreements, most of their activities are not legal: between 2000 and 2010 the EU <a href="https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0118351">declared</a> only 29% of their extractions and China, 8%.</p>
<p>In addition, fishing agreements have drawn <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17565529.2022.2076644">criticism</a> for depleting fish stocks without promoting local development. After analysing 15 years of fishing agreements between Senegal and the EU, some authors conclude that the <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0308597X01000392?via%3Dihub">balance</a> is clearly negative from an environmental and social point of view.</p>
<p>These conclusions are not new: in 1997 a <a href="https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/A-4-1997-0149_EN.pdf?redirect">report</a> by the European Parliament indicated that these agreements undermined the development policy of the European Union and that they did not promote the economic and sustainable development of the countries. Even so, the European Commission considers them essential for maintaining the activities of the community’s fishing interests.</p>
<h2>The COVID pandemic</h2>
<p>The COVID pandemic has claimed numerous victims and has left the region without tourism and left economies in recession. In countries like <a href="https://www.erudit.org/fr/revues/teoros/2012-v31-n2-teoros01021/1020768ar/">Senegal</a>, tourism is the second largest sector after fishing. The fall in tourism in 2020 was dramatic and greatly affected the coastal areas. It also added to the fishing crisis.</p>
<p>West African countries depend on the export of a few products, so they are greatly affected by <a href="https://www.oecd.org/coronavirus/policy-responses/fisheriesaquaculture-and-covid-19-issues-and-policy-responses-a2aa15de/">changes</a> in their prices or demand. Among others, the pandemic <a href="https://www.oecd.org/coronavirus/policy-responses/fisheriesaquaculture-and-covid-19-issues-and-policy-responses-a2aa15de/">reduced</a> the demand for luxury fish products destined for restaurants and events while the price of basic products reduced.</p>
<p>In <a href="https://www.uncdf.org/admin/editors/ArticleItem/Index/5480?articleTitle=covid-19-the-local-government-finance-response-in-senegal">2020</a>, a reduction of 16% in exports and 30% in the arrival of remittances from migrants living in the European Union was calculated for Senegal. As a result, a 3.6% contraction of the regional economy was projected. </p>
<p>All these problems affect countries with a young population and a strong growth rate as youth unemployment is rife and almost half of the population live below the poverty line.</p>
<p>Migration in the region has <a href="http://www.micle-project.net/uploads/media/micle-wp1-2012-en.pdf">evolved</a> over time and is currently a form of social advancement for young people and a way of helping the family. <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/imig.12414">Remittances</a> are essential in the regional economy especially for the poorest households.</p>
<p>The lack of alternatives, together with a large fleet of <em>pirogues</em> (local canoes) ready to leave pushes migrants towards the uncertain Canarian route. Migration has <a href="https://comparativemigrationstudies.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s40878-015-0015-6">traditionally</a> been associated with fleeing from violence or poverty but aspirations for a better life also play an essential role.</p>
<h2>Change in policy focus needed</h2>
<p>The <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/1369183X.2020.1750354">EU’s concerns</a> regarding migration are above all, border control and the return of migrants to their countries of origin. However, greater border control forces the use of irregular routes such as that of the Canary Islands.</p>
<p>It is essential that this policy focuses less on borders and more on aid to adapt to the effects of climate change. They must also enact development policies to achieve a local and sustainable fishing industry, focus on massive support in vaccination against COVID and in helping countries affected by the loss of income associated with the drop in tourism. Then, perhaps young Africans can have better expectations and not be forced to risk their lives at sea.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/184658/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Álvaro Enríquez de Salamanca is a founding partner and project director of Draba Engineering and Environmental Consulting.</span></em></p>The influx of migrants from West Africa must be viewed as a manifestation of problems in the countries of origin.Álvaro Enríquez de Salamanca, Profesor en el Departamento de Biodiversidad, Ecología y Evolución, Universidad Complutense de MadridLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1788162022-03-23T17:20:57Z2022-03-23T17:20:57ZHow Russia is trying to stoke anti-Ukrainian sentiment in eastern EU countries<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/452638/original/file-20220316-8340-1uojls4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C8507%2C5654&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">People who fled the war in Ukraine rest inside an indoor gymnasium being used as a refugee centre in the village of Medyka, a border crossing between Poland and Ukraine, on March 15, 2022.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Petros Giannakouris)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>War in Ukraine is evolving into a humanitarian disaster right at the European Union’s doorstep. In contrast to wars elsewhere in world, European Union member states are the first safe countries that can be reached by people fleeing direct warfare.</p>
<p>After a <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-vladimir-putin-is-botching-his-ukrainian-invasion-178817">failed blitzkrieg</a>, the Russian army has adopted attacks against civilians, resulting in ever-growing refugee flows from Ukraine to neighbouring countries — <a href="https://data2.unhcr.org/en/situations/ukraine">3.5 million</a> people have fled so far, mainly women and children. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-russian-attacks-on-innocent-ukrainian-citizens-will-probably-intensify-178621">Why Russian attacks on innocent Ukrainian citizens will probably intensify</a>
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<p><a href="https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CELEX:32022D0382&from=EN">The influx is expected to grow</a>, putting the stability of the European Union at risk and creating an opportunity for Vladimir Putin, a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-019-0227-8">master of information wars against open societies</a>, to create dangerous divisions in the EU.</p>
<h2>Humanitarian crisis as a cyber-weapon</h2>
<p>Massive migration flows have frequently caused security concerns in post-1989 Europe. The influx of nearly a million asylum-seekers to Germany from the former Soviet Union and Yugoslavia resulted in <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/1468-5965.00263">restrictive asylum policies and border controls</a>. </p>
<p>But it was the Syrian crisis, skilfully used by both by <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/17506352211027084">Russian media</a> and <a href="https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/syriasource/russia-s-disinformation-campaign-has-changed-how-we-see-syria/">Russian troll farms on social media,</a> that transformed the <a href="https://www.europarl.europa.eu/thinktank/en/document/EXPO_IDA(2021)653641">humanitarian crisis into a cyberweapon</a>. </p>
<p>That weapon had quick success on three fronts: the unprecedented rise of <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/14650045.2017.1389721">right-wing, populist anti-Muslim and anti-immigration</a> movements across the EU; <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/00131857.2017.1417200">Brexit;</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.5539/res.v12n3p32">a rise in anti-immigration sentiment in eastern Europe</a>.</p>
<h2>Eastern Europe’s immigration ambivalence</h2>
<p>The EU does not have a common immigration policy, with a few exceptions: <a href="https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CELEX:32016R0399&from=EN">border control</a>, visa policy, <a href="https://ec.europa.eu/home-affairs/policies/migration-and-asylum/common-european-asylum-system_en#:%7E:text=The%20European%20Union%20is%20an,on%20the%20protection%20of%20refugees.">asylum policy</a> and legal migration policy for a few specific categories <a href="https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:32016L0801&from=FR">like students</a> and <a href="https://ec.europa.eu/home-affairs/policies/migration-and-asylum/legal-migration-and-integration/long-term-residents_en">long-term permanent residents</a>.</p>
<p>Access to the EU is defined by a dense network of agreements, from visa waivers to trade agreements, with <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-42204-2_4">citizenship the key to determining someone’s right of entry</a>.</p>
<p>Adoption of the first three sets of policies — on borders, visas and asylum — is a requirement for EU membership. In the early 1990s, some former communist countries started adopting EU rules in a process called “Europeanization” to meet the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-2346.00149">criteria for EU membership</a>. </p>
<p>They adopted the <a href="https://ec.europa.eu/home-affairs/policies/schengen-borders-and-visa/schengen-area_en">Schengen rules</a> governing the EU’s borders to the east. They also adopted <a href="https://www.unhcr.org/protect/PROTECTION/3b73b0d63.pdf">the 1951 Geneva Convention relating to the Status of Refugees</a> to create a protective barrier between the EU’s western European core and eastern Europe due to the turmoil caused by the collapse of the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia. </p>
<p>The focus on policies aimed at stopping people from entering was a conceptually new undertaking for these countries, which had just spent 40 years <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177%2F019791839803200411">trying to prevent emigration</a>, not block immigration. </p>
<p>This shift in policy focus also impacted how politicians spoke about immigration. My research in Poland found they began using <a href="https://ruj.uj.edu.pl/xmlui/handle/item/66052">language adopted</a> from their western European colleagues at the time, full of “bogus asylum-seekers” and “illegal immigrants.” That undermined any political effort to invest in real immigration and integration policies. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="children mimic a ballet dancer" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/453698/original/file-20220322-20-ww5wr0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/453698/original/file-20220322-20-ww5wr0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/453698/original/file-20220322-20-ww5wr0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/453698/original/file-20220322-20-ww5wr0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/453698/original/file-20220322-20-ww5wr0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/453698/original/file-20220322-20-ww5wr0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/453698/original/file-20220322-20-ww5wr0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Refugee children mimic a ballet dancer in Bucharest, Romania, in 2017. Children of refugee families from Syria, Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Congo, took part in a celebration of Romania’s national day.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Vadim Ghirda)</span></span>
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<h2>Poland: Epicentre of EU humanitarian crisis</h2>
<p>In the decade prior to joining the EU, with no large groups of immigrants in the country (lower than one per cent of the Polish population) and next to no public interest in immigration, Polish policy-makers repeated and applied <a href="https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230800717_9">the security arguments and fear-based language about immigration</a> they heard in the West.</p>
<p>Starting from this low point, Poland has been slow to adopt any active immigrant integration policies, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16256-0_14">opting instead for “organic” integration</a>. </p>
<p>In 2015, for the first time in Polish history, <a href="https://www.iedonline.eu/download/2019/IED-Research-Paper-Russia-as-a-security-provider_January2019.pdf">Russian disinformation efforts</a> put immigration at the top of the political agenda and propelled an anti-EU, anti-immigration and conservative populist party to power.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Two men stand behind separate podiums with a row of Canadian and Polish flags behind them." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/452634/original/file-20220316-8425-1hbewgl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/452634/original/file-20220316-8425-1hbewgl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/452634/original/file-20220316-8425-1hbewgl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/452634/original/file-20220316-8425-1hbewgl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/452634/original/file-20220316-8425-1hbewgl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/452634/original/file-20220316-8425-1hbewgl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/452634/original/file-20220316-8425-1hbewgl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Prime Minister Justin Trudeau attends a joint news conference with Poland’s President Andrzej Duda on a recent meeting in Warsaw.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski)</span></span>
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</figure>
<p>Since then, all efforts to build a functioning Polish refugee reception system have been stalled, and the Polish government decided to undermine EU solidarity in the Syrian crisis <a href="https://www.politico.eu/article/politics-nationalism-and-religion-explain-why-poland-doesnt-want-refugees/">by refusing to host even one Syrian refugee</a>.</p>
<p>This <a href="https://www.mipex.eu/poland">lack of a functioning reception and integration system</a> may have propelled Syrian asylum-seekers and refugees further west. </p>
<h2>Belarus-fuelled crisis</h2>
<p>The refugee crisis on the eastern European border in 2021, <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/jillgoldenziel/2021/11/10/belarus-is-weaponizing-migrants-using-putins-playbook-europe-must-legally-fight-back/?sh=6dcbd82c1e2a">created artificially by Belarus in response to EU sanctions</a>, has been successful on two counts. First, it helped <a href="https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/can-europe-make-it/rethinking-eastern-european-racism/">revive the narrative of racist eastern European states</a>. Second, it did the groundwork for the ongoing influx of refugees from Ukraine. </p>
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<em>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-eu-is-the-real-villain-in-the-poland-belarus-migrant-crisis-172132">The EU is the real villain in the Poland-Belarus migrant crisis</a>
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<p>The Polish welcome of Ukrainians is now being labelled <a href="https://theconversation.com/refugees-reporting-and-the-far-right-how-the-ukraine-crisis-reveals-brutal-everyday-racism-in-europe-and-beyond-178410">“white privilege,” helping support Vladimir Putin’s laughable claim that Ukrainians are Nazis</a>. The <a href="https://theconversation.com/ukraine-how-citizenship-and-race-play-out-in-refugees-movements-in-europe-178118">lack of understanding on how EU border policies work</a> in the first weeks of the invasion also cast blame on Polish and Ukrainian border guards.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Mothers push baby strollers down a ramp." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/453700/original/file-20220322-25-1hisdfx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/453700/original/file-20220322-25-1hisdfx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/453700/original/file-20220322-25-1hisdfx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/453700/original/file-20220322-25-1hisdfx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/453700/original/file-20220322-25-1hisdfx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/453700/original/file-20220322-25-1hisdfx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/453700/original/file-20220322-25-1hisdfx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Refugees with children walk after fleeing the war from neighbouring Ukraine at a railway station in Przemysl, Poland, on March 22, 2022.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Sergei Grits)</span></span>
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<p>Poland is now the epicentre of the largest humanitarian crisis in Europe since 1945. To point out the country is ill-prepared to handle it and avoid catastrophe is an understatement. </p>
<p>All support for the refugees in the first two weeks of the war <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/lidiakurasinska/2022/02/27/polish-businesses-and-ordinary-citizens-scramble-to-help-ukrainian-refugees/?sh=16f19d893d09">was organized spontaneously by Polish businesses, local governments, civil society organizations and the population at large</a>, with the Polish state absent from the equation. The major difference with previous refugee crises was that the government actually allowed citizens to help refugees.</p>
<h2>The threat starts in Poland</h2>
<p>The skilful use of disinformation and misinformation amplified by Russian operatives on social media is more ferocious than <a href="https://www.trtworld.com/opinion/russian-disinformation-and-refugee-dehumanisation-overshadows-idlib-crisis-34220">what afflicted Turkey for its support to Syrians</a>. </p>
<p>Russia’s first goal is to weaken support for Ukrainian refugees in the countries hosting most of them. Poland, a country promoting right-wing anti-immigrant rhetoric for seven years, is the primary aim. </p>
<p>The mix of historical ambivalence on immigration, lack of structural governance support and the arrival of hundreds of thousands of long-term refugees is a fertile ground for war in cyberspace. </p>
<p>Polish social media is already under attack.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.euractiv.com/section/politics/short_news/russia-spreads-disinfo-to-undermine-poles-refugee-support/">Fake news triggered real-life incidents that put African refugees at risk</a>; the Polish Institute for Internet and Social Media Research <a href="https://ibims.pl/komunikat-ws-prorosyjskich-grup-prowadzacych-dzialania-dezinformacyjne-25-02-22/">says it recorded more than 120,000 attempts at disinformation on social media related to Russia’s attack on Ukraine within just 24 hours of the invasion</a>; and Putin’s spin machine is feeding <a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/03/11/1085606596/ukraine-russia-news-invasion-refugees-poland-przemysl">Polish right-wing politicians, trying to erode popular support for the refugees</a>. </p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/both-facts-and-fake-news-about-the-russian-invasion-of-ukraine-are-spread-on-social-media-178773">Both facts and fake news about the Russian invasion of Ukraine are spread on social media</a>
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<p>Polish consensus on Ukrainian refugees is fragile and fraught with danger. With the government still vague about its integration policy, Polish society needs international support to immediately raise social media literacy and migrant integration awareness.</p>
<p>When the well-being of a refugee depends solely on the generosity of a private citizen, the risk of help going wrong is enormous, especially with Russian trolls in play. Anti-immigrant sentiments can be easily triggered and misinformation can spin out of control.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/178816/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Agnieszka Weinar was a Research Fellow receiving research funding from the FP7 program of the European Union (until 2017). She is affiliated with New Europeans and Canada-Europe Women in Business.</span></em></p>The European Union is once again faced with the danger of destabilization. Putin’s cyberwar on free societies using the migration crisis went well in 2015. He must not succeed now in Poland or beyond.Agnieszka Weinar, Adjunct Research Professor, Migration Policy, Carleton UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1204592019-07-17T11:22:14Z2019-07-17T11:22:14ZCounting 11 million undocumented immigrants is easier than Trump thinks<p>It is now clear that there will be no question about citizenship on the 2020 U.S. Census. </p>
<p>After <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/18pdf/18-966_bq7c.pdf">the Supreme Court ruled</a> against the Trump administration, President Trump vowed to find a way to include the question. But with no legal path forward and time running out, the administration <a href="https://www.npr.org/2019/07/11/739858115/trump-expected-to-renew-push-for-census-citizenship-question-with-executive-acti">ultimately backed down</a>.</p>
<p>Opponents of the citizenship question remain concerned about the census, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/social-issues/2020-census-will-not-include-citizenship-question-doj-confirms/2019/07/02/0067be4a-9c44-11e9-9ed4-c9089972ad5a_story.html">though hopeful</a> that more immigrant households will respond to the census now that the question has been removed. </p>
<p>But others worry that it will be much harder to keep track of undocumented immigrants. President Trump argued that a citizenship question was needed, saying: <a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2019/07/01/trump-census-1393746">“I think it is very important to find out if somebody is a citizen as opposed to an illegal.”</a></p>
<p>However, a citizenship question wouldn’t actually help the government distinguish between who is an undocumented immigrant and who is not. The question distinguishes only between citizens and noncitizens, and noncitizens are not the same as undocumented immigrants. For example, three out of five noncitizens <a href="https://www.pewhispanic.org/2019/06/03/facts-on-u-s-immigrants/">are in the country legally</a>.</p>
<p>Even more importantly, demographers have figured out a simple and effective way to estimate the number of unauthorized immigrants – even without information on citizenship. In the last five years, my colleagues Frank D. Bean, James D. Bachmeier and I have conducted a <a href="http://doi.org/10.1111/imre.12059/">series</a> <a href="http://doi.org/10.1007/s13524-014-0280-2">of</a> <a href="https://dx.doi.org/10.4054%2FDemRes.2013.29.1">studies</a> that evaluate this method and its assumptions.</p>
<p>Our research on the methods used to estimate the size of the group indicates that existing estimates – putting the undocumented population at about 11 million – are reasonably accurate.</p>
<p>Here’s how it works.</p>
<h2>What’s the formula?</h2>
<p>Beginning in the late 1970s, a group of demographers consisting primarily of Jeffrey Passel, Robert Warren, Jacob Siegel, Gregory Robinson and Karen Woodrow introduced the “residual method” for estimating the number of unauthorized immigrants living in the country.</p>
<p>At the time, Passel and his collaborators were affiliated with the U.S. Bureau of the Census and Warren with the Office of Immigration Statistics of the Immigration and Naturalization Service. Much of this work was published in the form of internal reports, but some of it <a href="http://doi.org/10.1353/dem.2001.0023">appeared</a> <a href="http://doi.org/10.2307%2F2061304?LI=true">in</a> <a href="http://doi.org/10.2307/2060964">major</a> <a href="https://dx.doi.org/10.1111%2Fimre.12022">journals</a>.</p>
<p>The residual method uses an estimate of the total foreign-born population in the country, based on U.S. Census data. Researchers then subtract from it the number of legal immigrants residing here, estimated from government records of legal immigrants who receive “green cards” minus the number that died or left the country. The result is an estimate of the unauthorized population.</p>
<p>Various adjustments are typically made to this formula. Most adjustments are minor, but a particularly important one adjusts for what researchers call “coverage error” among the unauthorized foreign-born. Coverage error occurs when the census data underestimate the size of a group. This can occur when people live in nonresidential or unconventional locations – such as on the streets or in a neighbor’s basement – or when they fail to respond to the census. </p>
<p>Coverage error could be particularly high among unauthorized immigrants because they may be trying to avoid detection. The Census Bureau’s <a href="https://www.amstat.org/asa/files/pdfs/POL-Understanding-the-Quality-of-Alternative.pdf">own research</a> suggests that asking about citizenship would likely aggravate this issue.</p>
<p>Currently, the Department of Homeland Security, the Pew Hispanic Center and the Center for Migration Studies are the major producers of <a href="https://www.pewhispanic.org/2019/06/03/facts-on-u-s-immigrants/">estimates of the unauthorized foreign-born population</a>. </p>
<p><iframe id="3tpBt" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/3tpBt/1/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<h2>How accurate are the estimates?</h2>
<p>The residual method has been widely used and accepted since the late 1970s. Within a reasonable margin of error, it predicted the number of unauthorized immigrants to legalize under the <a href="https://www.migrationpolicy.org/research/lessons-immigration-reform-and-control-act-1986">Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986</a>, which, among other things, granted permanent residency status to unauthorized immigrants who had been living in the country since 1982. The residual method predicted that about <a href="http://doi.org/10.13140/RG.2.1.1266.6321">2.2 million</a> met the residency requirement; the actual number to come forward was about 1.7 million.</p>
<p>Both Department of Homeland Security and Pew have used the residual method to estimate the unauthorized population since 2005. Despite using slightly different data and assumptions, <a href="http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/09/21/unauthorized-immigrant-population-stable-for-half-a-decade/">Pew’s</a>, <a href="https://www.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/publications/ois_ill_pe_2012_2.pdf">Department of Homeland Security’s</a>, and <a href="https://cmsny.org/">the Center for Migration Studies’s</a> estimates have never differed by more than 1 million people, less than 10% of the total unauthorized population.</p>
<p>Nevertheless, skeptics question a key assumption of the residual method, which is that unauthorized immigrants participate in census surveys. All three organizations listed above inflate their estimates to account for the possibility that some unauthorized immigrants are missing from census data. For example, Pew inflates by about 13%. But is this enough?</p>
<p>My colleagues and I <a href="https://dx.doi.org/10.1007%2Fs13524-014-0280-2">estimated coverage error</a> among Mexican immigrants, a group that composes 60% of all unauthorized immigrants. </p>
<p>Even if they are not counted in a census, populations leave “footprints” of their presence in the form of deaths and births. Because people give birth and die with known regularity, regardless of their legal status, we were able to use birth and death records of all Mexican-born persons to determine the number of Mexican-born persons living in the U.S. We also looked at changes in Mexican census data between 1990 and 2010 to gauge the size of Mexico’s “missing” population, most of whom moved to the U.S. </p>
<p>We then compared these estimates with the estimated number of Mexican immigrants in census data. We found that the census missed as many as 26% of unauthorized immigrants in the early 2000s. </p>
<p>We speculated that this could have been due to the large numbers of temporary Mexican labor migrants who were living in the U.S. at the time. Because many worked in construction during the housing boom and lived in temporary housing arrangements, it may have been particularly difficult to accurately account for them in census surveys. </p>
<p>However, when the Great Recession and housing crisis hit, many of these temporary workers went home or stopped coming to the U.S. in the first place, and coverage error declined. By 2010, the coverage error may have been as low as 6% and does not appear to have changed much since then.</p>
<p>If current levels of coverage error for all unauthorized immigrants were as high as 26%, then the number living in the country could be as high as 13 million. But if coverage error were as low as 6%, then the figure could be as low as 10.3 million. The true number likely falls within that narrow range.</p>
<p>What this boils down to is that demographers already have a pretty good idea of the number of unauthorized immigrants living in the U.S., even without relying on citizenship data. If coverage error has declined as much as we think it has, then the truth is at the lower end of this range.</p>
<h2>Will administrative records improve the estimates?</h2>
<p>Looking ahead, methods could change as new data become available. </p>
<p>In the wake of its Supreme Court loss, the Trump administration issued an <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2019/07/11/politics/census-citizenship-question-alternatives/index.html">executive order</a> <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6189423-Executive-Order.html">directing government agencies</a> to share administrative data on citizenship. </p>
<p>They want to link information on citizenship and immigration status in administrative records to everyone’s census responses. For example, the executive order requests the Department of Homeland Security’s records on refugee and asylum visas, as well as Master Beneficiary Records from the Social Security Administration. They want to use this information to estimate the undocumented population at very detailed levels of geography for purposes of redistricting, reapportionment and the allocation of public funds. </p>
<p>(It is worth noting that the Census Bureau is a fortress when it comes to protecting your data. Under federal law, the Census Bureau cannot share your personal information with anyone, including other government agencies such as ICE.)</p>
<p>Regardless of how anyone feels about these policy proposals, administrative data may not be up to the task. In my view, administrative records are complicated to use. They can provide inconsistent information about the same person depending on which agency’s records are used. </p>
<p>Additionally, the records will be of limited value for describing those who fall outside of the administrative records system, which can happen for all kinds of reasons. Even if the Trump administration uses administrative records to estimate the undocumented population, researchers will still need to make assumptions about coverage error, just like they do for the residual method.</p>
<p>Overall, I suspect that administrative records could help answer some narrowly defined questions about immigrants and improve national estimates. The jury is still out about their ability to provide definitive answers about the precise numbers of undocumented immigrants, particularly at detailed levels of geography.</p>
<p><em>This is an updated version of <a href="https://theconversation.com/counting-11-million-undocumented-immigrants-is-easier-than-you-think-67921">an article originally published on Nov. 1, 2016</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/120459/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jennifer Van Hook receives funding to conduct research on this topic from the Migration Policy Institute. </span></em></p>Demographers have figured out a simple and effective way to estimate the number of unauthorized immigrants – even without information on citizenship.Jennifer Van Hook, Roy C. Buck Professor of Sociology and Demography, Penn StateLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1196802019-07-17T11:16:17Z2019-07-17T11:16:17ZTramping artisans who marched thousands of miles a year are proof that Britain was built by migrants<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/284481/original/file-20190717-147307-ukwtsy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C2%2C1536%2C1062&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Emigrant’s Last Sight of Home – a painting by Richard Redgrave, 1858.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/redgrave-the-emigrants-last-sight-of-home-t02110">Tate.</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>“If you believe you are a citizen of the world, you are a citizen of nowhere” – so said British prime minister Theresa May in <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/10/05/theresa-mays-conference-speech-in-full/">a speech</a> which captured the tone of the Conservative government’s long-running campaign to crack down on immigration. From creating a <a href="https://theconversation.com/hostile-environment-the-uk-governments-draconian-immigration-policy-explained-95460">“hostile environment”</a> for illegal immigrants, to ramping up visa restrictions and pursuing a Brexit deal to end freedom of movement between the UK and Europe, the Conservative government has made strenuous efforts to prevent immigration to the UK. </p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/hostile-environment-the-uk-governments-draconian-immigration-policy-explained-95460">Hostile environment: the UK government's draconian immigration policy explained</a>
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<p>What’s perhaps more surprising is that the opposition felt compelled to say something similar: the Labour party’s <a href="https://labour.org.uk/manifesto/negotiating-brexit/">manifesto declares</a> it would honour the EU referendum result and end freedom of movement, replacing it instead with “fair immigration rules”, as yet not clearly defined. </p>
<p>Both parties’ stances contain a grain of irony. The Conservatives – seen in the past as supporting businesses that make money from international labour – now seeking to tighten the borders. Labour – a party descended from unions set up to support worldwide movement of labour – now showing little sense of solidarity with international or EU workers. </p>
<p>But as a professor researching labour history and media communication, I find the greatest irony is that migration helped forge the very social, cultural and economic infrastructures that Britain now seeks to wall off from the rest of the world. </p>
<h2>A brief history of British migration</h2>
<p>Between 1815 and 1930, an estimated <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=zz_cGwwuwVQC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_atb#v=onepage&q&f=false">11m Britons</a> left for North America, Australasia and South Africa. During the same period, <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=zz_cGwwuwVQC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_atb#v=onepage&q&f=false">7m Irish</a> shipped out to the US and the British dominions. Migration on this massive scale contributed to imperial and labour diasporas – economic migrants shifting across international borders during a period of great change.</p>
<p>At the same time, between 1840 and 1911 around <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=jnDA4vY9kFEC&pg=PT57&dq=migration+from+countryside+to+cities+in+britain+nineteenth+century&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi8pJyZr7rjAhWNasAKHYZLD0AQ6AEIMzAB#v=onepage&q=migration%20from%20countryside%20to%20cities%20in%20britain%20nineteenth%20century&f=false">4.5m people</a> moved from the countryside to British cities such as London, Leeds, Liverpool, Sheffield, Glasgow, Birmingham and Newcastle to take up work and learn new skills. With this came the need to help those without jobs. </p>
<p>Until the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trade_Union_Act_1871">Trade Union Act of 1871</a>, UK trade unions were prevented from organising for political purposes. Instead, workmen banded together as mutual self-help societies. They provided funds for illness and death duties, set up regional support networks and offered members financial support during periods of unemployment. </p>
<p>From the early 1800s onwards, UK labour unions built <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/2599989?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents">sophisticated structures</a> to support the movement of people locally, regionally and globally. The general workings were similar: societies issued members with travelling documents indicating their good standing, as well as information on union contacts strung along a circuit of towns. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/283983/original/file-20190714-173355-j28b3b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/283983/original/file-20190714-173355-j28b3b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/283983/original/file-20190714-173355-j28b3b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=440&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/283983/original/file-20190714-173355-j28b3b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=440&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/283983/original/file-20190714-173355-j28b3b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=440&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/283983/original/file-20190714-173355-j28b3b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=553&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/283983/original/file-20190714-173355-j28b3b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=553&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/283983/original/file-20190714-173355-j28b3b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=553&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">A typographical union travelling document, from 1871.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">David Finkelstein</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">CC BY-NC</a></span>
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<p>Travellers presented themselves to such representatives (available in the evening usually in a pub or meeting space), where they would be issued with an official note for lodgings, offered food and drink and paid a small sum for distances tramped (between a half-penny or a penny per mile). If work was forthcoming, they would be directed to relevant employers; if not, they continued onwards. </p>
<p>In such ways, tramping artisans would often cover huge distances over a course of many months. In one extreme case from 1848, a <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/2599989?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents">tramping typographer</a> marched over 1,800 miles, leaving London to take in the delights of Southampton, Bristol, Glasgow, Stirling and 21 different Irish towns, before returning to his old haunts a year later. </p>
<h2>A global network</h2>
<p>International movement was part of that mix. Throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries, union-sponsored emigration grants offset travel costs of union members, enabling them to circulate along transnational routes as part of the British Empire’s <a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.com/culture/topics/reference/colonialism/">colonial expansion</a> in places such as Australia, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa and India. </p>
<p>The Scottish Typographical Association, for example, operated a structured emigration scheme for its members. Between 1903 and 1912 it paid out over £1,626 in emigration grants – worth £625,000 in <a href="https://www.measuringworth.com/calculators/ukcompare/">modern currency</a>. Travel subsidies usually averaged between £5 to £10 per member (worth £500 to £1,000 in <a href="https://www.measuringworth.com/calculators/ukcompare/">modern currency</a>), depending on how long they had been a member of the union. This was quite substantial during a period when you could enjoy a pint of bitter in your local pub for a penny, travel from Birmingham to London for 20p, and the <a href="https://www.parliament.uk/business/publications/research/olympic-britain/incomes-and-poverty/cheaper-in-those-days/">average earnings</a> in 1908 were £70 a year.</p>
<p>Governments and civilians in British settlements were often complicit in subjugating, suppressing and destroying indigenous cultures in pursuit of <a href="https://www.globalresearch.ca/crimes-against-humanity-the-british-empire/5597781">colonial expansion</a>. The ongoing impacts of colonialism in these places are many and complex. Yet migration played its part in shaping those regions in ways that have since defined their national identities, bringing trade skills and knowledge. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-britains-colonial-legacy-still-affects-lgbt-politics-around-the-world-95799">How Britain's colonial legacy still affects LGBT politics around the world</a>
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<p>Migrants supported by union schemes started businesses that were central to shaping the economies of emerging communities and towns, such as Lawrence in New Zealand, Ballarat in Australia and Kimberley in South Africa. They parlayed and passed on their knowledge and expertise to others they encountered on their travels. </p>
<p>The unions that emerged in the 19th century developed complex information and support networks to respond to the need for trade worker movement. They were used to support those who could not find long-term work, and to create global knowledge and skills exchange systems. </p>
<p>British people should recognise that the working world today has been greatly shaped by a freedom of movement that was once encouraged and supported. The flotsam and jetsam of the past, also despised as citizens of nowhere, often became civic leaders thanks to union links and support, offering generosity of communal spirit and embrace of potential worth. It’s best not to forget such lessons, in today’s turbulent times.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/119680/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Finkelstein does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Migration helped forge the very social, cultural and economic infrastructures that Britain now seeks to wall off from the rest of the world.David Finkelstein, Professor of Social Sciences, Heriot-Watt UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1190572019-07-01T10:52:39Z2019-07-01T10:52:39ZHalf a million American minors now live in Mexico<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/281198/original/file-20190625-81745-kg2x6h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Children in this group are growing up with roots in both the U.S. and Mexico.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/united-states-mexico-two-flags-textile-1309909150?src=ZdJhIuTOzWhEa1yGnB050w-1-0&studio=1">Aleks_Shutter/Shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>While much of the current news has been focused on Central American migrants making their way through Mexico to the U.S., little attention has been paid to a different migration story: the number of American-born minors – all U.S. citizens – who left the U.S. to live in Mexico. </p>
<p>In Mexico, about <a href="https://cedua.colmex.mx/amsitm">900,000 residents</a> were born abroad as of 2015. Some of these are Central American migrants, but the large majority was born in the U.S. and is under age 18.</p>
<p>In fact, between 2000 and 2015, the population of American minors living in Mexico more than doubled. By 2015, nearly half a million minors born in the U.S. lived south of the border. </p>
<p>Although there have always been U.S. citizens under 18 in Mexico, never before have so many left the U.S. to live and grow up in Mexico. Who are these children and adolescents? Where and with whom do they live in Mexico? </p>
<p><a href="https://rdcu.be/bGlzS">Our research</a>, published on June 10, uses Mexican census and intercensal data to reveal new insights into the characteristics of this group of young American citizens in Mexico. </p>
<h2>When did they leave the US?</h2>
<p>The growth in Mexico’s population of U.S. citizen minors largely occurred between 2000 and 2010. During this period, the Great Recession led to high rates of <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s11113-012-9243-8">return migration</a> to Mexico. At the same time, <a href="https://www.dhs.gov/immigration-statistics/yearbook/2016">the number of U.S. removals</a> increased annually, to a peak of 409,000 in 2012. </p>
<p>Our interviews with returnees in Mexico City suggest that both economic crisis and immigration enforcement drove the migration of U.S.-born minors to Mexico in the second half of the 2000s. </p>
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<p>In 2010 and 2015, the majority of the minors were primary school-aged. In 2010, twice as many were under age 5 as were over age 12. But in 2015, about equal proportions were under 5 or over 12. </p>
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<h2>Who are their parents?</h2>
<p>The vast majority of this group has Mexican-born parents. </p>
<p>In 2015, more than one-third of U.S.-born minors lived in Mexico without one or both parents. Father absence is especially common. Nearly one-third lived without their father, while 10% lived without their mother. </p>
<p>Seven in 10 U.S.-born minors who do not live with their parents live with a grandparent. By comparison, only half of Mexican-born minors do not live with their parents.</p>
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<h2>Where in Mexico do they live?</h2>
<p>The largest group of U.S. immigrants from Mexico <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1747-7379.2012.00879.x">originated in the center-west of Mexico</a>, the historic migrant-sending region that includes the states of Jalisco, Michoacán and Guanajuato. </p>
<p>However, U.S.-born minors settled in Mexico in locations that are distinct from where most U.S.-bound immigrants originated. Our analysis shows that the largest group of U.S.-born minors lives in states along the Mexico-U.S. border, especially Baja California and Chihuahua, where cities like Tijuana and Ciudad Juárez are located. </p>
<p>This suggests that, though these minors now live in Mexico, they maintain some ties to the U.S. For example, some parents <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.soscij.2017.07.008">live along the border</a> in order for their children to commute from Mexico to school in the U.S. </p>
<h2>What does the future hold?</h2>
<p>The migration of U.S.-born minors from the U.S. to Mexico presents unique challenges to the minors themselves, as well as to their families and their communities.</p>
<p>For instance, we found that, in 2010, 53% of U.S. citizens under 18 living in Mexico did not have Mexican citizenship. Children who do not have Mexican documents <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/01419870.2015.1036091">cannot easily enroll in Mexican public schools</a>. Furthermore, children who do not speak Spanish well <a href="https://msem.ucpress.edu/content/32/2/226.abstract">will face problems learning in Mexican schools</a>. </p>
<p>The U.S. public is concerned with the more than one million undocumented youth – or DREAMers. Many of this group live in <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/08/undocumented-children-mixed-status-families/567610/">“mixed-status families,”</a> where at least one member is a U.S. citizen. U.S. citizen minors in Mexico also live in mixed-status families, but in some ways the challenges they face are distinct: They have the possibility for legal integration, but still face barriers to social and economic integration in Mexico.</p>
<p>We do not know what the future holds for this large group of young U.S. citizens with deep roots in both countries. The answer will undoubtedly unfold on both sides of the border.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/119057/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Claudia Masferrer receives funding from Fondo Sectorial de Desarrollo Social - Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología (SEDESOL-CONACYT). </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Erin R. Hamilton receives funding from UC MEXUS-Conacyt, the National Science Foundation, and the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nicole Denier receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. </span></em></p>Between 2000 and 2015, the population of U.S. citizen minors living in Mexico more than doubled. Who are the kids living on the other side of the border?Claudia Masferrer, Assistant Professor at Centre for Demographic, Urban and Environmental Studies, The College of Mexico, A.C.Erin R. Hamilton, Associate Professor of Sociology, University of California, DavisNicole Denier, Assistant Professor of Sociology, University of AlbertaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1025212018-09-04T11:28:05Z2018-09-04T11:28:05ZIt’s too early to talk of a ‘Brexodus’ – doing so ignores how many EU migrants have made Britain their home<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/234771/original/file-20180904-45143-6p8q3g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Big decisions. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/download/confirm/380564566?src=YpOVNK8acEEjjYz425DuHw-1-2&size=medium_jpg">Shutterstock.</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>As the deadline for a final Brexit deal approaches, close attention is being paid to statistics on the number of EU citizens living in Britain. In late August, after the Office for National Statistics published its latest <a href="https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationandmigration/internationalmigration/datasets/migrationstatisticsquarterlyreportprovisionallongterminternationalmigrationltimestimates">long-term international migration estimates</a>, news <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/aug/23/net-migration-from-eu-to-uk-at-lowest-level-since-december-2012?CMP=share_btn_link">reports</a> continued to talk of a “Brexodus” – the exodus of EU citizens from the UK ahead of Brexit. But such commentary, which is mirrored in <a href="https://theconversation.com/brexodus-of-eu-citizens-from-the-uk-is-picking-up-speed-92089">academic debate</a>, is overblown and it’s symptomatic of the assumptions made about how mobile the EU migrants who’ve made their homes in Britain actually are.</p>
<p>Brexit has provoked high levels of uncertainty about the <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-social-policy/article/conditioning-familylife-at-the-intersection-of-migration-and-welfare-the-implications-for-brexit-families/C0CF897BC9AB22FE6A7D115322B71B47#fndtn-information">future rights of EU citizens and their families</a>. While the draft <a href="https://www.gov.uk/guidance/status-of-eu-nationals-in-the-uk-what-you-need-to-know#history">Withdrawal Agreement</a> between the UK and the European Commission may have allayed some of those fears, the first batch of the <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/how-to-prepare-if-the-uk-leaves-the-eu-with-no-deal">government’s “no-deal Brexit” papers</a> was silent on whether this agreement, and the <a href="https://www.gov.uk/settled-status-eu-citizens-families">Settlement Scheme</a> that implements it, would still stand in the event of no deal. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/eu-citizens-what-settled-status-after-brexit-really-means-a-legal-expert-explains-97810">EU citizens: what settled status after Brexit really means – a legal expert explains</a>
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<p>Meanwhile, a recent inquiry <a href="https://www.justiceinspectorates.gov.uk/hmicfrs/wp-content/uploads/understanding-the-difference-the-initial-police-response-to-hate-crime.pdf">predicted</a> that reported hate crimes against migrants, which <a href="https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/652136/hate-crime-1617-hosb1717.pdf">increased</a> at the time of the referendum, could spike again around the point of the UK’s exit from the EU in March 2019.</p>
<p>The narrative of “Brexodus”, however, is far from accurate in capturing how EU citizen migrants are responding to this situation. As the latest estimates indicate, EU net migration – the number of people leaving subtracted from the number arriving – has fallen. At 87,000 it is now at its lowest level since 2012, and far below its peak of 189,000 in the year ending June 2016. But, the decline in the number of EU citizens arriving in the UK accounts for more of the fall in net migration than does a rise in the number leaving. </p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/234643/original/file-20180903-41726-1har8ba.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/234643/original/file-20180903-41726-1har8ba.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=376&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/234643/original/file-20180903-41726-1har8ba.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=376&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/234643/original/file-20180903-41726-1har8ba.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=376&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/234643/original/file-20180903-41726-1har8ba.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=473&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/234643/original/file-20180903-41726-1har8ba.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=473&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/234643/original/file-20180903-41726-1har8ba.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=473&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">UK net migration by citizenship from year ending June 2008 to year ending March 2018.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationandmigration/internationalmigration/bulletins/migrationstatisticsquarterlyreport/august2018#migration-patterns-for-eu-and-non-eu-citizens">Long-Term International Migration, Office for National Statistics</a></span>
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<p>The number of EU citizens leaving the UK in the year ending March 2018 was 138,000. According to the <a href="https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationandmigration/internationalmigration/datasets/migrationstatisticsquarterlyreportprovisionallongterminternationalmigrationltimestimates">ONS</a> this number has: “Remained stable following a previous increase between the years ending September 2015 and September 2017.” So, we are not seeing a pattern of departures implied by the narrative of “Brexodus”. </p>
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<p>Outflows are also very different depending on which countries EU citizens come from. Between the year ending March 2017 and that ending March 2018, there was a 21% increase in the number of departures among EU15 nationals – referring to the <a href="https://stats.oecd.org/glossary/detail.asp?ID=6805">15 member states</a> of the EU until enlargement in 2004 – and a 19% increase in the number of departures of EU2 nationals, from Romania and Bulgaria. However, the increase in the number of departures of citizens from EU8 countries – those countries including Poland and Hungary which joined in 2004 – was significantly lower, at 4%. </p>
<p>EU citizen migrants are also <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/immigration-statistics-year-ending-june-2018-data-tables">applying for UK citizenship</a> in increasing numbers: with over 11,000 applications in each of the first two quarters of 2018. This is the highest on record and around 2,000 more than in the respective periods in 2017.</p>
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<p>The “Brexodus” narrative doesn’t capture these nuances and complexity because it is based on an inaccurate construction of migration under EU freedom of movement as <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/24371603?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents">“super mobile”</a>. The assumption is that when circumstances change, people move on. The same assumption informs the UK government’s construction of EU migrants – as with migrants in general – as mobile and disposable, and the “Brexodus” narrative simply reinforces this.</p>
<h2>Left to feel like ‘a floating log’</h2>
<p>Our research is indicating, however, that there is a dissonance between migrants’ experiences and the assumptions being built into migration policy. EU migrants in the UK are rarely continually mobile, and despite the unsettling force Brexit presents to their personal and family biographies, <a href="http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/brexit/2017/05/22/eu-citizens-in-the-uk-after-the-shock-comes-the-strategy-to-secure-status/">moving on is not necessarily an option</a>. </p>
<p>Brexit is clearly a potentially destabilising force in the lives of the 3m or so EU citizens resident in the UK. This was clear from a public <a href="https://discoversociety.org/2017/12/15/not-one-of-you-any-longer-eu-nationals-brexit-uncertainty-and-mistrust/">Q&A event</a> attended by 70 people in Sheffield on Brexit and the rights of EU nationals, which we helped organise in November 2017. Of those attending, 37 people from 14 different countries contributed written responses to the question: “What is your main concern for EU nationals in the UK after Brexit?”</p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/what-the-eus-rules-on-free-movement-allow-all-its-citizens-to-do-62186">What the EU's rules on free movement allow all its citizens to do</a>
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<p>One participant from Germany wrote: “Moving back to one’s home country is by no means straightforward due to housing issues, finding qualified work, getting into health insurance, transfer savings without double taxation.” While another participant, also from Germany wrote: “The UK makes me feel like a visitor but I have been here so long that the country of my origin is strange to me.”</p>
<p>For many, the Brexit process has provoked a deep sense of insecurity. As one person wrote: “It feels like being a floating log in the middle of the ocean.”</p>
<p>A more sophisticated way to understand how Brexit is influencing the decision-making of EU citizen migrants is needed than simply labelling it a “Brexodus”. Such an approach needs to acknowledge that decisions are shaped by inter-connected economic, political and personal considerations. Family relationships and <a href="https://theconversation.com/polish-grandparents-face-uncertain-family-future-after-brexit-80993">responsibilities</a> across the life course also influence migration or settling strategies. So it’s key that analysis of migration trends in the months and years to come go beyond the numbers to examine the multilayered processes and considerations likely to inform migrants’ decisions to move or stay.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/102521/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Majella Kilkey receives funding from the Economic and Social Research Council, the European Commission and the Noble Foundation.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Louise Ryan receives funding from the Economic and Social Research Council. </span></em></p>What migration figures really tell us about the movement of people.Majella Kilkey, Reader in Social Policy, University of SheffieldLouise Ryan, Professor of Sociology, University of SheffieldLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/949702018-04-20T03:41:23Z2018-04-20T03:41:23ZMigration is slowing Australia’s rate of ageing, but not necessarily in the regions<p>Migration is actually slowing the rate of ageing of Australia’s population. <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12546-018-9201-3">I modelled</a> how much fertility, mortality, overseas migration and interstate migration, all contribute to the overall change in the average age of a population. </p>
<p>Population ageing is measured by changes in the median age (the age at which half the population is older and half is younger) over time. For Australia, the median age is 37.2 years. The Northern Territory is the youngest state or territory with a a median age of 32.4 years and Tasmania is the oldest at 42 years. </p>
<p>In the model, births and deaths reduce the rate of ageing in the population. But the effects of migration can go either way. </p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/factcheck-is-south-australias-youth-population-rising-or-falling-92995">FactCheck: is South Australia's youth population rising or falling?</a>
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<p>The impact of overseas migration on the average age of the population is dependent on the age and number of immigrants and emigrants compared with the average age of the population. </p>
<p>Between 2005 and 2015, Australia’s average age increased by 1.1 years from 37.5 years to 38.6 years. In the model, this was an increase of five weeks per year. In the absence of migration, Australia’s average age would have increased by 11 weeks per year. </p>
<p>This is because over the period, the number of overseas arrivals was almost double that of overseas departures and, on average, they were younger. This provides evidence that policy intervention, such as the shift to a skilled migration program and the increase in the number of international students, can influence the rate of population ageing.</p>
<h2>Why Tasmania is the oldest</h2>
<p>Overseas migration also contributed to a slowing of the rate of ageing for Tasmania. However, between 2005 and 2015, Tasmania’s average age increased from 38.6 years to 41 years (an increase of 2.4 years). This suggests other factors are at play in increasing the average age of the population, particularly when compared with the considerably lower change in Australia’s average age.</p>
<p>The difference in ageing between Australia and Tasmania of five weeks per year is largely explained by interstate migration. The number of interstate movements to and from Tasmania was around five times that of overseas movements.</p>
<p>While interstate arrivals were younger than the average Tasmanian, those leaving the state were even younger, contributing to increasing the average age of Tasmanians over time. </p>
<p>Essentially, in the absence of interstate migration, the rate of ageing in Tasmania would have slowed to an average of seven weeks per year, more comparable with Australia’s rate of ageing. </p>
<h2>What this means for our future</h2>
<p>The model’s findings confirm that as differences between fertility and mortality levels within a nation are usually small, it is migration, overseas and interstate, which is predominantly responsible for different changes in the average age of the nation. </p>
<p>National policy initiatives, such as the <a href="http://legacy.iza.org/en/papers/7882_10042012.pdf">shift to a skilled migration program</a>, and the increased level of international students have been effective in slowing the rate of population ageing for Australia, but not necessarily for regions like Tasmania. </p>
<p>Until now, governments have used “one-size-fits-all” solutions or those adopted from other places to deal with population ageing. These approaches fail to capture the diversity of population change within a nation. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-mandatory-retirement-ages-should-be-a-thing-of-the-past-94484">Why mandatory retirement ages should be a thing of the past</a>
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<p>What is needed is local policies, developed and applied in situ, to meet the needs, strengths, challenges and opportunities of a region.<a href="https://www.gov.nl.ca/populationgrowth/pdf/strategy.pdf">Newfoundland and Labrador in Canada</a> and <a href="https://www.stategrowth.tas.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0014/124304/Population_Growth_Strategy_Growing_Tas_Population_for_web.pdf">Tasmania</a> have both employed policies that are based on local areas. In Tasmania, <a href="https://www.stategrowth.tas.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0017/142109/Population_Growth_Strategy_-_Annual_Report_2016.pdf">the strategy</a> focuses on creating jobs, migration strategies for those living interstate and overseas and the liveability of the place. </p>
<p>Understanding how and why populations change can effectively contribute to planning and investment in age-appropriate infrastructure, services and amenities.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/94970/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lisa Denny does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>For Australia, the median age is 37.2 years. The Northern Territory is the youngest state or territory with a a median age of 32.4 years and Tasmania is the oldest at 42 years.Lisa Denny, Research Fellow - Institute for the Study of Social Change, University of TasmaniaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/901972018-02-06T13:41:36Z2018-02-06T13:41:36ZIs Turkey really facing an ‘exodus’? It’s not that simple<p>The decline of Turkey’s democracy has become a well-worn theme, and for good reason. The country has now jailed more journalists on charges related to their work than <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/13/world/europe/journalists-jailed-committee-to-protect-journalists.html">any other in the world</a>, and many <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/dec/11/erdogan-turkey-academics-terrorism-violence-kurdish-people">academics</a> who’ve criticised the government’s policies towards the “Kurdish question” are now on trial. But recently, media observers have seemingly identified another <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-42433668">alarming trend</a>: a “Turkish exodus”. </p>
<p>With the failed coup attempt of 2016, the ensuing crackdown, and President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s moves to consolidate his power, it seems many Turks are moving abroad to make new lives elsewhere. Some are <a href="https://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2018/01/turkey-turkish-refugee-flow-to-europe.html">suggesting</a> that this amounts to a “new wave” of refugees fleeing the country. </p>
<p>The truth is rather more complicated. It’s too early to call this an “exodus”; many migration concepts, such as refugee, are regularly misused, with “flows” of people often exaggerated and romanticised. But nonetheless, the <a href="https://www.politico.eu/article/turkey-failed-coup-purge-scholars-loses-its-brains/">testimonies</a> of those who’ve left and who’ve stayed, as well as the statistics recorded so far, show alarming signs. It’s clear that years of intensifying polarisation have left a certain segment of Turkish society tired of living in their country. </p>
<p>Many people in the opposition think the rule of law is being eroded, that elections are not fair, that secularism is being replaced by a creeping Islamism (especially in the education sector), and that their lifestyles are in danger. As long as this disaffection persists, more emigration from Turkey to the West seems inevitable. And if the result is a steady outflow of privileged, educated citizens, it might cause a significant brain drain, with severe long-term consequences for Turkey’s society and economy. </p>
<p>Each of Turkey’s various military coups has triggered a surge of conflict-induced emigration, and the events of 2016 fit that pattern. But at the same time, much of this migration was underway before the coup attempt. </p>
<p>While it’s very hard to put a definitive number on how many Turkish citizens have left for political reasons – whether before 2016 or after – a heavy outflow is well underway. Some media outlets claim that more than 1,000 Turkish citizens are <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2017/12/27/571842458/turks-fleeing-to-greece-find-mostly-warm-welcome-despite-history">seeking asylum</a> in Greece. In Germany, some <a href="http://www.dw.com/en/hundreds-of-turkish-officials-seek-asylum-in-germany-report/a-40949657">600 senior-ranked Turkish officials</a> have sought asylum. </p>
<p>Some <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-42433668">news sources</a> also reported the overall migration flows from Turkey to Europe during the last five years: 17,000 to the UK, 7,000 to Germany, and 5,000 to France. Numerous academic and non-academic <a href="https://www.birgun.net/haber-detay/darbe-sonrasi-beyin-gocu-133592.html">experts</a> are underlining that many who haven’t left yet are still considering it. </p>
<p>But who are these people who’ve already left? Is Turkey really facing a “brain drain”?</p>
<h2>Why are they leaving?</h2>
<p>Despite the country’s deep polarisation, the 2016 putsch met resistance from all sections of society. It was the first coup attempt in modern Turkish history to be thwarted by masses of citizens pouring into the streets, while secular army officers stayed loyal to the government. And yet, life in Turkey was never going to return to normal afterwards. </p>
<p>The coup attempt left behind a degree of trauma that’s hard to understand from abroad, and which is one of the main reasons for the so-called exodus. The government used the coup attempt as a pretext to impose a never-ending <a href="https://theconversation.com/france-turkey-and-human-rights-is-a-state-of-emergency-the-new-normal-62913">state of emergency</a>, whose provisions it has used not only to fight against putschists, but also to suppress the democratic opposition.</p>
<p>A recent <a href="https://tr.boell.org/tr/2018/01/10/olaganlasan-ohal-khklarin-yasal-mevzuat-uzerindeki-etkileri">report</a> has shown the damage that emergency decrees are causing to Turkish democracy and discussed its long-term consequences. The impotence of parliament, the lack of judicial control, and the <a href="https://theconversation.com/erdogan-declares-victory-in-his-pursuit-of-one-man-rule-76032">controversial 2017 referendum</a> to greatly enhance the president’s power, which Erdoğan won by a tiny margin – all these have left a great many Turks hopeless enough to leave.</p>
<p>The emigrants who usually make the headlines are putschists seeking asylum in countries such as Greece. Their applications have caused <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-turkey-security-greece/turkey-says-doesnt-want-greece-to-become-safe-haven-for-coup-plotters-idUSKBN1CT1VM">serious tensions</a> between the Greek and Turkish governments. Some might claim that there is a need to draw a demarcation line between those and the others who are leaving: among the ones who left are very probably people who were members of the Gülen Movement, which is <a href="https://www.vox.com/2016/7/16/12204456/gulen-movement-explained">blamed</a> for the coup attempt, whereas other citizens leaving now have nothing to do with this movement but are obliged to bear the consequences of its activities. </p>
<p>In fact, the Gülen movement’s elite began to leave the country long before the coup, when their relationship with the AKP government began to deteriorate. Some of the ones who stayed are now trying to leave, sometimes resorting desperate measures; at the end of 2017, one <a href="http://greece.greekreporter.com/2017/11/22/bodies-of-family-fleeing-persecution-found-on-lesvos-turkish-media-says/">family</a> drowned in the Mediterranean. </p>
<h2>Starting again</h2>
<p>Other specific groups are under pressure too. After the government and judiciary cracked down on more than a thousand academics who signed a <a href="http://criticallegalthinking.com/2017/12/11/trials-begin-turkey-academics-peace/">petition </a> to call the government to end its security operations in south-east Turkey, many of the signatories applied for scholarships or found jobs abroad, and they left the country. It is <a href="https://www.npr.org/2018/01/04/575682505/turkish-government-crackdown-forces-intellectuals-to-flee">claimed</a> that 698 of them applied for scholarships from the international network <a href="https://www.scholarsatrisk.org/">Scholars at Risk</a> in order to find a temporary academic position elsewhere. Some of those academics are also applying for asylum abroad as their passports have been annulled.</p>
<p>There is also an increasing tendency for secular, white collar university graduates to look for job opportunities abroad. Some wealthy citizens purchase property in Spain, Portugal or Greece to obtain European resident permits. It’s now common on Turkish TV to see commercials from estate agents offering so-called <a href="http://www.goldenvisas.com/portugal/">golden visas</a> (a visa through wealth or investment in real estate). Golden visas provide a safe way for the privileged to escape.</p>
<p>Some of the emigrants are finding jobs abroad before they leave; others are testing the waters by immigrating temporarily to try their luck at making a life elsewhere. As the Turkish diaspora grows, it increasingly reflects the contours of the various conflicts at home. </p>
<p>This is not without its complications. Naturally, some who left don’t want to engage with politics at all, preferring to make a fresh start. But for the Gülenists, things aren’t so simple. They are marginalised by the diaspora more generally, as many opposition groups remember how the Gülenists persecuted them when they still had good relations with the government.</p>
<p>It’s crucial not to neglect the dissenting who remain in Turkey, whether or not they have the means to leave. They are resisting the state of emergency while trying to push the government to lift it and restore democratic principles. Their stories matter – and not least since they have more leverage in pushing their country towards a more democratic future.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/90197/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Yes, a lot of Turkish citizens are looking for a chance to start new lives abroad – but not all of them are doing it for the same reasons.Bahar Baser, Research Fellow, Coventry UniversityEmre Eren Korkmaz, Post-doctoral Researcher in Migration and Refugees, University of OxfordLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/779092017-07-05T06:16:57Z2017-07-05T06:16:57ZFight or flight? For young people in Venezuela, that is the question<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/176670/original/file-20170703-32624-1bap9hc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Those who've stayed in Venezuela are there to fight.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://flic.kr/p/NACRpx">Hugo Londoño/flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><a href="https://theconversation.com/marchar-o-migrar-para-los-jovenes-en-venezuela-esa-es-la-pregunta-97834"><em>Leer en español</em></a>.</p>
<p>Daily marches against the government of Nicolás Maduro are <a href="http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/05/31/530778696/as-venezuela-enters-3rd-month-of-protests-anti-maduro-ire-finds-new-target">in their third month</a>, with people marching daily on the streets of Caracas, Maracaibo, San Cristóbal, Valencia and many other cities.</p>
<p>Dressed in tee shirts and red-blue-and-yellow hats or shrouded in the tricolor Venezuelan flag, young people, women and retirees demonstrate by the thousands, carrying signs saying “Don’t shoot!” and shouting <em>Sí se puede, sí se puede</em>, “Our weapon is the constitution!” and “Who are we? Venezuela! What do we want? Freedom!”</p>
<p>At least 79 people – including passers-by and security forces – have died in the daily exercises of democratic participation that began in April. Among the dead are <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jun/20/venezuela-protester-killed-demonstrations">a 17-year-old protester</a> shot in mid-June and a 25-year-old man <a href="https://www.nst.com.my/world/2017/07/254776/venezuela-prosecutor-snubs-court-defying-government-crisis">killed July 4 in Tariba</a>.</p>
<p>Once called <em>la generación dormida</em> – “the asleep generation” – Venezuelans born in the prosperous, democratic 1980s are now very much awake. As living conditions shift from precarious to intolerable, they face a critical decision: do they stay or do they go?</p>
<h2>Chavismo’s bitter end</h2>
<p>Since at least 2013 when Maduro was elected, the country has been a laboratory for bad public policy. </p>
<p>Following the implosion of “<a href="https://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/1834">21st-century Socialism</a>”, the 15-year-old economic, social and political system established by Hugo Chávez, the current administration has proven itself inept at economic management but adept at polarising society, <a href="https://worldjusticeproject.org/sites/default/files/documents/RoLI_Final-Digital_0.pdf">exacerbating violence</a> and truncating the dreams of its population.</p>
<p>Many thousands <a href="https://theconversation.com/thousands-flee-violence-and-hunger-in-venezuela-seeking-asylum-in-the-united-states-74495">have fled Venezuela, seeking a better life</a>. Venezuela does not publicly circulate emigration information, but estimates suggest that between 700,000 and two million Venezuelans have emigrated since 1999. That leaves the majority of Venezuela’s 31 million people in country, either by choice or by necessity. </p>
<p><a href="https://es.panampost.com/diego-sanchez/2016/12/23/venezuela-peor-seguridad-juridica/">Now they are fighting for the future of their country</a>, marching every day, despite knowing that this government is trying to silence dissidence through excessive use of force. </p>
<p>Young professionals go to work every day (if they still have jobs) to put food on the table and plan for what will follow the “<a href="https://www.opendemocracy.net/democraciaabierta/orlando-ochoa/venezuela-el-d-despu-s">pacted transition</a>” that many see as the most likely way out of the current chaos.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"881240747265097728"}"></div></p>
<h2>The aspirations of Venezuelan youth</h2>
<p>Emigration was on my mind in 2016 when I conducted research on my own students, interviewing 360 students from nine different university departments, ranging from engineering to medicine, who would graduate from the Central University of Venezuela (UCV) in the 2017-2018 academic year. </p>
<p>The anonymous survey, which was circulated on social media and via professors, asked these young Venezuelans about their individual well-being, post-college plans and whether they intended to emigrate. </p>
<p>Of the respondents, 62% were women, 72% were aged 24 or under, 92% were single and 83% still lived with their families.</p>
<p>The final report, The Individual Aspirations and International Migration Options of Students in Venezuela’s Central University, **was published in **Spanish in the February 2018 issue of the journal <em><a href="http://ess.iesalc.unesco.org.ve/ess3/index.php/ess/issue/view/44">La Revista Educación Superior y Sociedad</a></em>. </p>
<p>My results indicate that 65% of the students are not living the life they’d like to lead, do not believe that their life circumstances are good and they are not satisfied with their current situation. </p>
<p>Perhaps surprisingly for people of this age, 100% said they know what they want in the future and have a life plan in mind. If they cannot achieve it, 90% said they would leave Venezuela, the vast majority of them doing so to escape the country’s terrible psychosocial climate and its political polarisation. </p>
<p>One 23-year-old male law student, scheduled to graduate in 2018, said “one can’t live without hope…going hungry, with a miserable salary, as the money that should go to us is given to other countries while we are left without protection.”</p>
<p>A 22-year-old female science student, also from the class of 2018, said, “The <a href="http://www.elnuevoherald.com/noticias/mundo/america-latina/venezuela-es/article5119212.html">crime</a> and economic limitations affect me considerably…living like this does not fulfil my expectations.” </p>
<h2>Rescuing the future</h2>
<h2>Rescuing the future</h2>
<p>These findings differ enormously from a survey done just a few years ago. When the Ministry of Youth did its annual survey of young people in 2013, only <a href="http://www.inj.gob.ve/images/pdfs/ResultadosEnjuve2013.pdf">23% of young people wanted to leave Venezuela</a>. </p>
<p>Tellingly, no new results have been published since 2013. One can only assume that either this government survey has not been done since, or that (unfavourable) results have not been publicised.</p>
<p>In 2014, the Institute for Economic and Social Research at the Andres Bello Catholic University was looking into <a href="http://prodavinci.com/2014/07/10/actualidad/27-datos-sobre-la-juventud-en-venezuela-segun-el-estudio-del-iies-de-la-ucab-por-albinson-linares/">the democratic participation of Venezuela’s youth</a>. Researchers then found that 27% of those interviewed had considered emigrating at some point, primarily to improve their economic situation or further their studies.</p>
<p>Today, my survey and the (admittedly impossible-to-confirm) figures on Venezuelan immigration and asylum-seekers indicate that the majority of young people now want to leave the country. </p>
<p>So why are so many of them still here?</p>
<p>Many who’ve stayed are fighting for the future of their nation. Those who face rubber bullets and tear gas every day are marching for the ones who have left, for the disillusioned true believers of this political project, for the defrauded and the hungry and those tormented by poverty. </p>
<p>As the prominent Venezuelan thinker Moises Naim <a href="http://elpais.com/elpais/2017/05/13/opinion/1494697154_543336.html">wrote</a> in El Pais on May 13, “the list of the Chávez regime’s failures is long, and Venezuelans know it; 90% of the population repudiates Maduro.” </p>
<p>There are practical limits to pulling up stakes, too. Not everyone who wants to emigrate has the means to do so or somewhere to go. </p>
<p>My study showed that the youth of Venezuela consider leaving because they see that the opportunities to live, work and achieve their dreams at home have become scarce. Their chances of living a good and fulfilling life, they think, are better abroad.</p>
<p>But the average Venezuelan currently living in the United States aged 25 or older has had <a href="https://www.revistavenezolana.com/2016/10/nivel-educativo-emigrantes-venezolanos-destaca-eeuu/">11 years of schooling</a>, which is two more than the average Venezuelan living in the countryside. Perhaps young people here know that their education level will not necessarily set them up for success in other nations. </p>
<p>As the columnist Carlos Jesús Rivas Pérez wrote in a <a href="http://enelvigia.com.ve/2016/07/09/respuesta-se-quiera-ir-venezuela-se-vaya-sin-titulo/">controversial</a> <a href="https://www.aporrea.org/educacion/a230471.html">June 2016 article</a>, “For those who want to leave Venezuela – just leave! But you’re going without a degree”.</p>
<p>The Venezuelans who’ve remained – young and old, men and women – march for the country they once knew and the things they no longer have, protesting Venezuela’s social and economic unravelling and digging deep into their <a href="http://www.gentiuno.com/14/05/2017/luis-jose-uzcategui-explosion-de-salud-mental-en-venezolanos/#more">right to protest, assemble and express themselves</a>. </p>
<p>You just can’t do that from abroad.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/77909/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Emilio Osorio Alvarez does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>As democracy unravels and hunger spreads, Venezuelan youth must decide whether to join the resistance or build their lives abroad.Emilio Osorio Alvarez, Professor of Migration and Population Studies, Universidad Central de VenezuelaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/799522017-06-26T14:57:30Z2017-06-26T14:57:30ZFinland’s brain drain: what happens to small countries when the talent leaves?<p>Young Finnish professionals are <a href="http://www.migrationinstitute.fi/fi/web/finns-abroad-new-forms-mobility-and-migration">attracted to</a> major European capitals. They move to Stockholm, Berlin and Amsterdam, as well as farther away. The sun shines in Dubai; the world’s top organisations and institutes are in New York and Washington. The occupations of these migrants are manifold: bankers, graphic designers, computer engineers, photographers and researchers, to name only a few. </p>
<p>They leave Finland <a href="http://www.migrationinstitute.fi/fi/web/finns-abroad-new-forms-mobility-and-migration">because of</a> poor employment opportunities and future prospects. This has been happening for a long time. Finns were moving to North America 100 years ago and to Sweden after World War II – in both cases because growing economies needed factory workers. </p>
<p>The difference with today’s migrants is <a href="http://www.migrationinstitute.fi/fi/web/finns-abroad-new-forms-mobility-and-migration">they are</a> better <a href="http://www.migrationinstitute.fi/files/pdf/artikkelit/suomalaiset_maailmalla_-_katsaus_suomen_siirtolaisuuteen_kautta_aikain.pdf">educated</a> and leaving a welfare state that <a href="http://stat.fi/ajk/satavuotiassuomi/suomimaailmankarjessa_en.html">ranks as</a> one of the best places to live in the world according to most indices. The likelihood of them returning has nevertheless fallen sharply. Why?</p>
<p>I conducted <a href="http://www.migrationinstitute.fi/files/pdf/siirtolaisuus-migration/sm_2_2017_nettiin.pdf">a survey</a> of Finns living abroad aged 20 to 40 along with the Helsinki-based journalist Johannes Niemeläinen. Of 799 survey respondents, only 19% saw returning as a likely option. This was down more than 20 percentage points on a <a href="http://www.migrationinstitute.fi/files/siirtolaisuustutkimuksia_a30_esr_1.pdf">2006 survey</a>, which had also included retirees who had settled abroad. When we compared only 20 to 40-year-olds, the decline was even sharper.</p>
<p>This comes at a time when working-age emigration from Finland has steadily increased. The net loss of about 2,000 citizens in 2015 <a href="http://www.stat.fi/index_en.html">was almost</a> four times that of 2009, and over half were university educated. Interestingly, the majority of leavers were women. Put together, we are talking about a case of brain drain that could have severe consequences.</p>
<h2>The broken circle</h2>
<p>A <a href="https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/30083992.pdf">recent study</a> of international perceptions of Finns working abroad found them to be highly adaptable, linguistically talented and sought after. The Finnish welfare state clearly provides its citizens with the skills and education to make it in the world. </p>
<p>The government’s logic has long been that a well-trained, healthy workforce will return the favour later in life. Emigrants are supposed to come home with broader minds and international experience and contacts, to the benefit of the economy as a whole. All countries become embedded in the global economy one citizen at a time, goes the thinking. </p>
<p>But why would they go back? The cracks in Finland’s supposed virtuous circle are all too apparent. The country <a href="http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/Migration_and_migrant_population_statistics">attracts fewer</a> immigrants from elsewhere in the EU than its Scandinavian peers. Even Helsinki does not keep up with the competition, with the number of highly educated 30 to 34-year-olds in decline. In other northerly capitals such as Copenhagen, Stockholm and London, the opposite <a href="http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/Migration_and_migrant_population_statistics">is the case</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/175578/original/file-20170626-7749-1vdfnxr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/175578/original/file-20170626-7749-1vdfnxr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/175578/original/file-20170626-7749-1vdfnxr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/175578/original/file-20170626-7749-1vdfnxr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/175578/original/file-20170626-7749-1vdfnxr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/175578/original/file-20170626-7749-1vdfnxr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=473&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/175578/original/file-20170626-7749-1vdfnxr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=473&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/175578/original/file-20170626-7749-1vdfnxr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=473&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Copenhagen: brain gain.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.goodfreephotos.com/denmark/copenhagen/rooftop-view-of-copenhagen.jpg.php">Jens Peter</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Finland’s problem is not directly comparable to the mass migrations of workers in the past, driven by vast demographic, political and economic upheaval from the likes of the world wars. It is also not the same as the ongoing worldwide migration that we see from poorer to better off countries – which sadly now includes the likes of Spain and Greece. </p>
<p>Instead, it speaks to larger structural changes in the postwar welfare state. Everything from retiring baby boomers to the rising cost of healthcare to the economic crisis have forced the Finnish state to cut back. The damage to the <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-35656150">economy</a> and the <a href="http://vm.fi/valtion-budjetti">education system</a> has encouraged young people to move abroad. </p>
<p>Several high-profile academics have left Finland in protest at the <a href="https://www.helsinki.fi/en/news/new-government-tripping-up-higher-education-in-finland">circa €500m (£439m)</a> cuts to higher education. Echoing this, we found that the likelihood of emigrants returning is down most sharply among PhD holders – a decrease of 36 percentage points since 2006. These academics tended to point to a direct correlation between cuts to education and their attitude to working in Finland. With other sectors, we found the same kind of attitudes. </p>
<p>This illustrates that in the end, the question of returning home boils down to employment. And as Finland celebrates 100 years of independence, most respondents felt that the experience they have acquired abroad won’t translate into better employment back home.</p>
<h2>The greater threat</h2>
<p>Small welfare states like Finland are more dependent on their educated workforce than more market-driven countries. If they don’t educate enough new people or recruit them from elsewhere, it will create structural problems for the welfare economy <a href="http://www.emeraldinsight.com/doi/abs/10.1108/IJSE-05-2014-0092">such as</a> the <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/tie.20439/abstract;jsessionid=F439D9A85F6335E1FB9FCC082F631B01.f04t04?wol1URL=/doi/10.1002/tie.20439/abstract&regionCode=GB-EN&identityKey=50959745-9e94-4e62-8fef-a764812cce8b">loss of</a> foreign investment. </p>
<p>And in a system that is heavily funded by the central government, cutbacks affect everyone much more than in a country where government spending is more concentrated on the poorest. This increases the chances of the most talented people leaving, which in turn risks undermining the country’s networks of knowledge and productive social relationships – often described as <a href="https://www.oecd.org/insights/37966934.pdf">social capital</a>. This forms the foundation of the whole welfare regime and acts as a buffer against external shocks, so there is a risk of system-wide effects. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/175259/original/file-20170622-16449-1w3gliu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/175259/original/file-20170622-16449-1w3gliu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/175259/original/file-20170622-16449-1w3gliu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=697&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/175259/original/file-20170622-16449-1w3gliu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=697&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/175259/original/file-20170622-16449-1w3gliu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=697&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/175259/original/file-20170622-16449-1w3gliu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=876&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/175259/original/file-20170622-16449-1w3gliu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=876&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/175259/original/file-20170622-16449-1w3gliu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=876&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Living in Finn.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-illustration/finland-map-3d-illustration-548537263?src=X9k5icPdFfcEJ1XlxS3ItQ-1-56">Yodchai Promduang</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Coupled with further pressure on the welfare state from the ageing population, these developments have the potential to spiral irreversibly. We can liken this to oil leaking from an engine: it does not affect the machinery immediately, but over time it could damage it beyond repair. </p>
<p>What then is the solution? In 16 follow-up interviews, we found our young professional respondents remained tremendously proud of the Finnish welfare regime and worried about it. They might have been drawn overseas, but they still very much believed in the system from which they had come. </p>
<p>This points to the possibility of new forms of solidarity and welfarism that might yet somehow benefit countries like Finland. Tapping into this requires thinking beyond the nation state, create new transnational welfare regimes either by reaching out to emigrants or by cooperating with similar countries. This would of course be a radical shift. It may be necessary to prevent this brain drain problem from turning into a full-blown catastrophe. </p>
<hr>
<p><em>This article is part of a series on sustainability and transformation in today’s Europe, published in collaboration with <a href="http://www.europenowjournal.org">EuropeNow Journal</a> and the <a href="https://councilforeuropeanstudies.org">Council for European Studies (CES)</a> at Columbia University. Each article is based on a paper presented at the <a href="https://councilforeuropeanstudies.org/conferences/upcoming-conferences/2017-ces-conference">24th International Conference of Europeanists</a> in Glasgow.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/79952/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Juho Korhonen does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>This problem masks a greater threat to the welfare state than it first appears.Juho Korhonen, PhD Researcher, Brown UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/698352016-12-19T10:13:55Z2016-12-19T10:13:55ZDo we all have a right to cross borders?<p>In early December, British foreign secretary Boris Johnson was <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/dec/01/boris-johnson-denies-privately-supporting-principle-of-free-movement">forced</a> to deny <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/nov/30/boris-johnson-backed-free-movement-in-private-talks-ambassadors-say">reports</a> that he’d told a group of ambassadors he was personally in favour of the free movement of people across the European Union. </p>
<p>Given his previous negative public statements on the issue, reports of his private support for the principle, which allows all EU citizens to move freely around the bloc, came as a surprise. Speaking to a Czech newspaper in mid-November, he had <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/nov/15/britain-probably-leaving-eu-customs-union-says-boris-johnson">rubbished</a> the idea that free movement is a central principle of the EU and denied that “every human being has some fundamental God-given right to move wherever they want”. </p>
<p>Many were quick to point out that Johnson was confused on a matter of law. The EU parliament’s lead Brexit negotiator Guy Verhofstadt <a href="https://twitter.com/GuyVerhofstadt/status/798589132264116224">quipped</a> on Twitter that he would bring a copy of the <a href="http://www.gleichstellung.uni-freiburg.de/dokumente/treaty-of-rome">1957 Treaty of Rome</a>, the treaty establishing the European Economic Community (later the EU), to the negotiations to correct Johnson. Article 3 of the treaty proposes the abolition of “obstacles to freedom of movement” between member states.</p>
<p>Yet while Johnson’s <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jun/25/boris-johnson-michael-gove-eu-liars">shaky grip</a> of the facts about the EU should not surprise us. His comments inadvertently touch upon a fundamental moral issue that often gets overlooked in debates around immigration: whether there is a fundamental human right to move. </p>
<h2>The right to immigrate</h2>
<p>Talk of building walls, taking back control and “legitimate concerns” over immigration implicitly assume that states have a right to exclude who they wish. Yet among moral and political philosophers there is no consensus on the legitimacy of border controls and <a href="http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/lsereviewofbooks/2016/04/22/book-review-migration-in-political-theory-the-ethics-of-movement-and-membership-edited-by-sarah-fine-and-lea-ypi/">important arguments</a> have been made for a human right to immigrate.</p>
<p>Those who take this position are not necessarily committed to an anarchist perspective that rejects the very idea of states – though free movement was an important demand for radical <a href="http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674006713">philosophers</a> linked to what’s known as the “alter-globalisation” movement. Instead, some <a href="http://crookedtimber.org/2014/05/26/book-symposium-on-joseph-carenss-the-ethics-of-immigration/">argue</a> for freedom of movement based on the logical and consistent extension of mainstream democratic values.</p>
<p>Under existing international human rights law, Article 13.1 of the <a href="http://www.un.org/en/universal-declaration-human-rights/">Universal Declaration of Human Rights</a> contains a right to freedom of movement for individuals within states, but there is no such right to freedom of movement between states.</p>
<p>We tend to think of the right to free movement within a state as an essential freedom. If the government banned you from visiting and settling in certain parts of the country you would rightly feel outraged. The government would be denying you the choice of where to live and study, who you can form relationships with, who you can associate with on a religious or political basis, and it would be denying you a range of important economic opportunities. These are fundamental choices that affect how our lives are lived.</p>
<p>But notice that these very same considerations also apply to freedom of movement across borders. In today’s globalised world, restricting your right to move across borders is not so very different from confining you to the boundaries of Yorkshire, say, or Seattle.</p>
<h2>Citizenship in an age of growing inequality</h2>
<p>Perhaps the strongest argument, however, concerns the brute injustice of the world’s current border regime. Those born into prosperous states enjoy life prospects virtually unknown to would-be migrants in poorer parts of the world who are condemned to lives of poverty and destitution.</p>
<p>This fact seems morally arbitrary if we accept the basic equality of human beings. In the words of <a href="http://philosophyfaculty.ucsd.edu/faculty/rarneson/phil267fa12/aliens%20and%20citizens.pdf">the philosopher</a> Joseph Carens, citizenship in Western liberal democracies is: “The modern equivalent of feudal privilege … an inherited status that greatly enhances one’s life chances.”</p>
<p>Global inequality has been <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/global-development-professionals-network/2016/apr/08/global-inequality-may-be-much-worse-than-we-think?CMP=share_btn_tw">increasing dramatically</a> over the past few decades. According to World Bank <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/global-development-professionals-network/2016/apr/08/global-inequality-may-be-much-worse-than-we-think?CMP=share_btn_tw">figures</a>, American citizens were 72 times richer than sub-Saharan Africans and 80 times richer than south Asians by the year 2000. </p>
<p>The argument for a right to move is strengthened further when we consider how wealthy, Western states have profited from colonial relationships with many of the very same countries migrants are fleeing. These same states are among those who now set the rules of the global economy to their own advantage thanks to power imbalances in the World Trade Organisation, International Monetary Fund and World Bank.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.unhcr.org/1951-refugee-convention.html">Refugee law</a> currently affords no protections to those escaping life-threatening poverty since it limits the definition of “refugee” to those fleeing persecution.</p>
<p>In these circumstances, the “illegal” crossing of borders, which so preoccupies the newly-elected Donald Trump and right-wing populists across Europe, might actually be considered a justifiable form of resistance and civil disobedience against the economic injustice of the global order.</p>
<h2>Is a right to move plausible?</h2>
<p>Many will be tempted to dismiss these arguments as the utopian fantasies of philosophers which fly in the face of basic common sense. Or they might point to the unacceptable level of cost and disruption which they predict will be the consequence of opening borders.</p>
<p>Yet we should reflect on the fact that many previous injustices, such as the institution of slavery, seemed like common sense at the time. The arguments given back then <a href="http://www.discoveringbristol.org.uk/slavery/against-slavery/campaign-against-slave-trade/debate/against-abolition/">against abolition</a> – based on its likely cost and disruption to slave-owning societies – seem perverse and wholly unconvincing today.</p>
<p>A more principled argument for restrictive border controls could be mounted on the basis of a state’s right to self-determination or on the purported rights of a nation to preserve its cultural identity. Some philosophers, such as the British political theorist David Miller, have <a href="http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/lsereviewofbooks/2016/09/06/book-review-strangers-in-our-midst-the-political-philosophy-of-immigration-by-david-miller/">attempted</a> arguments along these lines.</p>
<p>But I think these philosophical arguments against a right to move are ultimately unconvincing. They fail to give sufficient weight to the essential interest that all of us have in being able to live, love, study, work and settle without being restricted by the coercive and often violent imposition of borders. In the context of massive inequality, the current border regime is even more unjustified, akin to the arbitrary and anti-human character of a global caste system. </p>
<p>Those who believe in more open borders are currently on the political defensive in Britain and elsewhere. With much of the debate framed in narrow terms around migrant “skills” and “economic contributions”, it is important not to lose sight of immigration as a moral issue.</p>
<p>If we approach it in this way, we will surely conclude that the current border regime is unjust and indefensible.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/69835/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Guy Aitchison currently receives funding from the Irish Research Council for a project entitled 'Citizenship at the margins: the case of migrant activism'. </span></em></p>In an unequal, globalised world, should we be able to move between states as freely as we can within them?Guy Aitchison, Post-Doctoral Researcher, School of Politics and International Relations, University College DublinLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/670932016-11-15T11:15:13Z2016-11-15T11:15:13ZBritain’s obsession with net migration makes it a global anomaly<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/145806/original/image-20161114-5101-136dbs0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption"></span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">1000 Words/Shutterstock.com</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Ever since David Cameron pledged to significantly <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/generalelection/tory-immigration-pledge-failed-spectacularly-as-figures-show-net-migration-nearly-three-times-as-10071710.html">reduce net migration</a> back in 2010, the term has featured prominently within British political and media debates. The Vote Leave campaign made net migration a central theme in the 2016 referendum on Britain’s EU membership, and migration continues to be one of the <a href="http://www.migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/projects/migration-and-brexit/">most contentious issues</a> in British politics. </p>
<p>In basic terms, <a href="https://stats.oecd.org/glossary/detail.asp?ID=6639">net migration</a> is the difference between the number of people arriving to and leaving from an area within a given period of time. On a national scale, it is the balance of immigration and emigration. So if the net migration value is positive it means more people have immigrated to a country than emigrated. Conversely, if the value is negative, more people would have emigrated than immigrated. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationandmigration/internationalmigration/bulletins/migrationstatisticsquarterlyreport/august2016">latest figures for the UK</a> estimate that net migration in 2015 was +327,000, with roughly twice as many people arriving from abroad than leaving.</p>
<p>The current government’s policy is to reduce net migration below 100,000. But the Office for Budget Responsibility <a href="http://cdn.budgetresponsibility.org.uk/March2016EFO.pdf">projected in March 2016</a> that the net migration rate will be 185,000 in 2021. The UK is the only country in Europe with an official maximum net migration target.</p>
<p>Net migration in the UK is monitored by the Office of National Statistics (ONS), which uses the international standard designation <a href="http://unstats.un.org/unsd/demographic/sconcerns/migration/migrmethods.htm">of long-term migrant</a> (LTM) to classify immigrants and emigrants in the UK. LTM’s are defined as people who resettle in a new country for a period of at least a year. The number of LTM’s arriving and leaving Britain is calculated through the <a href="https://www.ons.gov.uk/surveys/informationforhouseholdsandindividuals/householdandindividualsurveys/internationalpassengersurveyips">International Passenger Survey</a>, which has been used since 1961 to collect data from travellers arriving and leaving the UK. </p>
<p>The ONS crosschecks its net migration figures with data from the national census. After the last census in 2011, the ONS published adjusted figures for the period 2001 to 2011 that <a href="http://www.migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/resources/briefings/immigration-by-category-workers-students-family-members-asylum-applicants/">showed</a> overall net migration in that decade was significantly higher than its <a href="https://www.migrationwatchuk.org/briefing-paper/304">statistics had initially suggested</a>. For example, in 2008 the ONS estimated net migration at 163,000, while the revised figure using the 2011 census data estimated it was actually 229,000.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/145802/original/image-20161114-5078-2w1p6u.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/145802/original/image-20161114-5078-2w1p6u.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/145802/original/image-20161114-5078-2w1p6u.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/145802/original/image-20161114-5078-2w1p6u.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/145802/original/image-20161114-5078-2w1p6u.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/145802/original/image-20161114-5078-2w1p6u.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/145802/original/image-20161114-5078-2w1p6u.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/145802/original/image-20161114-5078-2w1p6u.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Long-term international migration to the UK, 2006 to 2016.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationandmigration/internationalmigration/bulletins/migrationstatisticsquarterlyreport/august2016">Office for National Statistics</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>How Britain compares</h2>
<p>On a global scale, <a href="https://www.cia.gov/library/PUBLICATIONS/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2112rank.html">71 countries will have positive net migration in 2016</a>, according to data collated by the CIA in the US. This includes economically advanced counties such as the US, Australia, Germany and the UK but also low income countries such as Botswana and South Sudan. </p>
<p>Relative to its population, per capita net migration to the UK in 2015 was <a href="http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/tgm/table.do;jsessionid=XkMlgNIm9tm4womLExSthUJckKVf5Ca-n2NncrT1VEC16dUGLkZL!-806456694?tab=table&plugin=1&language=en&pcode=tsdde230">6.1 people per 1,000 inhabitants</a>, which places it behind a number of other northern European countries. </p>
<iframe id="datawrapper-chart-voQaM" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/voQaM/1/" frameborder="0" allowtransparency="true" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" webkitallowfullscreen="webkitallowfullscreen" mozallowfullscreen="mozallowfullscreen" oallowfullscreen="oallowfullscreen" msallowfullscreen="msallowfullscreen" width="100%" height="409"></iframe>
<p>So while the UK’s net migration rate does not stand out internationally, the debate about this number is markedly more heated than in other developed countries. Most European countries, even those with previously restrictive immigration polices such as <a href="http://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/new-german-law-skirts-comprehensive-immigration-reform">Germany</a> and <a href="http://www.migrationpolicy.org/research/shifting-focus-policies-support-labor-market-integration-new-immigrants-france">France</a>, have gradually recognised that immigration is an essential tool to address an ageing working population. Both countries have subsequently implemented more <a href="http://www.iza.org/en/webcontent/publications/reports/report_pdfs/iza_report_41.pdf">liberal immigration</a> policies, particularly in regards to <a href="https://blog.migreat.com/2015/05/22/a-start-up-visa-in-france/">skilled labour migration</a>. </p>
<p>Due to strong public pressure, British immigration policies have been presented, for the most part, <a href="https://www.migrationwatchuk.org/briefing-paper/15.3">as a way to</a> prevent demographic growth. Plans to reduce net migration <a href="http://conservativehome.blogs.com/torydiary/files/population.pdf">by current and previous Conservative governments</a> are presented as a strategy to stop the population from reaching supposed unsustainable levels that could lead to housing shortages or increase hospital waiting times. </p>
<h2>Who is coming in and out</h2>
<p>Drilling down into the overall net migration figures, they encompass four broad legal categories of migrants. First, British nationals, moving out and back into the country. Second, citizens of the <a href="http://www.migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/resources/briefings/eu-migration-to-and-from-the-uk/">European Economic Area (EEA)</a>, who have made up almost half of net migration to the UK since 2002. The UK government cannot legally place any limitations on these two groups. </p>
<p>This leaves the third group – non-EEA nationals – as the only ones that the government can currently restrict. The vast majority of <a href="https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationandmigration/internationalmigration/bulletins/migrationstatisticsquarterlyreport/august2016">non-EEA arrivals in 2015</a> were either students (204,000) and skilled professionals on work visas (166,000). </p>
<p>While students provide substantial financial contributions to <a href="http://institutions.ukcisa.org.uk/Info-for-universities-colleges--schools/Policy-research--statistics/Policy-and-lobbying/Impact-of-international-students/">British universities</a>, skilled professionals fill vital gaps in the UK labour market. From a purely <a href="https://www.parliament.uk/documents/upload/governmentresponse.pdf">economic standpoint</a>, it makes little sense to limit the migration of students and skilled workers – yet <a href="http://www.ukcisa.org.uk/studentnews/708/6-April-changes-to-the-Immigration-Rules-">significant restrictions</a> have been placed on both visa categories in recent years.</p>
<p>The fourth category is asylum seekers as well as people (spouses, children, parents) joining family members <a href="http://www.migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/resources/briefings/non-european-migration-to-the-uk-family-unification-dependents/">already settled in the UK</a>. There were 44,000 asylum seekers and 38,000 people joining family members respectively in the <a href="https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationandmigration/internationalmigration/bulletins/migrationstatisticsquarterlyreport/august2016">year to March 2016</a>. But <a href="http://www.unesco.org/new/en/social-and-human-sciences/themes/international-migration/international-migration-convention/">these two groups are legally</a> protected from immigration restrictions by international human rights norms that the UK adheres to. </p>
<h2>What Brexit would change</h2>
<p>Some politicians in the UK and some other <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/may/07/migration-crisis-italians-austria-border-fence-germany-merkel">economically advanced countries</a> are under the mistaken belief that immigration policy can be used to <a href="https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/22152/1/MPRA_paper_22152.pdf">control migration flows</a> and subsequent net migration numbers. Those campaigning for Brexit heralded the UK’s departure from the EU as a chance to take back control, including control of how many European migrants could come to Britain. </p>
<p>But the push and pull factors that influence global migratory flows are often <a href="https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:MHddFbZZKjoJ:https://www.imi.ox.ac.uk/publications/the-effectiveness-of-immigration-policies/%40%40download/file+&cd=10&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk&client=firefox-b">beyond the legislative control</a> of national immigration policies. </p>
<p>The truth is that countries with strong economies attract migrant workers. Studies have shown again and again that employment is the single biggest driver of <a href="http://www.migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/resources/commentaries/pulling-power-eu-citizens-migrating-uk/">immigration to the UK</a>, both for skilled and low-skilled workers. Should the UK withdraw from the EU single market <a href="https://theconversation.com/hard-brexit-tough-times-theresa-mays-britain-will-be-stretched-at-the-seams-66499">in a “hard Brexit”</a>, it’s possible that the changing economic circumstances and the devaluation of the British pound will serve to make Britain a less attractive destination for migrant workers from the EU and beyond.</p>
<p>Conversely, British skilled professionals and graduates could be motivated to seek career opportunities abroad. Recently both <a href="https://knoema.com/atlas/Ireland/topics/Demographics/Population/Net-migration-rate">Ireland</a> and <a href="https://knoema.com/atlas/Spain/topics/Demographics/Population/Net-migration-rate">Spain</a> have illustrated that changing economic circumstances can radically shift net migration numbers from positive to negative in less than two years. </p>
<p>Ironically, Brexit may very well facilitate a reduction of net migration numbers just as its proponents claim. But this will not be because of reclaimed national sovereignty over immigration from the EU, but because the post-Brexit economic turmoil will simply make Britain less attractive for foreign and domestic workers alike.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/67093/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jan Semmelroggen receives funding from the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada</span></em></p>Some perspective on the government’s net migration target.Jan Semmelroggen, Senior lecturer in Geography, Nottingham Trent UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/679212016-11-02T01:48:08Z2016-11-02T01:48:08ZCounting 11 million undocumented immigrants is easier than you think<p>News organizations widely report that there are 11 million unauthorized immigrants living in the United States. But where does this figure come from?</p>
<p>Donald Trump has <a href="http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2016/sep/01/donald-trump/donald-trump-repeats-pants-fire-claim-about-30-mil/">falsely</a> <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/02/us/politics/transcript-trump-immigration-speech.html?_r=0">asserted</a>: “It could be three million. It could be 30 million. They have no idea what the number is.”</p>
<p>In the third debate, Hillary Clinton <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2016/10/full-transcript-third-2016-presidential-debate-230063#ixzz4OffyXX4a">said</a>, “We have 11 million undocumented people. They [undocumented parents] have 4 million American citizen children. 15 million people.”</p>
<p>The confusion is warranted. After all, the U.S. Census Bureau does not ask people about their immigration status, so how can we know much about the unauthorized foreign-born population?</p>
<p>Well, demographers have figured out a simple and effective way to estimate the number of unauthorized immigrants. In the last five years, my colleagues Frank D. Bean, James D. Bachmeier and I have conducted a <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/imre.12059/full">series</a> <a href="http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13524-014-0280-2">of</a> <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3783022/">studies</a> that evaluate this method and its assumptions. Our research on the methods used to estimate the size of this group indicates that these estimates are reasonably accurate. </p>
<p>Here’s how it works.</p>
<h2>A simple formula</h2>
<p>Beginning in the late 1970s, a group of demographers consisting primarily of Jeffrey Passel, Robert Warren, Jacob Siegel, Gregory Robinson and Karen Woodrow introduced the “residual method” for estimating the number of unauthorized immigrants living in the country. At the time, Passel and his collaborators were affiliated with the U.S. Bureau of the Census and Warren with the Office of Immigration Statistics of the Immigration and Naturalization Service. Much of this work was published in the form of internal reports, but some of it <a href="http://link.springer.com/article/10.1353/dem.2001.0023">appeared</a> <a href="http://link.springer.com/article/10.2307%2F2061304?LI=true">in</a> <a href="http://link.springer.com/article/10.2307/2060964">major</a> <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3744247/">journals</a>. </p>
<p>The residual method uses an estimate of the total foreign-born population in the country (F), based on U.S. Census data. Researchers then subtract from it the number of legal immigrants residing here (L), estimated from government records of legal immigrants who receive “green cards” minus the number that died or left the country. The result is an estimate of the unauthorized population (U):</p>
<blockquote>
<p>F – L = U</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Various adjustments are typically made to this formula. Most adjustments are minor, but a particularly important one adjusts for what researchers call “coverage error” among the unauthorized foreign-born. Coverage error occurs when the census data underestimate the size of a group. This can occur when people live in nonresidential or unconventional locations – such as on the streets or in a neighbor’s basement – or when they fail to respond to the census. Coverage error could be particularly high among unauthorized immigrants because they may be trying to avoid detection. </p>
<p>Currently, the Department of Homeland Security and the Pew Hispanic Center are the two major producers of estimates of the unauthorized foreign-born population. <a href="http://www.pewhispanic.org/2016/09/20/overall-number-of-u-s-unauthorized-immigrants-holds-steady-since-2009/">This report</a>, compiled by Passel, who now works at Pew, summarizes many of the estimates. It shows that the estimated number increased steadily from 3.5 million in 1990 to 12.2 million in 2007, but declined between 2007 and 2009 and has since stabilized at around 11 million. </p>
<h2>How accurate are the estimates?</h2>
<p>The residual method has been widely used and accepted since the late 1970s. Within a reasonable margin of error, it predicted the number of unauthorized immigrants to legalize under the <a href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=6&ved=0ahUKEwj5zuLz04XQAhWK5YMKHakIAtUQFghDMAU&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.migrationpolicy.org%2Fpubs%2FPolicyBrief_No3_Aug05.pdf&usg=AFQjCNFOVPKqsUXZgTniF1X2LeHb4KkKWQ&sig2=skLrfWMkId1ZSVgUBNqUAw&cad=rja">Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986</a>, which, among other things, granted permanent residency status to unauthorized immigrants who had been living in the country since 1982. The residual method predicted that about <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/283644989_DA_Evaluation_Project_D2_Preliminary_Estimates_of_Undocumented_Residents_in_1990">2.2 million</a> met the residency requirement and the actual number to come forward was about 1.7 million.</p>
<p>Both Department of Homeland Security and Pew have used the residual method to produce estimates of the unauthorized population since 2005. Despite using slightly different data and assumptions, <a href="http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/09/21/unauthorized-immigrant-population-stable-for-half-a-decade/">Pew’s</a> and the <a href="https://www.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/publications/ois_ill_pe_2012_2.pdf">Department of Homeland Security’s</a> estimates have never differed by more than 600,000 people, or 5.5 percent of the total unauthorized population.</p>
<p>Nevertheless, many skeptics question a key assumption of the residual method, which is that unauthorized immigrants participate in census surveys. Both Pew and the Department of Homeland Security inflate their estimates to account for the possibility that some unauthorized immigrants are missing from census data. Pew inflates by 13 percent and the Department of Homeland Security by 10 percent. But is this enough?</p>
<p>My colleagues and I <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4029097/">estimated coverage error</a> among Mexican immigrants, a group that composes 60 percent of all unauthorized immigrants. Even if they are not counted in a census, populations leave “fingerprints” of their presence in the form of deaths and births. Because people give birth and die with known regularity regardless of their legal status, we were able to use birth and death records of all Mexican-born persons to determine the number of the Mexican-born persons living in the U.S. We also looked at changes in Mexican census data between 1990 and 2010 to gauge the size of Mexico’s “missing” population, most of whom moved to the United States. </p>
<p>We then compared these estimates based on births, deaths and migration with the number of estimated Mexican immigrants in census data.</p>
<p>Based on this analysis, we found that the census missed as many as 26 percent of unauthorized immigrants in the early 2000s. We speculated that this could have been due to the large numbers of temporary Mexican labor migrants who were living in the United States at the time. Because many worked in construction during the housing boom and lived in temporary housing arrangements, it may have been particularly difficult to accurately account for them in census surveys. However, when the Great Recession and housing crisis hit, many of these temporary workers went home or stopped coming to the U.S. in the first place, and coverage error declined. By 2010, the coverage error may have been as low as 6 percent. </p>
<p>If current levels of coverage error for all unauthorized immigrants were as high as 26 percent, then the number living in the country could be as high as 13 million. But if coverage error were as low as 6 percent, then the figure could be as low as 10.3 million.</p>
<p>What this boils down to is that we have a pretty good idea of the number of unauthorized immigrants living in the United States. It most likely falls within a narrow range somewhere between 10.3 million and 13 million. If coverage error has declined as much as we think it has, then the truth is at the lower end of this range. Despite widespread beliefs, unauthorized immigration is not increasing out of control and certainly is not as high as 30 million. Instead, it has probably really has stabilized somewhere around 11 million.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/67921/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jennifer Van Hook received funding for her research on coverage error from the National Institutes of Health and the Science and Technology Directorate of Department of Homeland Security through the BORDERS Research Center at the University of Arizona. She is affiliated with the Population Research Institute at the Pennsylvania State University and is a non-resident fellow of the Migration Policy Institute. </span></em></p>How can we possibly know how many millions of people are living in the U.S. illegally? Demographers have actually refined a simple formula that’s worked pretty well since the 1970s.Jennifer Van Hook, Liberal Arts Research Professor of Sociology and Demography, Penn StateLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/618712016-07-26T10:43:29Z2016-07-26T10:43:29ZHope for UK nationals living abroad after Brexit<p>Britain’s decision to leave the EU has left many of its citizens wondering what their future holds. The situation is particularly worrying for the thousands of British citizens living abroad. Years of freedom of movement have coloured the European map with emigrants seeking a new life in other countries.</p>
<p>Some are retired, some are studying and some are working. Up until now, they have been entitled to the same rights as any other EU citizen. That includes access to healthcare in any EU member state and access to certain child benefits. They also have the right to support when seeking work or for housing. </p>
<p>But what happens to these hundreds of thousands of people when their home country is no longer part of the EU deal? Will they all have to come home? They are facing just as much uncertainty about their future as <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-now-for-eu-citizens-in-the-uk-61774">EU citizens in the UK</a>.</p>
<p>They are at risk of losing all their rights as EU citizens once Britain leaves the European Union. In the worst case scenario, they would have to leave the country, as they will lose the right to move and reside freely.</p>
<p>That is, of course, an extreme case, but more immediate concerns will be whether they will be denied access to public healthcare, whether students will have to start paying higher fees, and whether families could lose access to child benefits. Those working could be asked to apply a work permit of some form.</p>
<p>Article 20 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, which is one of the two main treaties establishing the European Union, states that every person holding the nationality of a member state shall be a citizen of the European Union. Taking this provision by its word means that as soon as Britain has successfully withdrawn its membership, Brits lose their European Union citizenship.</p>
<p>It will be down to the remaining 27 member states – not Britain – to decide how they interpret this rule. They will determine the status of Brits abroad and the rights that come with that status.</p>
<p>They might offer special status for a period of time, allowing UK citizens to stay where they are. They might, however, tie that to certain requirements such as <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/expat/education-and-family/brits-insist-uk-immigrants-speak-english---so-why-dont-expats-in/">language</a> skills or the role the people in question play in their host society. Brits can always aim to naturalise into their host country, but that of course is a significant commitment.</p>
<h2>A special case</h2>
<p>They might be glad to hear, though, that the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) has dealt with a similar situation and passed a judgement that might help them make their case. </p>
<p>This is the case of <a href="http://ec.europa.eu/dgs/legal_service/arrets/08c135_en.pdf">Janko Rottmann</a>, a former Austrian citizen who ran into some trouble when trying to become German. </p>
<p>Rottmann lost his Austrian nationality when he became a German citizen – as under Austrian law, nationality is automatically revoked if a person is naturalised elsewhere. But it turned out that he had lied about his criminal convictions when applying for German citizenship. When the German authorities found out, they withdrew his citizenship, leaving Rottmann stateless.</p>
<p>It is entirely up to the national government of each European Union member state to decide how individuals gain and lose nationality. The CJEU did not question that. But connected to the nationality of a member state is the status of European Union citizenship. It had to look into whether Rottmann could be stripped of his European citizenship, too.</p>
<p>The court did eventually rule against Rottmann, but his case is still useful for Brits living abroad after Brexit. The CJEU did not allow Rottmann to keep his citizenship specifically because he had deceived the authorities. His criminal behaviour was what stood in his way. </p>
<p>The court is actually always keen to emphasise how European Union citizenship is fundamental and it did so in Rottmann’s case. It was only his criminal behaviour in the naturalisation process that allowed the member states to effectively withdraw his European Union citizenship status.</p>
<p>This is where the situation of British people living abroad differs significantly. They will not have had their nationality withdrawn due to criminal behaviour. They would be finding themselves in a unique position, where the state whose nationality they hold withdraws from the European Union and consequently strips its citizens of their European Union citizenship, including all of the rights attached to it.</p>
<p>It is uncharted territory, but what we do know, thanks to Rottmann’s case, is that the European court requires member states to justify any infringement of European Union citizenship rights. The court is clear that the <a href="http://curia.europa.eu/juris/document/document.jsf?text=&docid=75336&pageIndex=0&doclang=EN&mode=lst&dir=&occ=first&part=1&cid=586466">consequences</a> of such a decision for the person concerned need to be taken into account. This is where those who have been living abroad in Europe for years, who have retired there, who have raised their families there, should feel more at ease. The court will not easily allow their European Union citizenship rights to be withdrawn.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/61871/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Anne Wesemann does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The case of a man stripped of his EU citizenship offers some guidance for emigrants living in legally uncharted territory after the Brexit vote.Anne Wesemann, Lecturer in Law, The Open UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/512962016-01-05T11:11:02Z2016-01-05T11:11:02ZMore Mexicans are leaving the US than coming across the border<p>During the most recent Republican debate, Donald Trump declared “<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/16/us/politics/transcript-main-republican-presidential-debate.html">people are pouring</a> across the southern border.” </p>
<p>Trump is right that the United States has been a major immigrant destination since the 1960s, but if he is referring to Mexican flows today, he is wrong. </p>
<p>According to sociologists Frank Bean and Gillian Stevens, Mexican migration to the United States is “<a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=w-OFAwAAQBAJ&lpg=PP1&dq=America's%20Newcomers%20and%20the%20Dynamics%20of%20Diversity&pg=PP1#v=onepage&q=America's%20Newcomers%20and%20the%20Dynamics%20of%20Diversity&f=false">the largest sustained flow of migrant workers in the contemporary world</a>,” and Mexico is the single <a href="http://www.pewhispanic.org/2015/09/28/modern-immigration-wave-brings-59-million-to-u-s-driving-population-growth-and-change-through-2065/ph_2015-09-28_immigration-through-2065-06/">largest contributor of migrants to the United States since 1965</a>. </p>
<p>But here’s what Trump ignores: a <a href="http://www.pewhispanic.org/2015/11/19/more-mexicans-leaving-than-coming-to-the-u-s/">recent Pew Report</a> shows that more Mexicans are leaving than coming to the United States – reversing a decades-long trend. </p>
<p>The main reason for the trend is family reunification, but this migration back to Mexico is not driven by nostalgia for kin. The reasons behind it are much more <a href="http://immigrationimpact.com/2014/01/14/new-study-highlights-causes-of-return-migration-to-mexico/">complex</a>.</p>
<h2>Hard realities</h2>
<p>Mexican families have to grapple with hard economic and legal realities, and they often conclude that returning to Mexico is their best option. </p>
<p>The Pew Report looks at the years between 2009 and 2014. It combines Mexican survey data on the entry of Mexicans and their families – including American children – with US census data on Mexican entries to the United States. The report is designed to overcome the limitations of national statistics that typically ignore departures. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.pewhispanic.org/2015/11/19/more-mexicans-leaving-than-coming-to-the-u-s/">The study shows</a> a net loss of 140,000 Mexican immigrants from the United States. One million Mexican migrants and their children left the US for Mexico, while just over 860,000 left Mexico for the United States. </p>
<p>While this may seem like a desirable outcome from an immigration control perspective, it <a href="http://immigrationimpact.com/2014/01/14/new-study-highlights-causes-of-return-migration-to-mexico/">may signal problems in the US economy</a>. Among other things, it means that the children of Mexican returnees – kids who are US citizens – are leaving the country. US losses may be Mexico’s gain in a world market that <a href="http://articles.philly.com/2015-08-11/business/65419439_1_language-care-cambridge">rewards multilingual workers</a>.</p>
<p>So what is driving this “return” migration to Mexico? </p>
<h2>Going home again</h2>
<p>Respondents to one of the surveys behind the Pew Report were able to check off a box that says “<a href="http://www.inegi.org.mx/est/contenidos/proyectos/encuestas/hogares/especiales/enadid/enadid2014/doc/hogar_enadid14.pdf">reunite with the family</a>” in response to a question about “the reason for [NAME]‘s return.” </p>
<p>Six in 10 surveyed Mexicans who lived in the United States in 2009 but in Mexico by 2014 said they were moving back to reunite with family or to start a family. But this doesn’t tell us anything about what reuniting with one’s family involves. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B018RVC7X6/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?ie=UTF8&btkr=1">Research by Wayne Cornelius and colleagues</a> concurs with the Pew Report that family reunification is an important reason for return, but also suggests that Mexicans living in the US are more likely to stay when they have good jobs. </p>
<p>The evidence for this claim is an <a href="https://www.bbvaresearch.com/en/publicaciones/yearbook-of-migration-and-remittances-mexico-2015/">upward trend in remittances from the US to Mexico</a> between 2014 and 2015. Cornelius and his colleagues show that economic factors matter a great deal, even if they are not the only ones that matter in making migration decisions. </p>
<p>After all, the pull of the family has been a historical constant. Most migrants, domestic or international, pine for their relatives back home. Blues, <a href="http://www.voanews.com/content/yiddish-tango-reflects-jewish-life-in-argentina/2427342.html">Yiddish tango</a> and the letters of <a href="http://www.jaha.org/edu/discovery_center/push-pull/letterstohome.html">Polish</a> and <a href="http://archives.ihrc.umn.edu/dil/index.html">Italian immigrants</a> to relatives left behind are cultural expressions of this truism. </p>
<p>Yet missing home has not consistently driven return migration flows in the past, in the ways we’re seeing now with Mexicans. What’s driving it is changing economic, political and demographic conditions. </p>
<p>While “family reunification” may sound like a decidedly noneconomic rationale for return migration, it is not. Sociologists and economists have long <a href="http://www2.dse.unibo.it/ardeni/ESI_2013/Massey.pdf">made the case</a> that people migrate primarily in search of economic opportunities and to diversify risks and sources of income from a familial – rather than a solely individual – standpoint. </p>
<p>From this perspective, it is not surprising that the lagged effects of the 2009 recession enter the decision-making progress of both individuals and families deciding whether to migrate. </p>
<h2>Here, there and in-between</h2>
<p>The United States tends to focus on factors that pull immigrants into the country – like jobs and higher wages. It also looks at deterrents like restrictive policies. While these are critical factors in families’ decisions about migration, the return of Mexicans may be attributable more to failures in US family reunification policy than in any intentional deterrent policy. </p>
<p>Currently, Mexican family preference visas are being issued with a <a href="http://travel.state.gov/content/dam/visas/family-preference-cut-off-dates/Cut-off_Dates_Mexico_online.pdf">two-decade delay</a>. Imagine a Mexican family that planned to move to the US as a hedge against risks in the labor market and to gain access to credit markets back during the Clinton administration. A decades-long delay in getting a visa, coupled with a major recession in the US and economic improvements in Mexico, may lead to a reconsideration of these plans.</p>
<p>Mexico’s <a href="http://www.kpbs.org/news/2015/nov/23/san-diego-immigration-experts-discuss-reversing-mi/">economy has improved</a> dramatically in the last decade. This improvement has translated into new job opportunities within the country. <a href="http://www.pewhispanic.org/2012/04/23/v-mexico-by-the-numbers/">Fertility rates have decreased</a>, and the <a href="http://geo-mexico.com/?tag=birth-rate">population has aged</a>. That means there are fewer people in the age cohort most likely to migrate – those aged 18 to 35. Smaller families are a trend that will not change quickly. </p>
<p>In addition, border enforcement and dynamics between the United States and Mexico have created dangerous crossing conditions – and a <a href="https://www.dhs.gov/xlibrary/assets/statistics/publications/ois-smuggling-wp.pdf">lucrative market for smugglers</a> – that makes it more difficult for family members to come and go, and visit each other. </p>
<p>What does this mean for US immigration policy moving forward? </p>
<h2>Policy implications</h2>
<p>If we want to create policies based on empirical economic and demographic realities, our leaders need to question prescriptions based on outdated data. Despite popular sound bites from the campaign trail, Mexican immigrants are not “pouring” over the border.</p>
<p>Responsible policy-making must reflect new realities. Otherwise, we will spend billions to build walls and deploy surveillance technologies to keep out people who are not coming – not to mention that these <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-cookmartin/secure-borders-hype_b_3142488.html">strategies have rarely worked</a>. </p>
<p>Our tax dollars would be better spent integrating immigrants who are already here, managing refugees, filling shortages of less skilled workers and competing for talent on a global stage.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/51296/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Cook Martín is affiliated with the Scholars Strategy Network. </span></em></p>A recent study shows Donald Trump is out of date when he claims “people are pouring across our southern border”.David Cook Martín, Associate Professor of Sociology and Director of the Center for International Studies, Grinnell CollegeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/505022015-12-18T10:09:06Z2015-12-18T10:09:06ZThe free speech battle that forced Britain’s 18th-century radicals to flee<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/106295/original/image-20151216-25600-1k1wl38.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Paine#/media/File:Friends_of_the_People_1792_Cruikshank.jpg">Mary Mark Ockerbloom</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>While emigration into Britain has often been (and still is) associated with fear of oppression and escape from conflict, there is a general perception that emigration out of the country has been a rather more positive pursuit. Leaving Britain has long been associated with empire building, economic betterment – or retiring in the sunshine. But in fact, there also have been times when significant numbers of Britons felt the need to flee domestic persecution. </p>
<p>During the 1790s, in response to the French Revolution, a number of English political thinkers developed a reform movement in Britain. At the time, the nobility dominated both houses of parliament, and very few people had a vote. </p>
<p>Reformers set up societies throughout the country, such as the <a href="http://spartacus-educational.com/PRcorresponding.htm">London Corresponding Society</a>, and the Manchester and Sheffield Constitutional Societies. These agitated for moderate and radical reform of English government and the constitution. The most common demands were for the sovereignty of the people, fairer representation in parliament, universal male suffrage, and regular or annual parliaments. Religious tolerance was also a common addition. </p>
<p>In the early 1790s, these societies publicly congratulated France on its successful revolution. Some reformers were more radical still, visiting Paris and calling for the overthrow of all European despotic governments and universal freedom for all people – a world of revolutions. </p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/106297/original/image-20151216-25603-tkhp9d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/106297/original/image-20151216-25603-tkhp9d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=769&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/106297/original/image-20151216-25603-tkhp9d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=769&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/106297/original/image-20151216-25603-tkhp9d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=769&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/106297/original/image-20151216-25603-tkhp9d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=967&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/106297/original/image-20151216-25603-tkhp9d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=967&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/106297/original/image-20151216-25603-tkhp9d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=967&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Thomas Paine, by Matthew Pratt.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Paine#/media/File:Thomas_Paine_by_Matthew_Pratt,_1785-95.jpg">Kirby Collection</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Activists Richard Price and Thomas Paine <a href="http://www.oxforddnb.com/index/49/101049713">argued</a> that sovereignty lay in the people. Any government that did not fulfil its duty to the people, they believed, could be rightfully overthrown. In his famous work <a href="http://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/takingliberties/staritems/635painerightsofman.html">Rights of Man</a> (1791-92) Paine provocatively condemned monarchy and aristocracy and claimed that Britain had no constitution.</p>
<h2>Government crackdown</h2>
<p>The government and loyalist response to the radical movement, generated by fear and panic, was swift and dramatic. The loyalist press whipped up the negative reaction to radicalism. All English reformers were labelled <a href="http://www.britannica.com/topic/Jacobin-Club">Jacobins</a>, a term associated with French terrorists and revolutionary intent. Ordinary people signed oaths of allegiance to the king and joined loyalist marches. They burned effigies of radicals, attacked their homes and, famously, <a href="http://www.bl.uk/learning/histcitizen/21cc/utopia/methods1/priestley1/priestley.html">set fire</a> to radical dissenter Joseph Priestley’s premises in Birmingham. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/106296/original/image-20151216-25633-1p3z46g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/106296/original/image-20151216-25633-1p3z46g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=490&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/106296/original/image-20151216-25633-1p3z46g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=490&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/106296/original/image-20151216-25633-1p3z46g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=490&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/106296/original/image-20151216-25633-1p3z46g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=616&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/106296/original/image-20151216-25633-1p3z46g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=616&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/106296/original/image-20151216-25633-1p3z46g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=616&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Priestley’s home set ablaze in 1791.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Priestley#/media/File:Priestley_Riots_painting.jpg">Susan Lowndes Marques Collection</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The state stepped in and free speech was quashed. Writers, printers and publishers were arrested and prosecuted for seditious libel under a Royal Proclamation against Seditious Writings issued by George III in 1792. Paine, meanwhile, fled to France after being tried in his absence and labelled an outlaw.</p>
<p>In an attempt to suppress this wave of radicalism, prime minister William Pitt introduced draconian measures known as his <a href="http://www.bl.uk/georgian-britain/articles/popular-politics-in-the-18th-century">“Reign of Terror”</a> (1793-5). Government spies were deployed to infiltrate the radical societies in Britain and the group of British radicals in Paris who met at White’s Hotel and were labelled the “British Club”.</p>
<p>The spies sent back (mostly false) reports about regicidal toasts and plots, the arming of radicals in Sheffield, support for an invasion of England by the British Club and so on. Committees of secrecy were appointed by the government to report on radical activity. </p>
<p>In 1793, radical conventions modelled on the <a href="http://www.britannica.com/topic/National-Convention">French Convention</a> were held in Edinburgh, with the aim of creating popular political assemblies around Britain. The ringleaders were arrested, convicted of treason and transported to Australia. They were mythologised as <a href="http://www.history.org.uk/resources/he_resource_659_9.html">“the Scottish Martyrs”.</a></p>
<p>In 1794 the government suspended the Habeas Corpus law, which protects citizens from unlawful imprisonment. Radicals all over the country were pursued by officers of the law, some only just escaping in time, and some not. Fiery revolutionary <a href="http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S0021937114001038">Henry Redhead Yorke</a> was arrested at Hull as he was about to leave for America, while Joseph Gales, proprietor of the radical <a href="http://shura.shu.ac.uk/4075/1/phdthesisfinalversion16nov2011.pdf">Sheffield Register</a>, managed to leave in time and emigrated to Philadelphia with his wife. </p>
<h2>Taking flight</h2>
<p>A number of leading English radicals were arrested and charged with high treason for which the punishment was to be hung, drawn and quartered. They were examined before the Privy Council and tried at what became known as the <a href="http://ehr.oxfordjournals.org/content/C/CCCXCVII/801.citation">“Treason Trials” in 1794</a>. All were acquitted (perhaps the jury were too squeamish to convict.)</p>
<p>But Yorke was not so lucky: he was left to languish in prison until July 1795, when he was convicted of seditious conspiracy and sentenced to two further years. His charge was reduced from treason and the trial packed with special jurors to ensure that this time, the government got what it wanted. </p>
<p>That same year, the so-called “Two” or “Gagging” acts were <a href="http://ehr.oxfordjournals.org/content/C/CCCXCVII/801.citation">passed</a>, restricting the right to hold public meetings – and more ominously, to extend the definition of treason to “imagining” the king’s death. Radicalism was effectively suppressed and forced underground, and many prominent radicals fled the country, mostly to North America. </p>
<p>This gives pause for thought at a time when the last Briton has just been released from Guantanamo Bay and new laws on <a href="https://theconversation.com/extremist-activity-dont-even-think-about-it-in-this-pre-crime-state-42649">surveillance and terrorism</a> hover in the wings. Is legislation that criminalises “imaginings” once again on the horizon? </p>
<p>Britain, these days, is often seen as wrapped in the warm blanket of Western civilisation: a place where Enlightenment influenced humanitarianism, rights of free speech, the rule of law, and a longstanding democracy to keep citizens safe from tyranny. But history shows that such rights and freedoms must still be defended. Government suppression is rarely as far off as you might think.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/50502/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Amanda Goodrich does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>You might think today’s government is harsh, but the 1790s were a tough time for those who wanted to speak their mind.Amanda Goodrich, Lecturer in eighteenth-century history, The Open UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/503462015-11-11T15:31:35Z2015-11-11T15:31:35ZBrooklyn review: a touching and timely tale of the migrant experience<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/101556/original/image-20151111-21206-ocei0f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Lionsgate</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>John Crowley’s adaptation of Colm Tóibín’s Costa-winning novel <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2381111/">Brooklyn</a> is timely. As the centenary of 1916’s Easter Rising approaches, the film’s exploration of the emigrant experience in America plays into a wider interrogation of the Irish Republic’s successes and failures. </p>
<p>Saoirse Ronan plays Eilis Lacey, a young woman from Tóibín’s native Enniscorthy who emigrates to America in the early 1950s. Aided by her self-sacrificing sister Rose (Fiona Glascott) and sponsored by the avuncular Father Flood (Jim Broadbent), Eilis makes a fresh start at Bartocci & Company – like the real-life Macy’s, a flagship department store on Fulton Street. </p>
<p>Her passage to New York isn’t glamorised. Unlike in James Cameron’s <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120338/">Titanic</a> film, there’s no joyous steerage céilí. Instead, we’re offered a wry, claustrophobic and messy take on the discomforts of third-class travel.</p>
<p>Upon arrival, we witness Eilis’s gradual adjustment to her new life. Meticulous art direction captures the allure of unfamiliar urban surroundings, from nylon stockings to pasta, candy floss to cat-eye sunglasses. Progressively brighter colours enter Eilis’s wardrobe (a wine jacket, a floral print skirt, a canary yellow dress) and she symbolically exchanges her bottle green wool overcoat for a green cotton swimsuit. In lingering close-up reaction shots, Ronan expertly conveys an acute sense of culture shock through minimal changes of expression.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/101554/original/image-20151111-21220-o6s2jj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/101554/original/image-20151111-21220-o6s2jj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/101554/original/image-20151111-21220-o6s2jj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/101554/original/image-20151111-21220-o6s2jj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/101554/original/image-20151111-21220-o6s2jj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/101554/original/image-20151111-21220-o6s2jj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/101554/original/image-20151111-21220-o6s2jj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">A new life.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Lionsgate</span></span>
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<p>Nick Hornby’s excellent script pares back the Bildungsroman plot and amplifies the novel’s humorous dialogue. The mealtime repartee in Eilis’s boarding house is laugh-out-loud funny. Politics and religion are off the conversational menu, leading to a farcical debate about whether a discussion of <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/de_valera_eamon.shtml">Éamon de Valera</a>’s deteriorating eyesight breaks this etiquette. </p>
<p>The focus is on the friendships and rivalries of the young women, the aesthetic integrity of which is a consummate riposte to an industry that so often views female experiences as peripheral. Ronan’s intense, watchful stillness during these exchanges also affords Julie Walters space to shine as the caustic but kindly landlady Mrs Kehoe. As the girls’ teasing talk crackles with desire, she exasperatedly proclaims that their “giddiness is the eighth deadly sin”.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/101580/original/image-20151111-9366-1b1vhzb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/101580/original/image-20151111-9366-1b1vhzb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/101580/original/image-20151111-9366-1b1vhzb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/101580/original/image-20151111-9366-1b1vhzb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/101580/original/image-20151111-9366-1b1vhzb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/101580/original/image-20151111-9366-1b1vhzb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/101580/original/image-20151111-9366-1b1vhzb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Caustic landlady.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Lionsgate</span></span>
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<p>Even more giddiness ensues once Eilis meets Tony Fiorello, a boyish Italian-American plumber charmingly played by Emory Cohen. Eilis needs supervised training in the art of spaghetti-eating before her nerve-wracking first dinner with the Fiorello family, featuring a scene-stealing turn by James DiGiacomo as the wisecracking little brother who revels in pointing out awkward truths about Irish-Italian relations. </p>
<p>Tony is a good egg, but his vision of a shared future is put on hold by Eilis’s unexpected return to Wexford. The subsequent love triangle, following her romance with Jim Farrell (Domhnall Gleeson), adds piquancy to the tension between adopted country and motherland. Eilis’s initial pangs of homesickness are superseded by a disturbing insight: “I’m not sure I have a home anymore.” Ronan’s mesmerising performance expresses the immigrant’s riven subjectivity, torn between two places and two possible lives.</p>
<h2>Where to call home</h2>
<p>From Joyce’s <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/books/2009/jan/24/james-joyce-portrait-of-the-artist-john-crace-digested-classics">Portrait of the Artist</a> to Anne Enright’s <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/may/03/the-green-road-anne-enright-review-exquisite-collage">The Green Road</a>, Irish fiction has returned obsessively to notions of home and exile. The same is true of Irish film; there are clear resemblances between Brooklyn and Jim Sheridan’s <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0298845/">In America</a>, for example.</p>
<p>It’s therefore no surprise that there’s a conversation about John Ford’s film <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0045061/">The Quiet Man</a>, perhaps the quintessential expression of Irish-American romanticism. Eilis also sees the joyfully self-reflexive musical <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0045152/">Singin’ in the Rain</a>. These allusions don’t just pin down the date (1952): they also seem to warn that nostalgic stereotypes and escapist fantasies are suspect. </p>
<p>As Walker Percy’s 1961 novel <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2014/03/my-childish-unhealthy-joyous-obsession-with-em-the-moviegoer-em/284255/">The Moviegoer</a> puts it, the silver screen is the only place “Where Happiness Costs So Little”. Outside the cinema, Eilis finds contentment harder to come by.</p>
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<p>One of the affective peaks is a set-piece scene where Eilis helps Father Flood serve Christmas dinner to his less fortunate parishioners, in which Iarla Ó Lionáird delivers a Sean-nós rendition of <em>Casadh an tSúgáin</em>, a traditional Irish language song about the snares that love weaves. The lonely voice and shadowed faces express the emotional, geographical, and linguistic displacement of those listening – these now remaindered men who, as the priest notes, once built America’s “bridges, tunnels, and highways”.</p>
<p>Yet this is not only an account of the Irish diaspora. The film speaks more broadly to global displacement. Cinematographer Yves Bélanger bathes Ronan in non-naturalistic light after Eilis’s border crossing. Letter-writing emerges as a key trope of immigrant experience and a phone call exposes the heart-breaking dislocation of the migrant in mourning. Indeed, Ronan <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/film/video/2015/nov/04/brooklyn-saoirse-ronan-john-crowley-video-interview">has expressed</a> the hope that Eilis’s journey might increase sympathy for the current plight of refugees. </p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/101555/original/image-20151111-21220-1g5n2k0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/101555/original/image-20151111-21220-1g5n2k0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/101555/original/image-20151111-21220-1g5n2k0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/101555/original/image-20151111-21220-1g5n2k0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/101555/original/image-20151111-21220-1g5n2k0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/101555/original/image-20151111-21220-1g5n2k0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/101555/original/image-20151111-21220-1g5n2k0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Back home.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Lionsgate</span></span>
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<p>That being said, Brooklyn offers a thin account of Irish social conditions. The novel is edgier and more acerbic, with a nuanced sense of class. In the film, the shortcomings of an entire society are displaced onto one mean shopkeeper, “Nettles” Kelly. </p>
<p>This scapegoating is problematic in gender terms. Kelly may be a vicious gossip and snob, but the paralysing claustrophobia of small-town life had deeper roots: the novel insinuates that it was the myopic paternalism of church and state that fostered the insularity and economic stagnation of the post-war years. The film is a genuinely affecting period piece, but ultimately you feel that there was more at stake in Eilis’s final choice on the page.</p>
<p>Despite choosing gloss over grit, Brooklyn remains a triumph. Sentimental without being maudlin, Crowley’s film deserves a wide audience. It’s inconceivable that Ronan won’t receive a second Academy Award nomination for the psychological acuity of her performance, despite stiff competition from the likes of Cate Blanchett (<a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2402927/">Carol</a>), Brie Larson (<a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3170832/?ref_=nv_sr_1">Room</a>), and Jennifer Lawrence (<a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2446980/?ref_=nv_sr_1">Joy</a>). Brooklyn marks a significant milestone in the career of this rising star.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/50346/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Bryan Radley does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The film’s exploration of a young Irish woman’s emigration to 1950s New York digs beneath nostalgic stereotype.Bryan Radley, Lecturer in Modern Literature, University of YorkLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/498402015-11-02T13:03:59Z2015-11-02T13:03:59ZThe British diaspora is a story of migrants who changed the world<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/100511/original/image-20151102-16547-cezdoh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption"></span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/wck/5316199996/sizes/o/">wck/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">CC BY-NC</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Amid <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/aug/10/10-truths-about-europes-refugee-crisis">the uproar</a> about <a href="https://theconversation.com/migrant-or-refugee-why-it-matters-which-word-you-choose-47227">refugees and migrants</a> trying to make their way to the UK, it’s easy to forget that the British Isles also have a long history of outward migration. The British diaspora has had a profound influence on countries around the globe, from the United States to New Zealand and beyond. </p>
<p>Understanding how these migrants made their homes and shaped their surroundings can add some much-needed context to the debates we have about migration today – whether we’re talking about <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-33561040">international students</a>, economic migrants or <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-the-uk-has-a-special-responsibility-to-protect-its-share-of-refugees-41773">refugees</a> who are fleeing conflict. </p>
<h2>Heading stateside</h2>
<p>Initially, the US attracted a large number of immigrant agriculturalists, most of whom were farmers who wanted to escape the agricultural depression <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=ddMH0A50epYC&pg=PA188&dq=agriculturalists+new+york+british+van+vugt&hl=en&sa=X&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false">in Britain</a>. But once the American Civil War had ended, migrants began to pursue industrial and urban opportunities. From the mid-19th century, most migrants from England and Scotland who made their way to North America settled in the industrial north-east. </p>
<p>Compared to migrant groups from elsewhere in Europe, British migrants were relatively highly-skilled, especially in certain up and coming industries in the US, such as textile or steel. British migrants undoubtedly were a great boon to American cities and these industries. New York State’s early industries, <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=fUIbzBymAjIC&pg=PA50&dq=%22made+in+pennsylvania%22+industries&hl=en&sa=X&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false">especially iron</a>, showcased the skills of English workers and the technical know-how of foremen or overseers, who brought valuable experience from working in factories back home. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, in New York City, immigrant workers from the British Isles were breaking into the printing industry. The textile industries of New York, Massachusetts and Pennsylvania relied heavily on them too, and both English and Scottish workers also prospered in metallurgical trades. </p>
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<p>But skills weren’t the only thing that the British diaspora contributed to: it also brought with it a particular set of beliefs and traditions. Urban growth facilitated the integration of the old British “homeland” culture into the relatively new American society. For example, English migrants played a major role in the establishment of trade unionism in the US, leaving an indelible mark on the nation’s working world: the American Federation of Labor was co-founded, and then presided over for many years, by Englishman <a href="http://www.aflcio.org/About/Our-History/Key-People-in-Labor-History/Samuel-Gompers-1850-1924">Samuel Gompers</a>.</p>
<h2>Sharing is caring</h2>
<p>British migrants to North America also established a number of ethnic clubs and societies, which historically fulfilled a wide range of civic roles. Ethnic associations, such as the <a href="http://www.standrewsny.org/">St Andrew’s</a> or <a href="http://www.stgeorgessociety.org/">St George’s</a> societies, were a key means for migrants to link up with other members of the diaspora. They provided opportunities to form bonds of friendship, business and even marriage. Before social media, they provided some of the most effective networks. </p>
<p>Of course, not all migrants choose to join an ethnic association. But the reach of these organisations was wider than <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=z5l1AAAAMAAJ&q=charlotte+erickson+clubs+immigrant+elite&dq=charlotte+erickson+clubs+immigrant+elite&hl=en&sa=X&redir_esc=y">traditional studies</a> suggest. This is because ethnic associations are not simply about celebrating a group’s culture or reminiscing about the past – although they did do that too, with <a href="http://digitalcommunity.englishdiaspora.co.uk/?p=531">traditional dinners</a> and other festivities, which continue <a href="http://www.scotlandnow.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/date-set-new-york-tartan-5859268">to this day</a>. </p>
<p>Rather, the activities of both local Scottish and English groups centred on philanthropy: the aim of associations such as the New York St George’s Society was to aid fellow countrymen in distress. This focus was particularly important, because it filled gaps in service provisions for many migrants. </p>
<p>Members of these societies were generally well off, and could afford to contribute to charitable causes for those who were less fortunate. The provision of meal tickets, small payments in cash or help with finding employment were all part of the <a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5406/jamerethnhist.33.4.0005">society’s activities</a>. </p>
<p>In New York, the societies of the English and Scots – together with those of other immigrant groups like the Irish or the Germans – were considered so important that they were involved with the city government’s charity and immigration boards responsible for managing migration to the city. </p>
<h2>Resilient and resourceful</h2>
<p>As remains the case today, health was a critical concern for British migrants. In the absence of state-supported systems, many immigrant groups took it upon themselves to cater for their countrymen. This also brought out differences between migrants from middle class and working class backgrounds. While middle class migrants were often active in these kinds of groups – pursuing philanthropy because they believed in giving back – working class migrants were often unable to cover the required membership fees. What they were looking for was a way to help themselves. As a result, migrants from different class backgrounds developed a tradition of mutual benefit. </p>
<p>Groups like the Canadian <a href="http://nrl.northumbria.ac.uk/5993/1/S1740022811000593a.pdf%20%20%20">Sons of England</a> were established to provide a means for English workers to pay a part of their salary into an insurance-type scheme, which would pay money out in cases of illness or death. Such provisions were necessary because there was little support from the state. This demonstrates how gaps in provisions for migrants are often met with informal, community-based solutions. As <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-worlds-urban-population-is-growing-so-how-can-cities-plan-for-migrants-49931">the recent World Migration Report noted</a>, this is still the case today. </p>
<p>From these historical examples, we can see that many of the challenges around urban migration have been around for a good while. But they also show that migrants have long been city-makers; adept at shaping their environments, looking after others in their communities and contributing to the civic life of the cities they move to. If we only let them, contemporary migrants can also be resourceful partners in urban governance and agents of local development – just as migrants from the British Isles have been in the past. </p>
<p><em>Read more on urban migration: <a href="https://theconversation.com/building-a-home-how-vietnamese-migrants-did-it-in-east-london-49605">how Vietnamese migrants built a home in London</a> and the <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-worlds-urban-population-is-growing-so-how-can-cities-plan-for-migrants-49931">mass migration from rural areas to cities</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/49840/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tanja Bueltmann has received funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council, the Economic and Social Research Council, and the British Academy. She is the founder of Academics for Europe, an initiative that seeks to make a positive case for Britain's continued membership, and active participation in, the EU.</span></em></p>The influence of British immigrants to the United States shows us that migrants have long been city-makers.Tanja Bueltmann, Reader in History, Northumbria University, NewcastleLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/488642015-10-21T10:08:38Z2015-10-21T10:08:38ZAngry doctors are just the latest victims of globalisation<p>The current threat of a <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/oct/17/leader-of-nhs-junior-doctors-urges-jeremy-hunt-to-reopen-negotiations">doctors’ strike</a> is just the latest example of the unhappiness of NHS staff. 2014 <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-29838802">saw strikes</a> from nurses, occupational therapists, porters, paramedics and healthcare assistants – the first in the health service since the 1980s. Staff are being asked to make huge <a href="https://theconversation.com/nhs-turns-to-the-car-industry-for-management-ideas-but-it-wont-save-2-billion-33961">efficiency savings</a> after years of small or non-existent <a href="http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/nhs-staff-told-no-pay-2937572">pay increases</a>. <a href="http://bit.ly/1FrMdFe">Morale has plummeted</a> as healthcare workers come under fire for the <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/oct/15/two-thirds-hospitals-substandard-care-care-quality-commission">quality of NHS care</a>.</p>
<p>The latest conflict is over the planned introduction of a full <a href="https://theconversation.com/iminworkjeremy-why-doctors-are-rejecting-jeremy-hunt-seven-day-roster-45117">seven-day service</a>. Junior doctors are <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/oct/17/jeremy-hunt-i-would-protest-if-i-were-a-misled-junior-doctor">being asked</a> to accept a cut in overtime pay in return for an increase in basic pay so that it becomes cheaper for hospitals to employ more staff on evenings and weekends. In response, the doctors have threatened to strike, while the number of physicians applying for documentation to work abroad <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/sep/25/nhs-doctors-contract-changes-work-abroad-applications">has soared</a>. </p>
<p>Doctors have the great advantage of being able to take their highly in-demand skills anywhere in the world, sometimes <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com.au/heres-how-much-money-australian-doctors-actually-earn-2014-5">increasing their</a> salary significantly in the process. But part of what’s driving them to leave their homes and families in this way are the pressures created by a globalised labour market. In some ways, doctors have become the latest victims of globalisation, even if they remain in a much more privileged position than lower-skilled workers. </p>
<h2>The trained brain drain</h2>
<p>In the three days after the government revealed its new contracts, the number of doctors applying for a Certificate of Current Professional Status (CCPS) for overseas work rose from the usual 20-25 a day to <a href="http://ind.pn/1FYfWWk">almost 550</a> a day. But the numbers seeking to work abroad has been increasing for some years now. <a href="http://bit.ly/1W3mjEp">General Medical Council figures</a> indicate that the number of UK-qualified doctors issued with a CCPS increased by 22% between 2008 and 2013.</p>
<p>Our own (as yet unpublished) freedom of information request identified that the vast majority – more than 80% – of those issued with a certificate are under the age of 40. During the 2014-15 winter <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/11327043/AandE-crisis-NHS-posts-worst-waiting-time-figures-in-a-decade.html">accident and emergency crisis</a>, the College of Emergency Medicine highlighted a sustained <a href="http://www.rcem.ac.uk/CEM/document?id=8588">“trained brain drain”</a> of staff moving overseas. <a href="http://www.rcem.ac.uk/Training-Exams/EMTA/Trainee%20survey%20and%20report/">Its survey</a> of current trainees indicated this would likely continue into the future.</p>
<p>While we do not know how many of those issued with a certificate actually go abroad to practise, <a href="http://bit.ly/1NSiMVc">the main destination countries</a>, such as Australia and New Zealand, rely heavily on migrant doctors including those from the UK. In the case of <a href="http://bit.ly/1jRuzWI">New Zealand</a>, the UK is the dominant source of overseas doctors, contributing half of its international medical workforce.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/99014/original/image-20151020-32269-1tltnvi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/99014/original/image-20151020-32269-1tltnvi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/99014/original/image-20151020-32269-1tltnvi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/99014/original/image-20151020-32269-1tltnvi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/99014/original/image-20151020-32269-1tltnvi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/99014/original/image-20151020-32269-1tltnvi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/99014/original/image-20151020-32269-1tltnvi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Healthcare now relies on a global workforce.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
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</figure>
<p><a href="http://www.human-resources-health.com/content/pdf/s12960-015-0069-4.pdf">Healthcare workforce planning strategies</a> in New Zealand, as well as countries such as Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the US explicitly rely on the international recruitment of doctors (and other healthcare professionals) as a solution to domestic shortages. <a href="https://www.rcn.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0016/482200/004332.pdf">The evidence</a> is that those countries intend to continue this policy for years to come to meet demands for increasing healthcare provision in their ageing societies. These destinations are vigorously competing for healthcare workers, promoting their salaries, professional opportunities and lifestyle to potential healthcare employees.</p>
<p>In such a globalised labour market, UK-qualified doctors have a clear escape route from the austerity-hit NHS. Unlike many other groups of workers, this means they have some bargaining power. They can realistically threaten to take their skills elsewhere. So why does the government seem so determined to antagonise this key group of <a href="https://theconversation.com/jeremy-hunt-cant-win-his-fight-with-doctors-they-have-always-held-the-power-in-the-nhs-48421">powerful professionals</a>?</p>
<h2>Not all austerity is equal</h2>
<p>Part of the answer is that to achieve its commitment to expanding access to NHS services while meeting spending targets, the government will need to be more hard-nosed than in the past when dealing with the medical profession. In this way, doctors are simply victims of the more generalised effort to erode pay and conditions of all NHS staff, and those in the public sector more broadly. </p>
<p>But the globalised labour market that allows UK-qualified doctors to move abroad also means the government can replace them with doctors from countries where the impact of economic crisis and austerity is even worse. So ministers can cut pay and renegotiate working conditions knowing that the NHS will still offer its own advantages of salary, professional opportunities and lifestyle. They are happy to drive away UK-qualified doctors because there are other professionals from poorer countries willing to take their place.</p>
<p>Between <a href="http://bit.ly/1tEtNKf">2010 and 2013</a>, the number of overseas-qualified doctors working in the UK increased significantly faster than that of UK-qualified doctors. The biggest increase was among doctors from other EU countries. Italy is now the top source country in the world for new doctors registering in the UK, followed closely by Greece and Spain. Meanwhile, recruitment from traditional source countries such as Pakistan and India is falling.</p>
<p>It is short-termist for the government to rely on crisis-stricken European countries to replace UK-qualified doctors, and not just because of the money spent on training them that is effectively wasted if they emigrate. When those countries recover their economic position, the global war for talent and skills will strengthen, making the UK less attractive. While NHS employers have recently launched initiatives to encourage UK-qualified doctors currently abroad <a href="http://ind.pn/1zaauuW">to return</a>, it is difficult to see how these can succeed if the new contracts are imposed.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/48864/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The global game of supply and demand that lets UK doctors move abroad for better pay is the same force pushing down salaries at home.Majella Kilkey, Senior Lecturer in Social Policy, University of SheffieldNeil Lunt, Reader in Social Policy, University of YorkLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.