Monday thoughts on migration

Last Thursday was International Migrant's Day, an annual honor to the world's 200 million migrants established by the UN in the year 2000. Secretary-general Ban Ki-Moon urged world leaders, and citizens everywhere, to look beyond the numbers and figures of the global financial crisis and respect the dignity and human rights of migrants:

The world’s more than 200 million migrants are especially vulnerable to the financial downturn shaking the global economy. The crisis in markets has put them at greater risk of destitution, stigmatization, discrimination and abuse. Reports of layoffs and lower remittances only begin to tell the story of the human suffering that this crisis has wrought.

Peter Sutherland, the secretary-general's Special Representative on Migration, spoke to Newsweek on how vital immigrants are to the restoration of national economies everywhere, both in his native Ireland and in countries like the United States:

It is counterintuitive at a time of rising unemployment to see immigration as an opportunity rather than a threat, but I think that is actually true. Take my own country as an example. Its staggering economic progress—although temporarily threatened today—over the last 15 years was enabled by immigration. The evidence is that immigrants are less likely to live off welfare than locals and are likely to fill jobs that would not be filled by locals.

Nonetheless, for those of us that share a lifelong commitment to fighting for immigrant rights, we must realize the battle is as steeply uphill as we could imagine. According to the just-released Pew Global Attitudes Project, public opinion on immigrants is negative in most of the 44 surveyed nations:

The ability of people to cross national borders in search of jobs is a central component of globalization, but a controversial one. The United States is not the only country struggling to limit immigration; majorities in 44 of the 46 other countries surveyed in 2007 wanted more restrictions. The two exceptions were South Korea (25%) and Japan (47%), where barriers to foreigners were already high.
Three Americans in four favored making immigration more difficult. Majorities in Western European countries, magnets for immigrants from Eastern Europe, North Africa, and elsewhere, strongly agreed. In Italy, whose economy has been particularly lethargic in recent years, fully 87% of respondents called for stricter immigration controls.

All these statements and figures paint a dim picture, and make the DREAM Act seem like a grain of sand in a Saharan plain of policy needs. But immigrant communities everywhere know the meaning of resilience and sacrifice. Hug your local immigrant this week and tell them to fight through!
(I welcome hugs too)