Israel to Build a Wall on Egyptian Border to Keep Migrants Out

Another wall is going up in the Middle East. Israel is to start construction of a security barrier along the 266km border with Egypt to stop the flow of undocumented migrants. Looks like the US is not alone.

First there was the security barrier that Israel built along its border with the West Bank. More recently Egypt started building an underground barrier of its own on its border with Gaza to prevent smuggling. And now Israel says it’s building a wall on its border with Egypt.

The New York Times reports:

Thousands of African and other migrants have come to Israel through its porous border with Egypt over the last few years, fleeing conflict back home or searching for a better life in the Jewish state.

Netanyahu said Israel would continue to accept refugees from conflict zones but "we cannot let tens of thousands of illegal workers infiltrate into Israel through the southern border and inundate our country with illegal aliens."

The project will cost 1 billion shekels ($270 million) and take two years to complete. The barrier will not be erected along the whole border, which is 266 km (166 miles) long.

Advanced surveillance equipment will help border control officers to spot infiltrators.

Egyptian security sources in North Sinai said Israel had not informed the Egyptian authorities of its plan.

Israel is also building a controversial barrier in and around the occupied West Bank. It says the razor-tipped fences and towering concrete walls are needed to stop suicide bombers from infiltrating its cities. Palestinians it a land grab because it cuts through the West Bank in places.

Here is the story from PRI's "The World:"

Links I like

• As the post-Khmer Rouge generation of Cambodians grows up, they’re producing a flurry of films that mimic the vintage style of the 1960s – widely considered the country’s golden era. Much of the revival is owed to educated filmmaker refugees who are repatriating to Cambodia from France and the United States and opening the country’s first film institutes at local universities.
• Hundreds of Somali refugees are being forced at gunpoint to join rebels fighting in northern Yemen
• Paddington Bear is launching a campaign to to highlight the British Government's continued arrest and detention of hundreds of child asylum-seekers in prison-like conditions.
• A disabled athlete who has won five gold medals for Britain was set to be deported to Nigeria after losing his legal battle to live in the UK.
• British Muslims feel a greater sense of patriotism than their counterparts living in mainland Europe, according to a study by the Open Society Institute
• Rather than living in rows of neatly pegged white canvas UN tents set up in fields as the public might imagine it, aid officials have revealed that more than 50 per cent of the planet's 10.5 million refugees are now battling to get by in urban areas.
• The proportion of the population that is foreign-born has almost doubled in the past two decades to 11 per cent, or 6.7 million people.

Net Migration to the UK Drops by 1/3

From the Guardian:

Net migration – the number of people who come to live in Britain minus the number who move abroad – fell by more than a third to 163,000 last year, its lowest level since Poland joined the European Union.

The Office for National Statistics said the fall from 233,000 in 2007 was mainly driven by a rise in emigration to a 17-year high: 427,000 people left Britain to live abroad, up from 341,000 the previous year. The increase was mainly due to the number of Poles returning home.

Immigration reached 590,000, with the largest single group comprising 85,000 British citizens returning to live in the UK. That total compares with 574,000 in 2007 and 596,000 in 2006.

Asylum figures show a further fall in the number of fresh claims for refugee status between July and September this year to 5,055 – a decline of 24% compared with the same period in 2008.

Refugee welfare groups said the fall in asylum numbers was not necessarily a matter of celebration but raised fears that the tightening up of Britain's borders was denying sanctuary to those who needed protection.

The top three countries from where asylum seekers came were Afghanistan (790), Iran (540) and Zimbabwe (525).

A total of 7,110 people were held in immigration detention between July and September this year – more than half of them asylum seekers. They included 315 children, 240 of them under 11. Of those detained, 365 had been held for more than 12 months.

The Perils of Migrating through Mexico

While the US- Mexican border is a dangerous place more migrants, more and more, traveling through Mexico to get to the border has become an even more perilous journey. NPR reports:

Despite the downturn in the U.S. economy and tough new security measures along the southern border, migrants continue to try to get to the United States. And each year, tens of thousands of them are robbed, kidnapped and even killed attempting to cross Mexico.

Sanchez says that in the past she rarely heard of anyone trying to kidnap migrants, but now it is common. Los Zetas, the enforcement arm of one of the Mexican drug cartels, charges fees for migrants to pass, and they abduct others.

In a report issued earlier this year, Mexico's Human Rights Commission said roughly 1,500 migrants get kidnapped each month trying to cross Mexico.

Goodman, 37, says he was deported four months ago to El Salvador for driving without a license. The last time he made the journey from El Salvador to the U.S. he was 14. He is not worried about crossing from Tijuana back into San Diego; he says that will be easy. Right now, his big concern is getting from Mexico's southern tip to its northernmost city.

If you are not convinced, just watch the movie "Sin Nombre"

Transforming Martha's VIneyard

How did Brazilian immigrants transform Martha's Vineyard? The Financial Times reports:

Today, Martha’s Vineyard – summer retreat for the likes of Bill ­Clinton, Harvey Weinstein, Spike Lee and now the Obamas – depends on thousands of Brazilians to do the hard labour. Unlike earlier influxes, these newcomers are mostly illegal (estimates are as high as 70 per cent); but until recently, their efforts were welcome and their legal status largely ignored. The immigrants build, garden and scrub the summer residents’ trophy homes – so that they can build their own trophy homes back in Brazil. Nobody, including the immigrants themselves, expected them to put down roots on the island.

But that’s what they did. An estimated 3,000 Brazilians live on ­Martha’s Vineyard, a considerable presence on an island with a winter population of 15,000 (rising to 100,000 in the summer). For the most part, the Brazilians have created a parallel society. They’ve built three evangelical churches, opened landscaping companies and moped shops, and started four small groceries that offer Amazonian fruit juices, cheese from Minas Gerais and manioc flour. But for all the speed of the change – realignments of local economies and identities over the course of a couple of decades – we are just beginning to see the repercussions. One telling indicator: of all the babies born on the island in 2007, nearly one-third were to Brazilian mothers.

Here is some more from the BBC.

Indonesia Considering Renting Islands to Environmental Migrants

The Indonesian Maritime Minister’s proposal comes as a report this week reinforces the need to accommodate forecast increasing numbers of people displaced by climate change. Pacific Island nations are among the hardest hit by rising sea levels. The Global Humanitarian Forum’s report says more than half the region’s population lives within 1.5 kilometres of the shore and people are already leaving Tuvalu for New Zealand. The forum blames climate change for the deaths of 300,000 people each year.

The Indonesian solution is to rent some of its 10,000 uninhabited islands to those whose island homes are being inundated. The secretary-general of Indonesia’s Maritime Affairs Ministry, Dr Syamsul Maarif, says the idea must first pass through his country’s government. But he believes Indonesia will acknowledge a responsibility to help small island communities facing the plight of rising sea levels.

(HT: Towards Recognition)

Environmental Displacement Resources

Here are some resources on the humanitarian and displacement implications of climate change:

• The Towards Recognition blog provides a summary of the discussions relating to climate change and forced migration at the Bonn climate change talks. Refworld has posted a number of papers prepared for the Bonn talks and other climate-related discussions, including:
  
• IASC: Climate Change, Migration and Displacement: Who Will Be Affected? [text]
• IOM: Climate Change, Migration, and Displacement: Impacts, Vulnerability, and Adaptation Options [text]
• UNHCR: Climate Change and Statelessness: A Overview [text]
• UNHCR: Forced Displacement in the Context of Climate Change: Challenges for States Under International Law [text]
• WHO: Protecting the Health of Vulnerable People from the Humanitarian Consequences of Climate Change and Climate Related Disasters [text]

• The Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) attended the Bonn meeting and has a web page detailing its work on climate change and displacement.

• CARE has published a report entitled In Search of Shelter: Mapping the Effects of Climate Change on Human Migration and Displacement (May 2009) that offers "empirical evidence from a first-time, multi-continent survey of environmental change and migration."

• ODI sponsored an event in March on the humanitarian aspects of climate change. Audio files of the presentations are available.

(HT: Forced Migration Current Awareness Blog)

Japan Paying Foreigners to Leave

Japan is now attempting to pay foreign workers who immigrated to work manufacturing jobs to return to their native countries. As the recession has hit Japan, many factories are now laying-off workers. This is seen as a way to keep many off the Japanese welfare roles. The New York Times reports:

Rita Yamaoka, a mother of three who immigrated from Brazil, recently lost her factory job here. Now, Japan has made her an offer she might not be able to refuse.

The government will pay thousands of dollars to fly Mrs. Yamaoka; her husband, who is a Brazilian citizen of Japanese descent; and their family back to Brazil. But in exchange, Mrs. Yamaoka and her husband must agree never to seek to work in Japan again.

Japan’s offer, extended to hundreds of thousands of blue-collar Latin American immigrants, is part of a new drive to encourage them to leave this recession-racked country. So far, at least 100 workers and their families have agreed to leave, Japanese officials said.

However, this is seen by many critics as inhumane and inefficient. The Economist responds:

Low-skilled workers are an odd target for Japan. The country has so few immigrants to begin with; they make up less than 2% of the population. (Most immigrant labourers are ethnic Japanese coming from Latin America.) Given the demographic pressures facing Japan, the government should be begging immigrants to come. Perhaps they have plans to counteract this policy with a programme to encourage Japanese women to have more babies.

Japan's policy results from a perception that the stock of jobs is fixed, so if you remove the foreign population more jobs go to natives. But low-skill immigrants often do jobs natives will not. Some argue that without immigrants these undesirable jobs would pay more and then natives would take them. But that simply encourages employers to outsource these jobs to another country (which means the wages are spent elsewhere). When it comes to jobs that can physically not be sent abroad, it raises the costs of production which can mean fewer high-skill, well-paid jobs.

Low-skill foreigners also provide cheap services to natives, such as childcare and care for the elderly (something Japan needs). This frees up family members to pursue other work that pays more than what a low-skill immigrant demands, but less than the market wage if only natives did the job.

Critique of John Rawls on Immigration

This is a pretty decent critique of John Rawls's assumptions about immigration in The Law of Peoples.

Falling Birth Rates in Europe Cause a Need for Migrants

A declining birth rate across Europe will soon leave the continent vulnerable to an unprecedented population void. Ireland is amongst them. The Times reports:

The European average of 1.5 births per adult female falls well short of the replacement figure of 2.1 identified by demographers. In Ireland, though the birth rate remains relatively high at 1.9, our status as the EU’s most fertile state is being eroded as the predominant age of childbearing shifts from the late 20s to early 30s. The change in the traditional role of women is a contributor, as the twin enticements of education and career persuade many to put off having a child.

Science magazine reckons that European population growth reached a turning point in 2000 when births dropped to a level that assures there will be fewer parents in the next generation than there are in this one. This is causing unease among economists, as it is widely accepted that a low birth rate goes hand-in-hand with economic decline.

Assuming constant mortality and no net immigration, a continuance until 2020 of the current fertility rate would result in 88m fewer Europeans by 2100. But this decline must be seen in the context of a world threatened by overpopulation. Fertility rates in many African countries exceed 6.0. The United Nations advocates replacement migration, asserting that the challenges posed by declining and ageing European populations require us to reassess our policies relating to migration.

Migration Can Solve Poverty

Michael Clemens et. al explain the ridiculous inefficiency of migration barriers in the “The Place Premium: Wage Differences for Identical Workers across the U.S. Border.” Center for Global Development Working Paper 148:

Findings:

• Gaps in wages represent one of the largest remaining price distortions in any global market
• For many countries, the wage gaps caused by barriers to movement across international borders are among the largest known forms of wage discrimination, typically much larger than wage discrimination based on ethnic group or gender within spatially integrated labor markets
• Wage gaps imply that simply allowing labor mobility can reduce a given household’s poverty to a much greater degree than most known antipoverty interventions inside developing countries.

(HT: Trade Diversion)

Greater Work Visa Restrictions in the U.S.

As more Americans lose their jobs, the U.S. government is actively discouraging the recruitment of foreign workers, from dude ranchers and fruit pickers to lifeguards and computer programmers. At least three avenues of legal immigration have seen roadblocks erected:

• Companies receiving federal bailout money now face extra hurdles before they can hire highly skilled guest workers on an H-1B visa.
• The Labor Department will close a public-comment period for a proposal to suspend an agricultural guest-worker program, known as the H-2A.
• The State Department is asking some sponsors of the J-1 visa -- seasonal employers such as hotels, golf resorts and summer camps -- to reduce dependence on foreign labor.

Gains from Immigration

Lant Pritchett:

• The gain from a lifetime of microcredit is the same as 8 weeks working in the USA
• Total annual gain to Grameen Bank borrowers (around) $30 million
• If I get 3,000 Bangladeshi workers into the US, do I get a Nobel Peace Prize?

(HT: Trade Diversion)

Freedom of Movement

From the Economist: Danes have greatest freedom of movement, able to cross the border of 157 countries and territories without a visa. Germany is number two, the U.S. number three.

The Norwegian Refugee Council on Climate Change Induced Migrants

Climate measures can reduce displacement says the Norwegian Refugee Council in a report:

The term "climate refugees" is misleading, but climate change is one of several root causes behind forced migration. More research is needed in this field, and preventive measures such as climate change adaptation can reduce the risk of displacement, according to a new report by NRC. Currently it is not scientifically proven that people are forced to flee due to climate change only. However, climate and environmental issues are among the underlying causes of migration, which must be seen in a larger political and economic context.

Climate change affects the environment, which can trigger conflict and displacement. In order to prevent displacement, it is important to reduce the negative consequences and implement climate change adaptation for societies that are affected by climate change. The report recommends that climate change adaptation in developing countries be given priority together with mitigation and emission-reducing measures.

A Model State? Kerala, India

Kerala, a state in the south of India may provide a novel example of the benefits of emigration and immigration. The Economist reports:

Kerala earned almost 20 billion rupees ($500m) from foreign tourists in 2006 (the latest year for which figures are available) and about 245 billion (in the same year) in remittances from Keralites working abroad, 89% of whom go to the Gulf. The state has an astonishing 24.5 emigrants per 100 households. Kerala’s per capita output is one of the lowest in India, but its per capita expenditure is one of the highest.

Kerala’s emigration policy has been a model for the rest of India. It was the first state to set up a department for non-residents. It has started offering non-resident Keralites (NRKs) identity cards, which also provide social insurance, covering accidents and repatriation of the dead.

Top Ten Migration Issues for 2009

The Migration Policy Institute notes these issues to be the top ten issues to watch in 2009:

1) "Buyer's Remorse" on Immigration Policy

2) The Recession-Proof Race for Highly Skilled Migrants

3) Remittance Patterns in Flux

4) Immigration Ultimately Not an Issue in the 2008 Election

5) Xenophobia Rising

6) Return Migration: Changing Directions?

7) Demography and Migration Flows: Do Shrinking Populations Mean More Migrants?

8) Building Border Fences

9) Warming up to Circular Migration?

10) Struggles of Iraqi Refugees Continue

Chefs and Ballet Dancers Ok but not Midwives in the UK

The British government says it is open to immigration. Recently, the Home Office identified needs in specific occupations where job shortages exist:

• sheap shearers (but only if they hold the British Wool Marketing Board bronze medal or equivalent);
• frozen fish filleters (but only in Scotland);
• theatre nurses (but not midwives);
• veterinary surgeons (but not other veterinarians);
• chefs (but only those paid at least £8.10 an hour);
• ballet dancers (but not choreographers, or other dancers).
  

For the full list, click here.

X without borders...

Random thought about Borders: We have come to use the concept of 'enforcing borders,' and try to make it positive by using it to address social justice issues. The very concept of forced migrants is a concept born out of the emergence of borders. These organizations are using a concept (borders) of which the intention is exclusion - borders exist to exclude people- and attempting to reclaim the 'border.'. Here are some examples:

Doctors without Borders

Engineers without Borders

Writers without Borders

Reporters without Borders

Magicians without Borders