Do tougher border controls – whether stricter visa regimes or more patrols at ports and beaches – reduce immigration? Government policy and ministerial speeches would certainly suggest as much. Yet the evidence suggests otherwise. Making it harder to cross borders can in fact create higher net migration, as migrants who might have passed backwards or forwards freely settle permanently once they have made it across the now-closed border. Attempts at greater enforcement on borders are met by riskier or more ingenious ways of smuggling migrants. Brexit and the end of free movement with the EU might be a cause of the recent high net migration figures.
That is one of the – often counter-intuitive – lessons from How Migration Really Works by former Oxford academic Hein de Haas, now at the University of Amsterdam. He explores 21 “myths” about migration, ranging from global migration levels to its economic and social impact, dispelling many cherished beliefs of Left and Right alike. No, immigration does not increase crime rates – in fact, immigrants appear less likely to commit crimes, and in particular violent crimes. No, climate change will likely not drive massive global displacement – although it might well exacerbate and increase temporary displacement. Although – perhaps wary of wading into the specifics of current political debates – de Haas does not spell it out, attempts to “stop the boats” through border crackdowns and a hostile environment are likely themselves a driver of the small-boats crisis.
De Haas counters claims that there are more migrants than ever before by pointing out that there are more people than ever before. As a proportion of the world population, the number of international migrants is very stable – hovering around 3 per cent for the past 60 years. Debates about the integration of migrants are reviewed on a generational basis. The same fears that are expressed by some today about Latin American migrants in the United States, or about Muslim immigrants across much of western Europe, he demonstrates, were once aired about Italians and Germans and Catholics, about Jewish and Irish people.
The most important lesson is one politicians find hard to hear. Our ability to control migration is limited. It is a natural force, part of human existence for millennia. Movement of people – from the countryside to towns and cities, from sleepy backwaters to booming centres of science or trade, from places with few opportunities to places with many – is one of the key drivers of progress and development, and always has been. That does not mean we should give up trying to shape or influence the nature of migration. But it requires a far smarter approach.
The book holds two crucial lessons for policy-makers: that migration is a response to labour demand; and that employment and the prospect of building a better future are the best route to integration (with the corollary that keeping migrants or asylum seekers in extended limbo and fear of deportation pushes them towards the isolation and dependency we claim to want to avoid). Together, these insights hold the key to effective migration policy.
