More Immigrant Thoughts

I wrote recently putting down in writing some of my thoughts about immigration. North America faces significant immigration, due especially to the pressure of immigrants from Central America. Refugees from Syria and other conflict regions are also knocking on the door, but the largest number comes from Central America.

In this blog, I want to continue thinking aloud, taking special note of the objections that many of my friends make to my basic ideas. I counsel a fundamental openness to other people, including those in need who come to our borders. Canada is more open to immigrants and refugees than the USA is; but there is a significant fear in both countries that refugees will flood our country, to our detriment. I want to address some of these concerns.

First, I observe that, although I disagree with my friends, I do not assume that they are being unreasonable or are otherwise bad people. Too much of our political discourse assumes that people who disagree with us are motivated by evil intent. In the USA, some conservative figures (often radio or TV figures) have beaten a drum for many years, saying that Democrats are trying to destroy the country. Now, during the Trump presidency, I hear many liberals beating the same drum – about conservatives.

For any fruitful conversation to take place, I assume that many of the people who disagree with me have good reasons for their position. We may still disagree, but I seek to address the issues, not attack the people who hold them.

Second, here are a series of possible concerns with brief responses:

1. Legal Immigrants are good. Undocumented workers are bad.

There is truth to this viewpoint. I advocate following the rules. When we immigrated to Canada, we followed required procedures. There are at least two qualifications I think of: 1) When an immigration system breaks down, people are more likely to go around the rules. So, fix the system; don’t demonize the people! This point applies especially in the USA. 2) When conditions are so bad that people can no longer live in them, they will go around the rules. Again, don’t demonize the people; work at dealing with the conditions that push them out of their homes.

2. Immigrants are good. Refugees are bad.

I disagree with this idea more fully than with the first idea. Beyond our citizenship in any one country, we are part of the human family. When someone in our extended human family is in distress, we respond – just as we would like someone else to respond if we were in distress.

A further reason I disagree with this idea is that refugees of all people know what it is to go hungry and experience destructive poverty. Immigrants in general tend to be hard workers, and refugees are often the hardest workers of all. Helping them get on their feet costs us something up front, but they will give more back to the country that takes them in than it costs us in the first place.

3. Immigrants in general are a danger because they use our resources and take our jobs.

As the reader may guess from #2, I disagree. The USA and Canada both have low birthrates. Our economies require more children than we are having for our various social programs (such as Social Security in the USA and Social Insurance in Canada) to work. Immigration provides the necessary people for our economies to thrive. I note that, if this reasoning were valid, the economies of the USA and Canada should be in crisis, but they are not. They are healthy and growing. I see immigration as a positive good.

4. Immigrants and Refugees from Central America are infiltrated with gangsters and criminals. Even if many of the refugees are telling the truth, we cannot take the risk of allowing the bad people in with the good.

I get this fear. I understand why we want to keep criminal elements out of our country (in the USA or in Canada). A full response goes beyond this brief blog, but here are a few thoughts: 1) Such gangs are a real problem. In Winnipeg, Asian and African gangs recruit young people in the park, whose families have just arrived and are staying in the Welcome Centre beside the park. This is a problem! 2) Gangs flourish for a variety of reasons, such as high unemployment especially among young people and high drug use in North America (so that the gangs run drugs to us). 3) One of the best ways to combat gangs is to allow faith-based groups access to immigrant families to work with them and help them integrate into the community. Canada (and to a lesser extent, the USA) have a counter-productive fear of allowing faith-based groups to work freely. This idea requires a lot more thought on my part before I say anything more about it. 4) It is more effective to work at eradicating the financial and political problems in the countries immigrants come from than it is to try and stop them coming. If there is a gang problem in Guatemala, help the government of Guatemala to develop its economy and to eradicate political corruption. Most people would rather stay home. They tend not to leave home unless home becomes unlivable.

My own personal view is that we overstate the danger from immigrants many times over. Most Arabs and North Africans are not members of ISIS. Most Central Americans or Asians are not gang members. Most immigrants and refugees are ready to work hard and make a new home here – a good home that benefits us as well as them.

I welcome pushback on any of these thoughts. I am an ordinary citizen (dual: Canada and the USA) with ordinary experiences, trying to think through one of the challenges that we face today.