Harry Targ
Why Migration
People migrate from one place to another for a variety
of reasons. A good part of that migration has to do with international
relations, national economies, and the increasingly globalized economy.
Literally millions of people have moved from one geographic space to another in
the twenty-first century, in most cases for reasons of physical fear or
economic need. Two prominent causes that “push” people to leave their
communities and homeland relate to “hybrid wars” and neoliberal globalization.
Hybrid wars
refer to the long-term policies of imperial powers to systematically undermine
political regimes that pursue policies and goals that challenge their global
hegemony. Over long periods of time imperial powers have used force, covert
operations, supporting pliant local elites, and funneling money to disrupt
local political processes. If targeted countries still reject outside
interference the imperial power uses force to overthrow recalcitrant
governments. In the 1980s all these tactics were used by the United States to crush
revolutionary ferment in Central America. Of course, the US hybrid war strategy
has been a staple of United States policy in the region ever since President
Franklin Roosevelt declared the policy of “The Good Neighbor.”
Neoliberalism refers to the variety of
policies that rich capitalist countries and international institutions such as
the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and the World Trade
Organization have imposed on debt-ridden poor countries. These policies require
poor countries to cut back on public services, deregulate their economies,
reduce tariffs that protect their own industries and agriculture, and in other
ways insist that poor countries open their economies to foreign investment and trade
penetration. The impacts of neoliberalism have been to impose austerity on
largely marginalized populations. Their agriculture and industries have been
undermined by subsidized agribusinesses from the Global North and global
investors. Since the initiation of neoliberal policies in the 1970s gaps
between rich and poor nations and rich and poor people within nations have
grown all across the world, with a few exceptions such as China.
In sum, peoples everywhere have experienced the
creation of repressive regimes and economic policies that have shifted vast
majorities from modest survival to deep poverty. (Susan Jonas once wrote that
the Guatemalan people lived more secure lives before the arrival of Spanish
colonizers in the fifteenth century than ever since). The globalization of
the economy, increased violence and repression within countries (largely
involving United States interference), increasing income and wealth inequality
and poverty, and the rise of repressive regimes everywhere, has led to massive emigration.
Some estimates indicate that 37 million people left their home countries (some
45 countries) between 2010 and 2015 for humanitarian reasons.
One of the ironies of world history is that
capital in the form of investments, trade, the purchase of natural resources,
the globalization of production, and military interventions have been common
and necessary features of capitalism since its emergence in the sixteenth
century. But, paradoxically, and except for the global slave trade and selected
periods of history, the movement of people has been illegal. (Sometimes
branding migrants as “illegal” has been a device to cheapen their labor). The
idea of national sovereignty has been used to justify categorizing some human
migrants as “illegal.” If capital is and has been legal, the movement of people
should be legal as well. It makes no sense, nor is it humane, to brand any
human beings as “illegal.”
The Concept of Open Borders
This sketchy analysis of the “root causes” of
emigration suggest the need to oppose imperialism, both in the form of hybrid
wars and promotion of neoliberal economic policies. This traditional task of
peace and anti-imperialist campaigns is ongoing and needs to continue. And the
analyses of the deleterious effects of hybrid wars and neoliberalism should be
linked to movements fighting against cruel and inhumane immigration policies in
recipient countries, such as the United States. In addition, drawing on
history, law, ethics, and a humane and socialist vision of the universality of
humankind, progressives should expand on a conversation raised by some about
the concept of “open borders.”
The idea of open borders has not been sufficiently
discussed as the immigration crisis in the United States and Europe has
unfolded. The core concept, with much room for discussion of implementation,
suggests that, as a recently endorsed Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) statement calls for, there should be an “uninhibited transnational free movement of
people….and a pathway to citizenship for all non-citizen residents.” The idea of open borders implies that no
human being by virtue of her/his presence in any geographic space can be
defined as “illegal” and that the principles of the Universal Declaration of
Human Rights apply to everyone, everywhere.
In a 2017 article Aisha Dodwell, Global Justice Now,
wrote in defense of open borders (Aisha Dodwell, “7 Reasons Why We should Have
Open Borders,” New Internationalist,
November 29, 2017, https://newint.org/blog/2017/11/29/why-open-borders)
. Among her arguments are the following:
-Borders are tools to separate the rich and powerful
from the poor.
-Borders do not stop efforts to emigrate but
exacerbate violence against already victimized people.
-Immigrants are erroneously blamed for declining
employment and jobs when, in fact, it is the demonization of immigrants that
divides workers from each other.
-Open borders would allow for emigres to return home
when the brutal repressive and economic conditions that led them to flee were
reduced.
-Open borders would lead to greater employment,
increased earnings, rising demand for goods and services, and through income
repatriation, more money sent back to families in countries the emigres fled.
In short, open borders would be a stimulus for economic growth in both the
country of origin and the host country of emigres.
-Open borders would mean the equalization of the
rights of people to emigrate; thus avoiding the current policies that allow for
immigration of certain populations (such as skilled workers) and not others.
-Historically, open borders have always existed for
corporations, banks, the super-rich, tourists and other select populations who
are beneficiaries of the global capitalist system.
Earlier Roque Planes, Latino Voices, (“16 Reasons Why
Opening Our Borders Makes More Sense Than Militarizing Them,” Huffpost, September
2, 2014, https://www.huffpost.com/entry/open-borders_n_5737722?guccounter
) adds to the list of reasons justifying open borders. Planes quotes an
immigration expert who has argued that, with glaring exceptions such as Asians,
open borders existed until the 1920s. “‘Legally’ meant something very different
then than it does now. At the time, the United States accepted practically
everyone who showed up with few restrictions other than the 1882 Chinese
Exclusion Act and a brief health examination. The foreign-born share of the
population, 12.9 percent, is lower today than it was during the entire period
from 1860 to 1920, according to data published by the Brookings institution.”
Planes posited arguments pertaining to open borders:
-Today capital and goods flow across borders but not
always labor.
-Rich people have the privilege of open borders.
-the US immigration system is broken.
-Open borders within the European Union, while
increasingly volatile politically, did not lead to the collapse of European
economies.
-‘Illegal’ immigration is a direct resultant of US
policies. Planes sites overthrowing governments, financing militaries in poor
countries, promoting policies that destroy domestic agriculture in poor
countries, and, he could have added, the war on drugs.
-Open borders increase the possibility of immigrants
returning to their homelands.
-Immigrants, in the main, are not the cause of
stagnant wages in the United States. Using anti-immigrant and racist policies
divert attention from the primary causes of economic exploitation.
-The broken immigration system has provided huge
profits for the prison/industrial complex and large budgets for law enforcement
agencies.
As to the last point, Todd Miller, Empire of Borders: The Expansion if the U.S. Border Around the World, Verso Books, 2019, argues that United States policy is “pushing out the border,” such that allies tighten their own borders to serve the needs of expanding imperial control. In addition, by pressuring other countries to tighten their own border security, the U.S. is expanding its border security apparatus, to include new special forces and expansion of State Department and other agency activities.
A reviewer of Miller’s
book, (Cora Currier, Pushing out the Border: How the U.S. is Waging a Global
War on Migration,” Portside,
August 4, 2019, https://portside.org/2019-08-04/pushing-out-border-now-us-waging-global-war-migration)
quotes Miller who writes that U.S. Customs and Border Protection “has trained
new patrol and homeland security units for Kenyan, Tanzanian and Ugandan
borders.” The reviewer points out from Miller’s study that “…the U.S.
Department of Homeland Security can be found assisting border projects in the
Philippines, the Dominican Republic, India, Poland, Turkey, and Vietnam.” In
addition the Border Patrol has offices in Mexico and Canada and a presence in
Puerto Rico to oversee the Caribbean. Quoting Miller: “Hundreds of millions in
U.S. funds have flowed to Central American borders to turn them into U.S.-style
defensible zones.” And soldiers from around the world are flown to the U.S.
southwest to gain experience in border control. Clearly, Miller is describing a
growing military/corporate/immigration complex. The ideological glue justifying
this massive enterprise are claims about national sovereignty and presumed
racist threats that people fleeing repression and starvation represent.
What To Do?
Along with the panoply of proposals for immigration
reform, campaigns to combat racism, and the movements to provide sanctuary to
desperate migrant peoples, progressives need to look at the history/ theory/
and practice of anti-immigrant policies. A central conclusion that needs to be
raised is to call and work for open borders as suggested by the DSA resolution
on open borders.
In sum central elements of a truly radical and humane
response to the immigration crisis in the United States and the world should
include:
-Increased efforts to challenge imperialism everywhere
in both its political/military dimensions and its intrusive neoliberal
economic policies
-Rejection of the idea that people can be deemed
“illegal.”
-Mobilizing around the concept of opening borders to
people fleeing repression and economic deprivation, similar to the U.S
immigration policies of the early part of the twentieth century.
-Using the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as a
guide to law and practice all across the globe.
-Revitalizing programs of humanitarian assistance on a
global basis including revisiting the possible value of instituting economic
regulations of global capitalism that were once proposed in the United Nations, referred
to as “The New International Economic Order.”
-Work to dismantle the military/corporate/immigration
complex.
While these larger demands will be difficult to
achieve, working for them and articulating a vision of the world where human
beings are not deemed illegal will add clarity to the reasons behind more
modest demands for reform.
