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Economic recession and immigrants
WSN Network
 At
a time of economic meltdown and recession, jobs are hard to come by.
So each job aspirant who gets to know about another one having a job
does not really appreciate the idea. If God forbid, the one having
the job is a migrant, you have had it. It looks like "my job that he
has got". No wonder, worldwide, there is a feeling among many native
people that the migrants are now sitting on a job pile that is
legitimately the natives'. Those who were being hailed for their
contribution to countries' economies are being seen as villians.
Sikh Diaspora is
no different. And since they are the ones who are easily
idenitifiable as migrants, even when they are citizens of their new
country, they are resented in a market where jobs are hard to come
by.
No wonder,
United
States and many European countries are hardening their policies
concerning immigrants and their employment. As currencies tumble,
stock markets collapse and growth rates slow down, the champions of
free trade and free markets are deploying protectionist strategies.
From opposing the idea of inviting overseas nurses, including from
India, to issuing a 30-day deadline
for “benched” H-1B visa workers to return home, immigrants are at
the receiving end a s easy targets. While designing immigration
policies is fundamentally a matter for individual governments, they
should be compatible with international human rights laws and
standards. Politicians, public officials and the media should not
heed public perceptions of immigrants to make scapegoats out of them
in a time of economic recession, or consider them as solutions to
the economic downturn, which is a global phenomenon. Such acts will
further fuel discrimination, racism and xenophobia. This is also a
time for governments to engage in multilateral, regional and
bilateral processes to mainstream migration, which can provide for
varying degrees of mobility and security to citizens of
member-states.
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Some 90 million workers live and work outside their country of
origin. Nearly 200 million people out of a global population of
6.4 billion live outside the country in which they are born.
Women now constitute almost half of the immigrant population.
If everyone wants to protect its natives at the cost of
migrants, imagine the scale of the crisis! |
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People cross
borders every day — sometimes as a result of bilateral agreements
between states, or due to global and regional economic processes,
and often in an uncontrolled and unregulated manner based on demand
and supply. States do have a sovereign right to exercise authority
over their borders, but such rights are not absolute. Sovereign
power is not without limits. In a situation of global recession and
economic meltdown, terminating jobs without notice; retaining
employees’ visas and not renewing them on time, thus making them
illegal immigrants; requiring them to leave within 30 days, and
otherwise making them ‘out of status’ and ‘illegal’; proposing
amendments to visa legislations, and so on are unlawful under
international laws. A state cannot pick and choose people as and
when it wishes, and throw away their rights at will. It must
exercise its legitimate powers responsibly within the labour rights
framework, and there should be no unilateral actions. Attempts to
restore economic stability in a country by closing its borders to
labour are bound to generate even more substantial income and
employment losses in many countries.
In the past, the
U.S. and
other developed countries have encouraged selective migration, while
officially discouraging certain types of migration. Many European
governments that publicly state the absolute necessity to exclude
irregular immigrants from their territory are prepared to tolerate
the existence and even the growth of informal labour markets, which
rely largely on irregular immigrants. Others encourage immigrants to
work in industries which face labour shortages. Aging populations
and dramatically reduced fertility rates in the developed world are
also influencing governments in favour of migration, not least to
maintain their pensions and social security systems, and to find a
sufficient number of caregivers. On the other hand, Asian and
African governments favour migration because of the economic value
of remittances to themselves, as well as the social and economic
benefits of an immigrant worker population to the receiving country.
However, in these times of financial turmoil, many politicians
including President Barack Obama, and other policy-makers, are
heavily influenced by an understanding that a hard line they take on
immigration will boost employment opportunities for their own
people.
 The world has
evolved some migration management systems over time, and the
U.S.
and other countries should not resort to unjust unilateralism at the
cost of bilateral, regional and international understandings that
have been reached. In the European Union, full mobility is permitted
to citizens of EU countries, including for purposes of employment.
At the
international level, governments have sought a consensus on broad
principles underlying an international regime of “migration
management.” One recent example is the Berne Initiative, an
inter-governmental consultative process aimed at “achieving a better
management of migration at regional and global level through
enhanced inter-state cooperation.”
Another example
is the intergovernmental consultative process within the
International Labour Organisation (ILO). The 92nd session of the
International Labour Conference called on the ILO to carry out a
plan of action on immigrant workers designed to ensure that
immigrant workers are covered by the provisions of international
labour standards and benefit from the applicable national labour and
social laws. To bring this about, a non-binding Multilateral
Framework on Labour Migration has been adopted by the governing body
of the ILO. The IOM is an intergovernmental organisation which has
taken a leading role in discussions on migration management in the
international sphere, and plays an increasingly important role in
the development of international migration policy. This is evident
in its International Dialogue on Migration, meant to strengthen
cooperative mechanisms among governments in such areas as migration
and trade, labour, health and development. However, the IOM has no
formal protection mandate or responsibility to supervise an
international treaty to protect immigrants.
According to the
ILO, an estimated 90 million workers live and work outside their
country of origin. Nearly 200 million people out of a global
population of 6.4 billion live outside the country in which they are
born (World Migration 2005). Women now constitute almost half of the
immigrant population. One can well imagine a situation in which
countries are allowed to put in place protectionism as the core of
the new regime of migration management, and the impact it would have
on the well-being of the population of the world as a whole.
If a solution to
the economic recession involving immigrants is to be effective, it
must be credible not only to the states but to the immigrants
themselves. To achieve this, states must respect immigrants.
Politicians and parliamentarians of the
U.S. and Europe
have a choice today. They can either make decisions that ensure the
security, dignity and continuity of immigrants, or their resolutions
can leave immigrants vulnerable to dislocation, vulnerability and
abuse. The first set of choices will bring the world together in
addressing the problems of the present economic downturn and will
lead to a collective coming out of the crisis; the second would make
nations virtual fortresses and lead to the continuation of the
crisis at large.
History,
especially the experiences in the aftermath of the stock market
crash in October 1929, reveals that protectionist strategies are
likely to make matters worse. Solutions to today’s global economic
downturn do not lie solely in financial policies. They require
integrated economic, social and environmental strategies at
different levels. The Great Depression of the 1900s prompted the
establishment of world governance institutions. The 1997 crisis in
Asian countries saw many of them introducing or extending social
security schemes, including unemployment insurance, and doing away
with International Monetary Fund loan conditionalities. The present
crisis should also be seen as a catalyst to new ways of thinking and
creative alternatives.
18 March 2009
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