In 2004 the UK opened its borders completely to all workers from the European Union. Polish citizens emigrated by the thousands and, contrary to initial speculation, the influence on British society has been overwhelmingly positive, with higher GDP and no strain on social services. Can America learn from the British example? Could the US actually create an open border with Mexico?
Cross posted by E-Lho at The Seminal...we'd love for you to drop by!
Anyone who has been to Britain in recent years has undoubtedly seen the influence of the most recent wave of immigration on British society. In central London, a visitor would be hard-pressed to walk a few blocks before over-hearing a conversation in Polish or spotting a Polish-language advertisement in a shop window. To say the least, the Poles are everywhere in Britain, touching every aspect of British life–from education to dentistry, manufacturing to hospitality and religion – and new immigrants arrive each day, flying on budget airlines that have sprung up to shuttle migrants across the continent. While it may seem like Britain is being overrun with Polish immigrants, contrary to initial negative speculation, the influence of Polish immigration on British society has been overwhelmingly positive. Opening its borders to workers from a less-developed nation boosted the British economy and may offer a strategy for easing America’s immigrant woes.
The History
Following the May 1, 2004 adoption of the Accession Treaty, ten primarily Central and Eastern European nations joined the European Union and despite resistance from other EU members, Britain–along with Ireland and Sweden–decided to open its borders to all workers from eight of the new EU member states. Going against the pervailing anti-immigration rhetoric, Britain paved the way for a massive influx of legal immigrants, most notably from Poland. Since 2004, nearly 600,000 new immigrants have come to Britain from new EU member states, over half of which were from Poland. According to John Salt, professor of geography at University College London, this movement is
“almost certainly the largest-ever single wave of immigration [the British Isles] have ever experienced”.
The mass migration from east to west has been a test case for other EU nations. Following the success of Polish immigrants in Britain and Ireland (both nations with strong, growing economies), other member states, namely Finland, Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain, have followed suit and opened their doors to new immigrants from Central and Eastern Europe. However, the success of Polish immigrants in Britain’s workforce has not eased any of the native anxiety over foreign inhabitants nor has it lessened EU-wide anxieties over immigrants from Romania and Bulgaria, two new member sates admitted in January, 2007. The anti-immigration campaign is still a powerful force in UK politics, with politicians and organizations arguing against immigration on the basis of preserving the nation’s economic strength and cultural purity.
One such organization, MigrationwatchUK, does not oppose all immigration but rather advocates setting a limit for the number of immigrants allowed into Britain each year (ideally, according to them, a number equal to that of Britain’s emigrants) as well as the implementation of a series of criteria each immigrant must meet before settling in the country, including a minimum salary requirement. (Their argument, however, seems to exclude immigrants from within the EU, who are, presumably, part of the same “European” culture Migrationwatch hopes to preserve in Britain.)
Unexpected Success Story
Although migration from Poland to the UK far surpassed original estimates of five to thirteen thousand immigrants per year, there is something to be learned from the success of this story. In March, Time Magazine published an in-depth report on the subject. Titled “How the West Was Won,” the article enumerates some of the economic and cultural successes of Polish immigration to Ireland and Britain. For example, immigrants added to the GNP and projected GDP in both nations; they mesh with and contribute to the local culture; immigrants work unwanted jobs cleaning bathrooms, performing manual labor, etc.; they tend to be younger and healthier; they pay taxes at a higher (single-person) rate; and may even return home within a few years. In addition to expounding the positive results of this open-door policy, the article also provides a point of departure for comparing this instance of immigration to others–namely, it contrasts the benefits of open-door legal immigration to the threats and security issues of illegal immigration. In looking toward Britain, Ireland and the EU as a whole, America could gain better understanding of its own immigration situation if it were to examine these examples.
Andrew Purvis, author of the afore-mentioned article in Time points out that many of the new immigrants to Britain and Ireland are single and well-educated. Most, if not all, have completed their secondary schooling and many have college degrees. Also, as their single-status dictates, they pay taxes to society at a higher rate than they are able to draw from it. They are also barred from receiving welfare services because when Britain and Ireland decided to open their doors to migrant workers they
“restricted migrants’ access to welfare, thus pre-empting claims that folks were coming as ‘welfare tourists’ to leech off the system”.
In theory, this restriction sounds like an ideal solution, and statistics released by Britain’s Home Office last month suggest the restrictions have ben successful.
Similarly, though Poland has not attained levels of economic success on par with other European nations (i.e., it has not be allowed to adopt the common currency, the Euro), it is still the recipient of economic improvements heralded by its induction into the EU. Its economic growth has declined since it reached 5.3% in 2005, but at 3.4% annually, it still leads the U.S., at its lowest rate of growth in four years at 1.3%. Unemployment is still a dismal statistic in Poland, though according to the World Bank, between 2004 and 2005, the unemployment rate dropped from 19% to 16%, and the nation also continues to suffer the infamous “brain drain“. However, unlike illegal immigrants, legal immigrants have freedom of travel, and this ability to move back-and-forth between home and away often encourages legal immigrants to return to their native country after a year or two abroad. Already, signs of this trend may be appearing. One of the immigrants interviewed for Time, recently returned to Poland. Bozena Woza now teaches at the the Institute of Mathematics and Computer Science in Czestochowa, Poland, where her experiences teaching at King’s College London and University College London will have a positive impact on her future work educating Poland’s younger generations.
The U.S. Could Learn from the UK Example
Like the UK, the U.S. faces similar struggles and challenges when confronted with the issue of immigration. It is a flagship nation, a leader among leaders. Unlike the UK, however, the U.S. is not a welfare state and does not provide services such as housing and healthcare for those in need. (The U.S. relies primarily on the services of private philanthropic organizations that assume these burdens.) If there is a system in place, it is possible for the nation to restrict those with access to it. Healthcare in the U.S. is floundering, at best, struggling to stay afloat with rising costs, increased demands and an inability to make services affordable to the majority of its citizens. Add to those problems, the stress of undocumented aliens and the system starts to drown.
In the UK, some of those problems have been diverted not only because Polish and other Central and Eastern European immigrants are prevented access to the system, but also because the immigrants tend to be single (i.e., without families, without children, without dependents) and between the ages of 18 and 34 (i.e., younger, stronger, more employable, without the need for pension funds or old-age healthcare). Immigrants from Mexico into the U.S. (i.e., those immigrants who seem to attract the most criticism, especially from border-whores in the southwest) tend to include the able-bodied 18-34 year-olds as well as children and extended families. One notable instance in which a rush of immigrants to the U.S. caused considerable strain on healthcare systems was the reconstruction efforts in Post-Hurricane-Katrina New Orleans. Late last year, the city’s hospitals experienced a Katrina-born baby boom, with expectant-mothers-to-be flooding the hospitals with prenatal needs, unable to afford the services their pregnancies demanded. It is an unfortunate circumstance in which wives followed husbands to high-paying construction sites and subsequently changed the demographics of the region with a wave of newborns nine months (give or take a few) after their arrival. I say “unfortunate” both because the hospitals in the area were unequipped to deal with the influx of uninsured patients it faced and also because it appears as if these immigrant mothers took advantage of an American crisis to further their own personal interests. (We can argue whether this plotting actually occurred, but the coincidence seems statistically improbable.)
Immigration Strengthens the Nation
As Polish immigration in Britain has shown, for its skeptical EU counterparts as well as the rest of the Western World, immigration is good for the economy. Immigration is good for the economy even when the immigrants come from poorer, less developed nations. Immigration is good for the economy, even if migrant workers perform menial labor. Immigration is good for the economy even if immigrants possess only a rudimentary knowledge of the location language. Additionally, though harder to measure and more difficult to judge, immigration is also good for the local society and culture. The influx of new cultures and traditions, does not weaken the local customs, but rather strengthens those traditions through comparison and contrast. One does not learn about his individuality by living in a bubble, rather, he learns about his identity by interacting with others. Furthermore, cultural literacy–knowledge of, and an ability to interact with other cultures–is an important skill for success in today’s global marketplace. Therefore children who attend bi-/multi-lingual schools have an advantage over those who attend mono-lingual (or, English-only) schools. Individuals exposed to a variety of people from a variety of cultures have higher chances of succeeding in life.
However, these pro-immigration arguments do not necessarily apply to all types of immigration, but they do offer some insight into conquering a mounting problem. A nation’s border is only as strong as the immigrants desire to cross it. If America were to open her borders to all immigrant workers from from Mexico, it would initially witness a flood of new people, but their new legal and documented status as migrant workers would allow them to move throughout the country to places where they are needed in communities where they can find work. Because they are documented, they would be required to pay taxes on all their income and contributing to the system rather than drawing from it. Additionally, making the border easier to cross would lessen the desire to cross it. Those who cross will be more willing to return and those who do not cross will benefit from access to open markets and freer trade. An open border with Mexicomight be a frightening thought, but it may be the only way to solve this widespread (and growing) problem, one which will become politically viable only after people begin to recognize the social and economic benefits of a hardworking migrant labor force.