The real migration debate we need

Is it possible that the great issue of our time, the omnipresent and divisive issue that topples governments and poisons all public conversation, is veiled in such a thick layer of prejudice that it's leading us to total incomprehension and, perhaps, disaster? Dutch sociologist Hein de Haas believes so, and in order to ward off the danger, he has written an essential book, as well-argued as it is supported by all kinds of recent data: How Migration Really Works (published in Spanish by Península) Its author, a world authority on migration flows, gathers all kinds of information to understand reality without ideological blinders, a thankless—but also urgent and necessary—task in such fiercely polarized issues, as he explains to La Lectura via videoconference.

Interview by Daniel Arjona

Is writing a book about immigration myths from both the right and the left the most effective way to lose friends today?

Or to make new friends, right? In any case, I think it’s the only way to have a realistic debate on the topic. There are already many articles and books on immigration that take ideological positions, for or against. That’s not my case. My political opinions should not matter. I try to present everything we know as best as possible, regardless of ideology. So yes, maybe I’ll make friends and enemies. My hope is that people who read the entire book will realize that it offers a balanced perspective. Because things are more complicated than they seem, no matter which side you’re on.

But in such a polarized debate, won’t the evidence be lost like a drop in the ocean? You yourself recount in the book that politicians agree with you privately, but they also confess that it would be “suicidal for them” to say so publicly.

The evidence won’t come to light overnight. The resistance to exposing the truthis enormous, and politicians tend to cherry-pick the facts that suit them and ignore the rest. But I didn’t write this book for politicians. I became skeptical about the extent to which they are willing to listen. Immigration has become too attractive an issue for them, something that can win or lose them elections. I’m looking for a broader audience. And, of course, I’d also like journalists to read it, so that it helps them improve their information base and thus ask more critical questions to polticians. The debate has become too polarized and toxic. We can’t continue like this.

First big myth: Immigration isn’t at an all-time high, nor are borders out of control. There’s no invasion. Why do they tell us this all the time?

It’s interesting that the idea that we live in a time of unprecedented mass migration is very attractive to many. The far right warns against an invasion of foreigners coming to our countries to take our jobs and commit crimes. But, curiously, there are also far-left groups that exploit the fear of mass immigration. One example is the idea of climate migration: climate change would for instance prompt hundreds of millions of Africans to come to Europe. Although climate change should be a major cause for concern, there is broad consensus among experts that climate change is unlikely to trigger massive international migration.

Land border between Morocco and Spain near Ceuta. Photo by Hein de Haas

Don’t the right or the left understand immigration?

Or they don’t want to understand it. It’s an attractive topic for generating fear, and we know that fear is a very powerful tool for politicians and organizations to mobilize political support. Some stir up fears of an African or Muslim invasion and demand that the borders be closed.

And then there’s the UN refugee agency, which tends to artificially inflate the increase in their numbers of displaced people. I understand that they do this to attract attention and funding. But it’s unfortunate because it reinforces the idea that there is a huge wave of that will eventually arrive. But that’s not true. In the WWII period, refugee numbers have fluctuated quite dramatically depending on armed conflicts However, there is no clear upward trend in the long term.

I don’t necessarily question their good intentions, but by exaggerating refugee numbers they may reinforced irrational fears for massive invasion, they may undercut public support for humane refugee policies.

Second big myth: The development of poor countries won’t reduce immigration. If immigrants aren’t fleeing poverty, why do people emigrate?

People migrate for many different reasons, but we can safely say that, if you look at the history of major migrations around the world, labor demand has been the dominant driver. Spain is an excellent example. Until the 1960s, many Spaniards left their country to work. When the Spanish economy developed and demographics and the labor market changed, Spain went from being a country of emigrants to a country of immigrants. But Spain is also a good example of a country that wasn’t a low-income country. It was more of a middle-income country that became a high-income country. And the same can be said of current emigration countries like Morocco, or Mexico, or Turkey. These are definitely not the poorest countries in the world.

Don't the poorest emigrate?

Those who have certain levels of ambition, education, and certain resources migrate most. Because emigrating is expensive. The poorest of the poorest often lack the resources to move. And when they move, they tend to do so over smaller distances, generally within their own country.

But let’s address the elephant in the room of the migration debates. There have been two meta-trends in Western politics over the last 20 or 30 years. On the one hand, besides ageing and the increasing education of the native workforce, the liberalization of the economy and the labor market has increases the demand for migrants who are willing to do the work that native workers are no longer willing or able to do. And, on the other hand, an increasingly widespread rhetoric claims that we want less immigrants.

And so, since our economy needs them, but no politician dares to admit it, we turn a blind eye towards the deployment of undocumented migrants and act as if they aren’t here. But they are here, even if we don't want to see them, in our cities and towns, doing all kinds of useful work. This is a huge political risk that can give rise to a new marginalized class and create long-term problems of segregation and integration.

In your book, you explain that something similar happened in Germany.

In the 1960s and 1970s Germany started recruiting Turkish workers, and politicians just looked the other way; they thought they’d leave one day. Of course, many never left. If you need foreigners but don’t want to think they will become part of your society, you’ll have problems. The same applies for the 11 million undocumented immigrants in the US. Most of them are obviously working even if they don’t have papers, and politicians turn a blind eye to this fact, as the labor provided by migrants serves powerful economic and social interests.

Don’t we just need, as they say, skilled foreign workers?

We need engineers and doctors, of course. But there’s much more work to be done. Who will care for our elderly? Or our children? And the food sector? From the greenhouses of Andalusia to the slaughterhouses and processing. It’s an open secret.

Third big myth: Immigrants neither steal jobs from natives nor erode the welfare state. But it’s also not true that immigration is beneficial for everyone. You acknowledge that it benefits the rich more than the poor.

Let’s return to the case of Spain. In my book, I review all the evidence, and on that basis it’s impossible to argue that immigration, legal or illegal, has eroded public services, education, or healthcare. But you’re right: if we look at who benefits most from immigration, it's clearly people with middle or higher incomes, those who own the companies benefiting from migrants’ labor, the families using the services of migrants, and those who eat out and order food delivery the most, for example.

And of course, low-income Spaniards tend to live in in the same neighborhoods where immigrants are also. And this is the only group that may sometimes have to compete for the same jobs with migrants. That doesn’t mean that immigration has caused the problems low-income people often deal with, such as a lack of affordable housing, bad public services and high costs of living. But it's understandable that, from their perspective, they may think “what is in it for us”.

It’s interesting to see how immigrants themselves, after a while, often become anti-immigration because they don’t see much benefit in more additional immigrants, partly as they compete for the same jobs .

Immigrants seem to be overrepresented in crime statistics. But you argue that the data are misleading. Why?

Let’s be clear: the overall effect of immigration on crime is very small, and generally insignificant. Although racial profiling often play an important role, i’'s true that some groups of immigrant origin are more represented in certain crime statistics, but this is generally more of a second-generation related to problems of integration and segregation.

The interesting thing is that new immigrants actually tend to be less criminal than natives because they focus on working. They want to send money home. They want to pay for their children's education. Their entrepreneurial spirit produces what researchers call ‘positive selection’. The evidence actually shows that, on average, immigrants are less criminal than natives with similar levels of education.

But of course, if we systematically deny immigrants their rights and a recession hits, their children may be pushed into situations of long-term unemployment and rising crime. We’re talking about segregation, not immigration itself. Let’s make sure our immigrants can integrate, are not excluded and thus prevent future crime or extremism.

You say we think we live in multicultural societies, but in reality, the world today is more uniform than ever. Was the past more diverse than we think?

Yes, I think we forget how diverse we were. We have become blind to the diversity of the past. In most Western European countries, due to education and the media, we’ve increasingly seen the development of national or regional cultures that are becoming more and more homogeneous. Fewer and fewer languages are spoken around the world. My own country is a good example. Until the 1960s, in the Netherlands, Protestants and Catholics didn’t mix at all, a bit comparable to Christians and Muslims today. It seemed like a fundamental social divide, didn’t it? Well, if you tell that to Dutch children today, they’ll have no idea what you’re talking about.

But don’t both sides have to make efforts for better integration?

To some extent that’s true: Integration has to come from both sides. But we also have to recognize that the hard work of learning the language, new customs, fitting in, and succeeding in school has to be done by migrants. But governments also have a responsibility here, to think about the long-term social consequences of immigration. This exposes the danger of treating people mainly as factors of production. Integration problems often arise when governments cling on the illusion that migration is temporary and don’t address the long-term social needs of migrants.

In French stadiums, second- and third-generation North Africans whistle the Marseillaise. Are some cultures and religions better integrated than others?

Muslim immigrants in the United States are one of the most successful immigrant groups. The reason is that they are highly qualified. Higher-educated groups find it easier to learn the language, fit in, and be accepted. In the United States, the immigrants considered the most problematic are Latinos.

In Spain, the opposite happens: we accept Latinos but view Muslims with suspicion.

It’s understandable for reasons of language and religion. But note that the same doesn’t happen in the US, even though Latinos are also Christian. All of this goes far beyond faith or race. Of course, it takes longer to integrate groups that are more different. But if host societies are open and prevent exclusion, most immigrants are eager to fit in.

The “Great Replacement” is the favorite conspiracy theory of today’s populist right. In half a century, will Europe be a continent of dying white pensioners and young immigrants ready to take their place?

I doubt it; immigration is too small in magnitude to lead us to that scenario. I sometimes joke that the best way to stop migration is to destroy the economy. It happened in Spain after the 2008 crisis. For years, we saw young Spaniards even moving to Morocco. I know this because I have extensively researched migration between Morocco and Spain. It’s very difficult to predict migration. If economic fortunes worsen, immigrants stop coming.

But let’s assume that Europe will remain prosperous. The European workforce has become so highly skilled that more and more people prefer unemployment to unskilled work. Spaniards lament their high youth unemployment, but the reality is that young people don’t want to pick tomatoes in Almería. They prefer to be unemployed.

And as long as we live with that reality, immigrants will continue to arrive to fill in the labor gaps. They will form a considerable part of future population, but the overall magnitude of immigration is simply too small to believe migrants will replace native populations.

The left also builds myths. Will immigration save our aging societies?

Immigrants won’t destroy the welfare state, but they won’t save it either. For the same reason I said before. It would take such massive numbers of immigrants to counteract aging, five or ten times greater than today, that it's completely unrealistic – and politically unacceptable. Furthermore, immigrants are also aging. In fact, many countries of origin are aging as well. The birth rate in Morocco is currently 2.2 children per woman, down from 7 in 1960.

In Latin America, too, rates are falling very rapidly, and in Eastern Europe, they're almost as low as in Southern Europe. Immigration isn't going to solve these problems; it’s an illusion. In a way, you could say that immigration is a sign of success for the destination country. If its economy is doing well, people like this will come. Another way of saying this is that if you don't like immigration, that's in a way the price you pay for living in a rich country.

Immigration has triggered the main political shocks of our time, like Brexit or Trump’s victory. And it’s fueling far-right parties with unprecedented strength. And now it’s also fueling far-left parties, as we’re seeing in Germany. Is it possible to break out of this vicious circle?

It’s necessary. We have no choice. The rise of the far right has made the entire center and also the left afraid to talk about immigration. The traditional parties are entirely on the defensive. Some even embrace the far-right narrative, which is very dangerous because it normalizes a racist discourse that won’t solve any problems, but rather worsens problems of exclusion and segregation. Look at Italy. Meloni used anti-immigration rhetoric to come to power, and when he got there, he didn’t solve anything.

We must muster the courage to talk differently about migration, not for or against, but as it is. Because it is not going away. So the question is how to deal with it. We have to ask fundamental questions. For instance, do we really want a society that basically depends on a new class of servants? How much exploitation are we going to tolerate? But there is hope. Evidence shows that most people have mixed opinions on migration and are calmer and more sensible than our politicians.

My hope is that my book will help improve the debate. It will take time. In many ways, a real debate about migration is automatically also a debate about inequality. How can we ensure that manual labor is better valued and protected? This concerns both native and migrant workers.

Given the toxic and dangerous political climate surrounding migration, we can no longer afford to postpone these debates.

This text is a translated and slightly adapted and extended version of an interview with Daniel Arjona, originally published in Spanish in El Mundo on 17 May 2024.