A Puzzling Picture

MARIA GRASSO wonders why the immigration debate fails to capture the complexities of the issue

Immigration is clearly a loaded term. And the way in which we approach and understand this phenomenon in the West is often loaded with nationalistic connotations. As Philippe Legrain points out, the correct term in social science is in fact 'international migration', which emphasises the dynamic character of the movement of people across borders throughout time. And this brings us to a first glaring contradiction related to the concept of globalisation and "the free society": the movement of goods and services across borders is pretty much free, but the movement of people is not.

Many before me have pointed out that article 13, section 2, of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that "everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country". But of course the right to leave any country without the right to live in another leaves international waters as the only remaining option - and while this might be preferable to torture and persecution, it is hardly a solution for a migrant seeking a better life. And this brings us to fundamental distinction which is often used to discern between "deserving" and "undeserving" immigrants, even by some sections of the liberal left: that if people want to move to another country because they're seeking political asylum from persecution and torture, this is generally fine, but that if one wants to move abroad in search of a better life, prosperity and freedom to define one's destiny - the reality of economic migrants - then somehow this is less desirable. Positive reasons for migration, such as love, experience, and a good job, do not appear to matter.

Arguments against immigration controls are generally formulated in the following way: since they cause suffering to refugees and migrants, they should be abolished. But the important point is that immigration controls mean that people are denied the right to move freely around the world and to settle wherever they desire. So the emphasis on the victimhood of refugees and asylum seekers ends up undermining the case for open borders for all migrants, and especially economic ones. If the problem is simply one of mistreatment of asylum seekers and the brutality of refugee camps, then provided that immigration were controlled in a more "humane" way, border controls would be just fine. In fact, if governments prevented people from leaving in the first place, then the immigration "problem" would be solved.

But the point is that regardless of their form, immigration controls are inherently racist and repressive because they reproduce a system of international apartheid where it is governments that decide who may move why, and not the people themselves. And there is no good reason that I've come across to deny human beings the right to determine their own destinies.

Apart from the obviously racist arguments which the BNP and their like espouse, and which I think most people would dismiss as abhorrent and untenable, arguments against an open border policy are generally framed in terms of economic utility or the breakdown of social cohesion - in other words, by elevating the rights and wellbeing of the nation's residents over that of the "invading outsiders" or "aliens". These arguments rely on the idea that somehow a nation has a greater duty to its current citizens than to others, which I would argue borrows too much from outdated conceptions of nationality based on blood and descent-line.

The economic arguments generally rely on the idea that too much immigration has negative effects on a nation's economy, and that it puts too much pressure on the public services. But in his book Immigrants: Why Your Country Needs Them, Philippe Legrain does a good job of outlining the reasons why immigration is in fact beneficial to the economy and how it benefits everyone.

Nonetheless, even if the economic arguments that immigration is beneficial for the UK economy work out, we should not rely on these narrow utilitarian calculations in order to defend our case for abolishing border controls. This kind of argument stipulates that immigration is fine only insofar as migrants add something in terms of economic benefit. And if we accept the valuation of people in this manner, then there's no way of attacking, for example, an immigration points system. Regardless of whether immigration is beneficial to the economy, the arguments for an open door policy remain compelling at the level of respect for human agency and subjectivity - the fundamental freedoms to choose where to live and how to lead one's life.

Other arguments against immigration stress the fact that migrants from foreign cultures put too much pressure on the already weak bonds that tie communities together, and that immigration is simply not worth the risk to social cohesion. In a bid to refute the utilitarian case for immigration, David Coleman, professor of demography at St John's College, Oxford, argues that long-term population decline is benign, and that its economic effects can be managed through making "somewhat painful adjustments to workplace participation, the retirement age and pensions funding".

Given the choice between being forced to work longer with a smaller state pension to show for it, and accepting immigration, most people would probably choose the latter. Even so, arguments like Coleman's present a false dichotomy between lowering our aspirations and accepting the possibility of social chaos. This is more reflective of Coleman's own lack of political imagination than of the realities of immigration in a dynamic society.

Nonetheless, taking on Coleman's misanthropic arguments in the open is much better than trying to silence him if we are to win the case for open borders. In March 2007, Student Action for Refugees (STAR) organised a petition calling for Coleman to refrain from using his academic title when discussing immigration publicly because it brought "the university into disrepute". STAR also urged the Oxford and St John's to "consider the suitability of Coleman's continued tenure as a professor of the university, in light of his well-known opinions and affiliations relating to immigration and eugenics". Coleman had helped found the anti-immigration think tank Migration Watch and is a member of the Galton Institute, formerly known as the Eugenics Society.

Backed by Oxford as well as the University and College Union, Coleman rightly refused to refrain from using his title. There may be plenty to object to in his neo-Malthusian analysis (as Lee Jones and I have previously argued on Spiked Online), but STAR and others on the liberal left often prefer to silence critics of immigration rather than proffering a progressive alternative. Kieran Hutchinson Dean, the STAR campaigner who organised the petition against Coleman, told me in an interview that "we always knew [Coleman] was a respected member of the university, and we don't question his work". Instead, the main aim of the petition was to "raise awareness of his affiliation to eugenics" and to "make people more aware about these links because this might change their views on his credibility".

Behind such attempts to restrict free speech, whether it is the government or a group of students leading the charge, is a degraded view of other people as either witless sponges who will unthinkingly soak up whatever they are told, or potential fist-swingers who, given any encouragement, will become racists or xenophobes. So STAR did not question the validity of Coleman's academic research, instead denouncing it as "dangerous".

But it is precisely because the public debate about Britain's immigration policy turns on narrow technocratic questions about population growth and the country's skills base, rather than any vision of what sort of society we want to live in, that the views of one professor can carry so much weight.

If those of us who support an open-border policy are going to win the argument, then we need to take on the likes of Migration Watch. The attempt to shut down the anti-immigration lobby means that the immigration issue is never fully debated, and thus never won. As John Stuart Mill pointed out in On Liberty, if an issue is not "fully, frequently and fearlessly discussed, it will be held as a dead dogma, not a living truth".

Generally pro-immigration views are in danger of becoming "dead dogma" today because the automatic response of many progressives is to silence anyone who criticises these views, branding them as little more than a plausible front for the BNP. The positive case for an open society is rarely aired while Migration Watch is slammed for publishing statistics that opponents would rather hush up.

Those who are opposed to open borders - and this includes a large part of the British population - are not simply stupid, racist or misguided. People's concerns about immigration are symptomatic of government's inability to adequately provide public services. In surveys people will often say that they are against immigration because there aren't, say, enough houses. The problem and solution here lies on the supply-side; not on the demand-side, which includes immigration.

The same logic applies to jobs. If rising population levels were the problem then given the six-fold rise in the British population over the last 100 years, we would all be unemployed, and given the recent rise in immigration levels, unemployment should have skyrocketed - but it hasn't.

When it comes to immigration we should think carefully about people's right to determine their own destinies; about a world in which people may decide where and how to live.
The way to win the argument in favour of an open door policy is to do it in the open, not to silence opponents. Rather than crouching arguments on the victimhood of refugees and asylum seekers, cosmopolitans should put forward a positive case for open borders.

Maria Grasso is reading for a DPhil at Nuffield College, with a research focus on the decline of political activism in western Europe. She is also the co-convenor of the IoI Postgraduate Forum and her articles have appeared on Spiked Online and in The Isis.