Contemporary Perspectives on Immigration

By: Anna Mazurkiewicz, Ph.D., University of Gdansk and Kosciuszko Foundation Fellow in Residence at the IHRC

Prompted by the approaching holiday air travel season (still a new thing for most Poles), I began to wonder about the people first traveling home to Poland for Christmas from their new homes elsewhere in Europe before returning again to New Year’s parties with their new friends in London, Stockholm or Madrid.

The findings of a recent special report of Poland’s Office of the Committee for European Integration (UKIE)
describe the most likely travelers of this holiday season. They are young (in the U.K. 84% of Polish employees are under 34), educated (57% have graduated from high school), grew up mid-sized or small towns in Poland, and found job elsewhere in service occupations (30% for U.K).

In March 2007 the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs asked the Institute of Public Affairs to prepare a socio-demographic analysis of Polish job migration within the European Economic Area before and after Poland joined the EU (May 1st 2004).
http://www.msz.gov.pl/files/docs/DKiP/ekspertyza-isp-finalny%2024%2004%2007.pdf
The results are the same. For the last 3 years, it has been is the young, the educated, and the articulate that leave Poland. Open job markets in the West (except for Germany, Austria, Belgium, Luxemburg) lure the young. According to a study cited in the UKIE’s report 32% of Polish respondents under age 24 declared a willingness to leave Poland. By contrast, only 20% of Poland’s unemployed and 22% of Poland’s blue collar workers declared their willingness to seek employment abroad.

Is this a “brain drain”? With higher education still free in Poland, many get their diplomas and leave in order to wash dishes in British, Irish, Swedish or Spanish restaurants and bars. Conversely, Polish news magazines feature stories of the most successful migrants who have begun careers in engineering, banking, and science.

Some Europeans have even suggested that the EU create a “Blue Card” policy. (Does that sound familiar to American readers familiar with “green cards”—which are actually not green at all?) It should--for the blue card proposed by the European Commission on October 23rd would offer two years legal residence and work permits in any EU country but only for a highly-qualified non-EU citizen. Upon the completion of the two year period, it would be possible to move to another EU country, provided a job offer is secured, or one would have to return to his/her country of origin. Hence the big difference between green and blue.
http://euro.pap.com.pl/palio/html.run?_Instance=cms_euro.pap.pl&_PageID=1&s=szablon.depesza&dz=szablon.depesza&dep=72291&data=&lang=PL&_CheckSum=1799484197

It is not easy for the European Union to compete with the U.S. or Canada to attract well educated immigrants. For example, EuroPap found 85% of well-educated immigrants from the Maghreb countries residing either in the U.S. or Canada. At the same time highly qualified immigrant employees constitute 1.72% of EU’s workforce (the comparable figure is 9.9% in Australia 9.9%, 7.3% in Canada).

Many Poles see this “blue card” proposal as restrictive in yet another way since it protects but also potentially drains the educational resources of newly admitted member-countries such as Poland. If a company receives a job application from an engineer from India, it would be able to employ him with a “blue card” only if no Polish or Hungarian engineer applied. Poles do apply for such highly qualified jobs since they can earn 10 times what they would for the performance of similar tasks in their country of origin.

To read more on this initiative go to European Commission’s webpage

So is Polish exodus to Western Europe just another wave of Polish emigration, comparable to early migrations of laborers to France or the United States. Not quite. Today’s departers often expect to return and it is easy for them to do so. Migrating within the EU they need not give up their Polish citizenship. Maintaining close family ties poses no major troubles. In my view, a person moving from Gdansk to Dublin is little different than an American moving from Detroit to a better job in Seattle.

Over the next few weeks the new cheap airlines, that have opened direct connections between the Old and New Europe, will once more carry loads of people who want to be HOME for Christmas. Some will soon return for good. Others will choose to remain in the West and thus add to the new wave of well educated, predominantly young people who no longer tend to think of themselves as Poles only, but rather consider themselves Europeans of Polish origin.

In Europe, the times are definitely a-changing!

Posted by Dan Ott at 06:36 PM | Permalink

By Donna R. Gabaccia, Director, Immigration History Research Center

Aliens can be deported; citizens cannot. In a “nation of immigrants,” families routinely include both aliens and citizens. That’s why deportation so often raises troubling issues.

Take the case, reported last week, of “A Mother Torn from Her Baby.” A breast-feeding mother from Honduras was detained by immigration officials. She had been living illegally in the U.S. with her three children and with a sister and brother-in-law who were both workers and parents. In their household of 9, three were foreign-born adults without papers, and six were children, four of them young citizens of the United States.

The case is not an unusual one. Recent raids have revealed that about two-thirds of unauthorized immigrant workers are parents. About two-thirds of those children are citizens who cannot be deported with them. Experts estimate that three million American children have deportable parents. Unlike other citizens, furthermore, these children cannot sponsor their parents’ applications for family reunification visas: only adults can do that.

Deporting large numbers of “illegals” sounds easy but it isn’t. When deported parents cannot support their American-based children from abroad, as many cannot, (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wpdyn/content/article/2007/11/18/AR2007111800871.html), the children inevitably become dependent on social services.

Angry commentators who insist “illegal immigrants” are using their children as “human shields” must either accept American responsibility for the long-term care of the citizen children of deported parents or insist that children inherit their parents’ guilt.

Few Americans will easily accept the punishment of children for parental errors, especially when most evidence suggests children of foreign-born parents are meeting or exceeding the integration of earlier generations into the American mainstream. The vast majority possesses strong English language skills. Immigrants’ children do as well in school as other low-income American children. Recent reports note immigrant children’s involvement even in mainstream groups like the Boys Scouts and Girl Scouts.

In fact, the angriest few are willing to punish children. To date, however, the 14th Amendment to the Constitution—passed to guarantee birthright citizenship to emancipated slaves—has been upheld by the courts for the children of even hated and excluded foreigners. Denying or revoking the citizenship of the children of unauthorized immigrants would require constitutional amendment. It’s unlikely that many Americans would support this kind of tinkering with the 14th Amendment.

Posted by Dan Ott at 08:23 PM | Permalink

By Andy Urban, PhD candidate in History at the University of Minnesota. IHRC Affiliated Faculty

The last two weeks, I was in the Washington, DC area, visiting my family for the Thanksgiving holiday and making trips to the downtown National Archives in order to do research. The immigration records I was interested in are housed in basement of the same building that showcases the United States constitution. Upstairs, where the constitution is on display, everything moves efficiently and tourists are herded through in an affable manner. The security guards even smile. Downstairs it is another story. The researcher must navigate a byzantine system of security checks, complete a complicated process in order to request records, and overcome other various barriers that can easily drive all but the most dedicated away.

You can tell a lot about a country’s priorities by looking at how it utilizes and mobilizes its bureaucratic resources. When it comes to “protecting” the US-Mexican border, the federal government had not hesitated to allocate money and soldiers to this cause. As a recent article in the Washington Post points out, however, if you happen to be an Iraqi working for private US contractors operating in Iraq – and you want to leave Iraq in order to live - things do not run as smoothly (‘Iraqi with Ties to US Cross Border into Despair’). Despite the fact that many Iraqis who work for US firms such as GE and MCI are targeted by both Shia and Sunni militias for death, they receive virtually no help in getting their refugee status expedited through the US government’s bureaucracy. According to the article, US contractors employ upwards of 100,000 Iraqis, but only a tiny percentage – those who work directly for the US government – are eligible to receive fast tracking on their immigration status. Overall, only 1,636 Iraqis were resettled in the US last year, out of a total of 2.2 million displaced by the invasion and war who are now living abroad. Some of the same prominent US companies that do contract work in Iraq recruit a global executive class from around the world. Corporations devote whole sections of their human resources departments to ensuring that these immigrants have relatively few hassles entering the US.

Part of the difficulty in resettling refugees from Iraq has been that the State Department and Department of Homeland Security have been squabbling over whether Iraqi immigrants pose a potential security threat. According to an article in the Chicago Tribune (‘No Fast Track for At-Risk Iraqi Refugees’), “terrorists” from Iraq might pose as refugees in order to slip into the United States. By comparison, the Canadian government has made reuniting Iraqis with relatives living in Canada a government priority (‘Canada to fast-track Iraqi immigrants').

To end with a bit of a digression, I own a dog. I love my dog. Here is a picture of her lounging on my couch:

Despite my love for my dog, and the canine species in general, I find the following story in the New York Times sickening.

While perhaps the article aims to shock, by setting the reader up to be astonished that certain residents of Princeton, New Jersey truly care more about a dog than a human being, it is not altogether unbelievable that this is the case. As numerous people pointed out over the last six months, Americans heaped far more abuse on Michael Vick than on other pro athletes who had been charged or convicted for crimes such as spousal abuse. But for real…poor Giovanni Rivera. No one should have to fear for their life when they show up for work. If this was some neighborhood white kid who got mauled, this discussion would not be taking place.

Posted by Dan Ott at 02:56 PM | Permalink