Introduction: Walls, Both Physical and Emotional, Are
Proliferating
Keeping migrants out of your country is hard work.
In 2015, Hungary strung up some barbed wire and called it a
wall. As a result, the migrant wave was pushed back, leaving people stranded in
Serbia.
Serbia had no choice but to follow with its own wall, and
therefore so did Bulgaria.
Greece would build a wall through the Aegean Sea if it knew
how (perhaps Donald Trump will lend his engineering expertise).
There’s a
crisis out there, and the wave of would-be migrants crossing from Turkey into
Europe has left the EU’s leaders in panic mode. That’s perfectly reasonable,
but the problem isn’t going to go away and some serious planning for the long
term has to begin soon.
We Need to Rethink Why People Are Hostile
to Migrants
Opposition to migration in the EU is obviously related to
the volume of migrants as well as to fears that some in a predominantly Islamic
group will support terrorism. But we’ll make a serious mistake if we think
these factors alone explain popular hostility to immigration.
Misreading the source of growing hostility to migrants is an
issue both in the EU and the US. In fact, in both places there are strong
parallels, both with respect to the sources of resistance and to possible solutions.
Much of the Stronger Hostility to Migrants
Comes from Rural Communities
The similarities between the US and he EU with respect to
immigration exist because the most important development in both is that
substantial numbers of immigrants are now appearing in rural areas (“rural”
meaning any place outside of large urban centers).
In the EU, the phenomenon of non-EU immigrants in
out-of-the-way places is fairly new and has been most notable in Germany, where
the new presence stems from the government’s decision to balance settlement
across the country. But the phenomenon has long been a factor in the UK, where
it’s had a major role in Brexit.
In the US, the issue has longer standing, since large
numbers of immigrants – legal and illegal – began to appear in small towns as a
result of the economic boom of the first years of this century. I vividly
recall driving a convertible through rural North Carolina in 2000 and, when at
a construction stop, being surprised to hear nearly all of the workers speaking
Spanish.
The problem isn’t physical space for housing or competition
for jobs: there’s plenty of living space
in the rural areas of both the US and the EU, and it’s well known that immigrants
mainly take jobs others don’t want.
The big problem with immigration in non-urban areas is the
lack of psychological space.
The Rural/ Urban Divide Isn’t What It Used
to Be
To understand this point, we need to go back a century or so,
when mass migration from rural to urban areas occurred because the economy had
changed such that it became almost impossible for people to sustain themselves
on small farms. Those who left the land as internal migrants went to cities not out of choice, but
from necessity.
However, when the rural to urban shift slowed, roughly 70
years ago, it reflected some significant changes in society. Most important, the economic pressure had abated, and rural areas now were mostly home to people who were there because they chose to
be. These were individuals who had consciously turned down the urban option because
they weren’t comfortable with it.
Meanwhile, urban dwellers continued to develop philosophies
of life that were different from their rural brethren. People who live in cities
have always been more tolerant of government, if only because government helps
deal with the challenges of proximity – if you don’t want your neighbors to
keep hogs and burn trash in the yard, you’ll likely support a government
that enforces zoning laws.
Also, urban dwellers have historically been more tolerant of
people who are different. This hasn’t always been a smooth process and isn’t
complete, but dealing with people from different backgrounds is a fact of urban
life; if you can’t handle it, you’re very likely to leave.
When Immigrants Reach Rural Communities
The stronger cultural divide between rural and urban has
become sharper as immigrants reach rural areas. Boston in the UK is an example
that has been the subject of several profiles. This town, surrounded by
productive farmland, became a magnet for Poles when the EU opened to people
from Eastern Europe. Mostly, the Poles came to work in the fields – like their
counterparts in the US, they were taking jobs that locals didn’t want. But, the
newcomers lived in the town rather than on farms, and there were soon many Polish
restaurants, bars, and stores in Boston. Some estimates are that Poles are 20% of
the area's overall population.
The appearance of so many outsiders so quickly in this semi-rural
community created a backlash, and the area became a stronghold of Britain’s
UKIP, the group that was the first to advocate leaving the EU.
Interviews
with anti-immigrant people in Boston don’t evidence the dead-brained
xenophobia that educated urban dwellers expect to hear. On the contrary, it’s a
concern about way of life, about psychological space.
Across the ocean, in the American south, where
anti-immigrant feeling is especially strong, anger is connected with the
anti-government sentiment that’s prevailed in the region since before the Civil
War. Blaming incompetent politicians in the national capital is a feature of
all anti-immigrant movements, but in the southern US it rides on top of a much
stronger and deeper sentiment.
There are a lot of flaws in the southern US attitude about
illegal immigration, not least because people there willfully ignore the fact that local businesses
drew immigrants by ignoring their illegal status. In the south, the rallying
cry about illegals is “they broke our laws.” The fact that employers broke the
laws by enticing them and making it possible for them to stay is completely ignored
by locals – there’s a deep
hypocrisy here.
However, much as we might dislike hypocrisy, it’s a real
feeling and often reflects not so much deliberate behavior as it does limited
information sources. Further, even if the seminal behavior of business in illegal immigration could be
explained and understood, it still wouldn’t mean that people in the south,
particularly in rural areas, would welcome immigrants – legal or illegal. These
are people who’ve chosen to stay in their towns because they don’t like cities
and their strange people. Indeed, many of these people actively fear cities,
something that explains their relentless push to be able to carry weapons
everywhere they go.
It’s important to emphasize that the anger in rural areas is
being reinforced by constant generational sorting. A consistently higher proportion
of young people from these communities is going to college, where they
typically become comfortable with people from different backgrounds. An
illustration of this in the US is the strong tendency of even conservative
young people to support gay rights.
But the young people from rural areas don’t return after
college. They go to or stay in cities because that’s where the most interesting
jobs are and also because, unlike their parents, they’re comfortable in diverse
urban environments.
The emigration of the educated young leaves rural areas even
more culturally isolated, something that has been quickly reflected in
politics. With few voices in opposition, politicians with extreme attitudes
about immigration rise to the top – and stay there.
The profound change in media has both reflected and
exacerbated the cultural clustering. Instead of accessing a few newspaper and
television sources that attempt to cover a range of views, people are able to
focus all their attention on sources that reflect their existing opinions. Fox
News in the US represents the most visible and powerful example, but there are
equivalents throughout Europe.
Educated Urban People Are a Major Part of
the Problem
There’s another key driver of the cultural divide: the tendency of comfortable urban dwellers to
think of their rural counterparts as boorish bumpkins. This condescension
appears across a range of issues, but is most vivid on immigration. The
attitude can be described simply: we’re
OK with these people, they don’t challenge us in any important way -- so what’s
the matter with you Neanderthals?
Urban condescension on immigration is flawed in several
important ways.
First, it ignores the fact that rural people have
legitimately chosen to live a life that is different from their urban peers.
Urban dwellers have always looked down on rural folk, and their superior
mindset has caused them to ignore other
people’s right to choose.
The second point is that the right to object to immigration
is entirely valid. There’s nothing in the US Constitution that mandates a
continuous flow of immigrants. In the case of the EU, the Union’s laws do
require internal migration, but there’s nothing to say that accepting more
people from outside the region is a moral or legal duty.
My observation is that people in the political center tend
to be much more knowledgeable and open-minded on most issues when compared to
their conservative and populist peers. But immigration is an exception. Centrists
make assumptions about the foundations of policy that aren’t there.
So think about it this way:
if a certain level of immigration isn’t inherent in the nation’s
fundamental law or philosophy, then those who argue one way or another about it
are simply reflecting the essential values of democracy. Let’s say that
again: having an opinion against
unfettered immigration is democracy, not demagoguery. It’s OK for centrists to
try to convince people to take a different approach, it’s not OK to imply that
opposition to immigration reflects a lack of morality or of patriotism.
Key Elements of a Compromise
Centrists in the US and EU should start the ball rolling by actively
acknowledging that immigration is a valid point of debate and that those who
opposed high levels are not evil or morally deprived. How many immigrants and
where they come from is a legitimate topic of discussion, and a pause to think
and plan is not unreasonable. This is especially important in the EU because pressure
from Africa and places like Afghanistan won’t end once the Syrian conflict is
over.
In the US, rural conservatives should respond by agreeing
that the “they broke our laws” argument is phony and that pro-immigration
stances aren’t at all anti-American. With respect to this latter point, conservatives
in the US should remember that that in the past conservative America rejected
people from Southern and Eastern Europe – really anyone who was Catholic. They
were wrong then that these people wouldn’t assimilate, just as they’ll be wrong
about Hispanic newcomers. Jews from the Middle East have a different culture
and mores but still fit well into American life; the same is and will be true
with Moslems.
As far as illegals
are concerned, conservatives need to take an honest perspective, one which
begins by acknowledging that, by avoiding employment law, US employers really
invited them and facilitated their ability to stay. We’re not going to evict 11 million people
and we’re not going to have controls on who moves where. But calm discussion of
benefits and challenges, plus understanding of false views from the past, will
ease tensions.
In the EU, after the issue of limits is resolved, rural
conservatives need to refocus on reasonable assimilation; it’s time to think in terms of managing
change, not rejecting it. Europeans should remember that, given a very low
birthrate, the EU economy will need a lot of immigration in the near future. And,
while assimilation is a reasonable expectation that’s made more difficult by too
much clustering, it’s primarily too little schooling that makes this hard. The fight
should be over education and jobs, not clothes.
Conclusion
Because much of the
problem is the center’s disdain of the right’s views, the onus for a new initiative
is on the political center. Once that’s been done, a substantive discussion can
begin. Not everyone will participate, and extremists will never go away. But
the advent of a calm, rational discussion will keep uncontrolled emotions at
the edges.
