Immigration Law

Migration is a phenomenon that not only applies to men, but animals too. If plants could walk, they’d migrate too.

Animal species have migrated since life popped in this planet. Cataclysmic events, climate changes or resource scarcity are some of the factors that have triggered mass migrations in a quest for survival. And humans are no exception to it. What makes things more complicated for us evolved primates is that other variables are thrown into the mix, such as cultural or economic factors. Migration not only depends on these factors but it’s also facilitated by them.

The subject of illegal immigration is currently one of the top trending topics in the USA, but is also a constant across Europe and the world’s developed nations. In fact, wherever there’s a differential of resources, work availability or safety there’s going to be migratory movements. By osmosis, people are going to migrate from their current location to greener pastures.

The US Republicans are trying to toughen immigration regulations in an attempt to prevent illegal immigrants from crossing the borders or giving the boot to those that are already established in the country -breaking families and communities in the process-. Thing is that these illegal immigrants do the jobs that most locals won’t do. They also take care of our children, build the buildings we live in, mow our lawns, and countless other things.

It’s not that I’m rooting for illegal immigration, I’m just saying that we are missing the most important point -and probably the solution too-.

Being an unavoidable phenomenon as it is, there are ways to mitigate it. Eradication is not an option, unless you have the power of a god to counter mother nature’s force or, even more difficult nowadays, control the global economy. If you want to eradicate immigration, you need to eradicate people; and that’s out of the question (this seem not to apply to genocides, though).

The root of the problem are not illegal immigrants. The problem are those legal residents and citizens who employ them. If there weren’t people giving them jobs, they wouldn’t come in the first place simply because there would be no opportunity to make a living. They might go somewhere else, or at least try to strive in their home land.

As history has shown, there’s no way to prevent migrations. You can say it’s a natural -and evolutionary- phenomenon. People (not everyone of course) migrate to survive and ensure the well being of their kin. People also migrate to evolve -in a spiritual/personal way if you may-.

In our modern world, Globalization only reinforces these movements by enabling people to move faster and to more faraway places. In the past, humans have had to walk. Think about our ancestors walking across the Bering Straight during the last Glaciation. More recently, humans have used to take month long trips across oceans. Today you can move to your “new promised land” on the other side of the globe in a matter of hours.

In conclusion, regulations should be aimed at controlling those how employ illegals. Secondly, governments need to work together instead of throwing the ball to each other or look to the side as if the problem wasn’t theirs, because every party has a responsibility. The emigrant’s homeland should address the internal problems that are forcing people to flock abroad by providing opportunities (easy to say) or seeking aid from other nations.

But reality is that the only way to prevent immigration is to vanish poverty, hunger, corruption, social inequalities, cultural problems and wars from the planet. Anyone up for the task? You got my vote.