Speaker 1: You're listening to Bloomberg BusinessWeek with Karl Messer and Tim
Speaker 1: Steneveek on Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 2: On Monday, Texas Governor Greg Abbott signed a new measure
Speaker 2: that allows state law enforcement to arrest migrants who entered
Speaker 2: the US without authorization. Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador
Speaker 2: m Low has accused the governor of using such measures
Speaker 2: for political gain ahead of the twenty twenty four US
Speaker 2: presidential election, and he says that his country will challenge
Speaker 2: the measure. No question that immigration ats front and center
Speaker 2: as we enter the twenty twenty four presidential election. In fact,
Speaker 2: swing state voters see US Mexico border security is a
Speaker 2: greater priority than the foreign policy crises that have increasingly
Speaker 2: dominated President Joe Biden's attention over the last few months.
Speaker 2: We're talking Israel, Hamas, and then of course what's going
Speaker 2: on in Ukraine. This, according to an October Bloomberg News
Speaker 2: Morning Consul poll, what we've got with us a great
Speaker 2: voice to help us understand migration and also to help
Speaker 2: dispel what he argues are common myths and misconceptions around migration.
Speaker 2: Heindehas is professor of sociology at the University of Amsterdam.
Speaker 2: He's also the director of International Migration Institute and the
Speaker 2: author of the new book How Migration Really Works, The
Speaker 2: Facts about the most divisive issue in politics. Professor to
Speaker 2: has good to have you with us this afternoon. How
Speaker 2: are you.
Speaker 1: I'm fine, Thank you well.
Speaker 2: Thanks for staying up late in Amsterdam and joining us.
Speaker 2: We really do appreciate it. Hey, if you go back
Speaker 2: in history, for pretty much as long as we'venn had
Speaker 2: historical record, migration has been politically divisive. I mean, this
Speaker 2: is the type of thing that sparked wars in the
Speaker 2: past for borders. Why has it been so politically divisive?
Speaker 1: I think migration is this perfect issue to detract the
Speaker 1: attention away, distract your attention away from other issues where
Speaker 1: people aren'thappy about. And I think migration is the perfect
Speaker 1: scapegoat as well. But it also provides an opportunity for
Speaker 1: politicians to position themselves as strong leaders against the common enemy.
Speaker 1: So it is very attractive for politicians to draw the
Speaker 1: migration card. And we see that all across the West.
Speaker 1: But like you said, it's not something new. I mean,
Speaker 1: if you go as century back in the US, there
Speaker 1: was a lot of hostility towards Southern European migrants, Catholic migrants,
Speaker 1: Jewish migrants, German migrants, and you see it for all countries.
Speaker 1: So this phenomenon as such is not new. I think
Speaker 1: what's worrying is the divisive of an inflammatory language we're
Speaker 1: hearing from politicians. Of course, migration comes with its problems,
Speaker 1: but it's now being sort of magnified to this essential
Speaker 1: threat to societies, and I think that is really problematic
Speaker 1: because the debate is more and more disconnected from what's
Speaker 1: happening on the ground.
Speaker 3: Can you walk us through maybe some of the most
Speaker 3: common misconceptions that you hear about migration and what your
Speaker 3: responses would be to those.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Now, I think the most common sort of idea
Speaker 1: that many people share across the political board, from left
Speaker 1: to right, is this idea that the swelling miles of
Speaker 1: people from poor countries are moving to rich countries and
Speaker 1: that our borders are increasingly overwhelmed. And it's linked to
Speaker 1: this idea that poverty, inequality, warfare pushes more and more
Speaker 1: people to live their homelands. Now, of course there are
Speaker 1: issues on the border, and certainly in the US case,
Speaker 1: that's not something we can ignore, but if you zoom
Speaker 1: a little bit out and you look at the overall
Speaker 1: volume of migration in the world, we talk about three
Speaker 1: percent of the will population, and that percentage remained remarkably
Speaker 1: stable over the last century. Basically, there has been clear
Speaker 1: shifts in terms of directions of migration, but we don't
Speaker 1: really have evidence of migration as such as spinning out
Speaker 1: of control, although you'd get that impression of course if
Speaker 1: you look at particular border areas and the issues the
Speaker 1: US is currently dealing with. But I think if you
Speaker 1: zoom out, migration is essentially not driven by poverty and misery.
Speaker 1: The main driver of migration also to the US has
Speaker 1: always been the economy and particular labor demand, and what
Speaker 1: you see right now both in terms of legal any
Speaker 1: legal migration in the US cannot be disconnected to the
Speaker 1: fact that use in employment as the fifty year low
Speaker 1: right now, labor shortages are huge. We have an unprecedented
Speaker 1: peak of vacancies topic topping I think ten million right now,
Speaker 1: which is really historical records. And these things are connected.
Speaker 1: So this is not so much about a sort of
Speaker 1: poverty push what people think. It is really primarily about.
Speaker 1: There's opportunities and that's always been the case. It's always
Speaker 1: been the case with immigration.
Speaker 2: It sounds like you and you're making the point, Professor,
Speaker 2: that the US can absorb the immigration that we're seeing.
Speaker 1: Well, I think the problem is that quite a lot
Speaker 1: of migration is undocumented. It's about the legal migration, and
Speaker 1: that reveals I think a huge issue all across the West.
Speaker 1: There is simply not enough political support for creating more
Speaker 1: legal pannels for lower skilled migrants. And we need we
Speaker 1: sorted to with the COVID pandemic. That these people do
Speaker 1: all sorts of essential jobs in the economy, but this
Speaker 1: is not the kind of migrants for which we give
Speaker 1: in our visas, which means that people find other ways
Speaker 1: to enter countries, and I think that is one of
Speaker 1: the biggest causes of the search and border crossings which
Speaker 1: you see. Besides of quarter, there's also people fleeing conflict.
Speaker 1: So to put it simply, the best way to really
Speaker 1: really curb migration is to wreck your economy, and we
Speaker 1: see indeed in times with high unemployment economic recessions, migration
Speaker 1: goes down. When the economy does well, a lot of
Speaker 1: people come. And it's partly what you see and most
Speaker 1: of the migration also to the US is about legal migration,
Speaker 1: legal temporary migrant admissions to the US reaching all time
Speaker 1: high under the Trump presidency up to six million, and
Speaker 1: after a sort of COVID slack, it's back to five
Speaker 1: million of last year, And it reflects the actually very
Speaker 1: good state of the US economy. So to put it differently,
Speaker 1: if you want, if you don't like immigration, that is
Speaker 1: the price you pay for being a wealthy, open market
Speaker 1: economy as the US. But the same goes for the
Speaker 1: UK and many other European countries.
Speaker 3: So under the framework that you're working with that you
Speaker 3: know the only way to solve micration yould Well, one
Speaker 3: way would be to wreck your economy. Obviously we wouldn't
Speaker 3: want to do that in the US. But underneath your framework,
Speaker 3: did you come up with ideas or solutions about I mean,
Speaker 3: we do have a lot of people trying to cross
Speaker 3: the border illegally. How do you solve that? How do
Speaker 3: you even begin to start finding solutions for that?
Speaker 1: Well, you cannot do anything if you don't do anything
Speaker 1: about the demound factor. And I think what really shows
Speaker 1: that another thing sort of myth is that you know,
Speaker 1: politicians get tougher and tougher in immigration. Yet it's true
Speaker 1: on the level of rhetoric, but if you look at practices,
Speaker 1: we haven't found in a huge research project any difference
Speaker 1: between left leaning and right leaning politicians in terms of
Speaker 1: the policies they implement. For instance, a lot of particularly
Speaker 1: Republican side you hear a lot of tough talk on immigration.
Speaker 1: At the same time, labor enforcement is symbolically low in
Speaker 1: the whole of the US. Just one statistic, the number
Speaker 1: of employers that get prosecuted for employing undocumented migrants is
Speaker 1: somewhere between ten and fifteen a year without any zero's added.
Speaker 1: It is roughly the same chance of being hit by lightning.
Speaker 1: And it shows to whatever you call it, that's call
Speaker 1: it the hypocrisy of politicians that you know, I have
Speaker 1: a lot of tough talk to say about immigration, but
Speaker 1: a lot of these.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and a lot of these A lot of the
Speaker 2: big examples of this are in actually states where that
Speaker 2: are most aggressively rhetorically anti this migration. Who are migrants
Speaker 2: Because in order to actually leave where you were born,
Speaker 2: leave where you're from, leave your family behind, that takes
Speaker 2: a person who's willing to make a lot of sacrifice
Speaker 2: and do these things and work, in my opinion, work
Speaker 2: very hard. What have you found in your research.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, that's exactly what we find. That was true
Speaker 1: in the past of Europeans going to the United States.
Speaker 1: It's still true for migrants. Migrants are what we call
Speaker 1: a positive selection of people in home countries, which means
Speaker 1: these are the exceptional people, the entrepreneurial people. Three percent
Speaker 1: of the well population migrates, that means ninety seven percent
Speaker 1: stays home. So migrants are almost by definition those who
Speaker 1: want to take risks or entrepreneurial who want to improve
Speaker 1: their lives, and that is still the case by and large.
Speaker 1: So migrants are a positive sub selection. And that is
Speaker 1: actually why research is found that immigration decreases crime, very
Speaker 1: contrary to what politicians say, because migrants are often very
Speaker 1: community oriented, business oriented. They don't come to countries to
Speaker 1: become criminals. And that's why we find in research the
Speaker 1: exact opposite of what politicians tend to claim.
Speaker 2: But I want to get back to a conversation with
Speaker 2: Heinde Hash, professor of sociology at the University of Amsterdam.
Speaker 2: He's also the director of the International Migration Institute and
Speaker 2: the author of the new book, How Migration Really Works.
Speaker 2: The fact is about the most divisive issue in politics.
Speaker 2: Professor Dehas joins us from Amsterdam this afternoon. So, Professor,
Speaker 2: one thing that I wanted to discuss was public opinion
Speaker 2: and what you've found in different parts of the world
Speaker 2: where you've studied this, and how democrats, how Republicans in
Speaker 2: the US think about immigration as a political issue, because
Speaker 2: your findings, I think would surprise a lot of people.
Speaker 1: Yeah, what is interesting, it is indeed true, is most
Speaker 1: people would expect that more Republicans think negatively about migration
Speaker 1: compared to Democrats leaning voters who tend to be slightly
Speaker 1: more positive. But if you look at trends through time,
Speaker 1: it really becomes interesting. In the US, clearly the share
Speaker 1: of people who do positively up migration on both sides
Speaker 1: of the political divide between Democrats and Republicans growing, So
Speaker 1: there is no sort of public backlash against immigration, which
Speaker 1: what you would think if you listen to politicians. And
Speaker 1: we find the same in Europe, and we can explain
Speaker 1: that because it's people get used to the presence of migrants'
Speaker 1: fheares often diminish and people start to think more positively
Speaker 1: about immigration. So there is no big public backlash against immigration.
Speaker 1: What you see is that the rhetorics have grown increasingly
Speaker 1: tough by politicians. It is more on the level of
Speaker 1: political rhetorus that you see this huge polarization between a
Speaker 1: sort of pro and anti migration.
Speaker 2: But is that rhetoric working. Does it lead to people
Speaker 2: changing their minds, does it lead to public opinion shifting,
Speaker 2: and does it lead to candidates being elected?
Speaker 1: Well, in the broad sense not. But there is of
Speaker 1: course a share of voters that is worried about immigration,
Speaker 1: that sees immigration is a big threat, and that vote
Speaker 1: is being mobilized, and that is still a significant share.
Speaker 1: But the interesting thing is that the share of people
Speaker 1: thinking more positive will doop migration is actually increasing. It may,
Speaker 1: of course be that people on the fringes may be
Speaker 1: emboldened by divisive, inflammatory language, and that is of course
Speaker 1: a problem. It could spark violence and discrimination and racism.
Speaker 1: But overall, there is no clear trend towards growing senophobia,
Speaker 1: growing racism. The trend is rather in the other direction.
Speaker 1: That is actually very surprising, and what it shows that
Speaker 1: there is I think there is a fair share of
Speaker 1: voters who wants to hear a different story because this
Speaker 1: pro anti division is simply not working anymore. Migration is
Speaker 1: of all times, migration comes with the share of problems.
Speaker 1: It comes also with a lot of benefits. But it's
Speaker 1: not something that can just think away. And I always
Speaker 1: say to ask you know me, for instance, are you
Speaker 1: in favor against migration, to be like asking an economist,
Speaker 1: are you in favor against the economy. That's not a
Speaker 1: serious way of talking about immigration. And that is partly
Speaker 1: why the debate is so incredibly stuck, because both camps
Speaker 1: sort of dig in, cave in, and cherry pick evidence,
Speaker 1: and there are not many politicians who dare to tell
Speaker 1: the true story about immigration, which bio necessity is a
Speaker 1: much more nuanced one than the one we usually hear
Speaker 1: when we listen to politicians.
Speaker 3: So what did your findings find with the nuance of
Speaker 3: who actually benefits from migration in the countries that are
Speaker 3: bringing people in, that are seeing more migrants, who benefits there?
Speaker 1: Well, migrants make the whole economy bigger basically, so the
Speaker 1: whole economic pie is simply growing. And if you look
Speaker 1: at average effects on wages, for instance, we find very
Speaker 1: very small effects. And there you can discuss about methods
Speaker 1: and data, but the fact the effect is so small
Speaker 1: that it is pretty insignificant. When you look at higher
Speaker 1: and lower incomes, you see a clear difference. It is
Speaker 1: particularly already affluent to benefit most economically from immigration, because
Speaker 1: these are, of course the people using services migants provide,
Speaker 1: often owning businesses that help them to boost their profits.
Speaker 1: But the lowest income earners, amongst whom also many former migrants,
Speaker 1: of people living on minimum wage, for instance, don't benefit
Speaker 1: much from immigration, and in some cases they may lose
Speaker 1: out a little bit. It doesn't mean that immigration is
Speaker 1: the cause for the long wage technoation we have seen
Speaker 1: for lower incomes in the United States. But it is
Speaker 1: in a way logical that people who earn really low
Speaker 1: wages have the feeling what's in it for me? Because
Speaker 1: these are also the people who see, of course the
Speaker 1: day to day consequences of immigration in their daily lives.
Speaker 1: So in that sense, the idea that they don't benefit
Speaker 1: as much from immigration as already effluent people is correct.
Speaker 1: But it doesn't mean that migans take away jobs or
Speaker 1: are responsible for the long term wage technolu that we
Speaker 1: have seen in many Western countries amongst lower income owners.
Speaker 2: Professor de Haas. Let's say that by some imaginary force,
Speaker 2: you became in charge of immigration policy here in the US.
Speaker 2: No question, we face a crisis at the US Mexico border.
Speaker 2: How would you solve it?
Speaker 1: I think I would organize a national debate about immigration,
Speaker 1: and that is a serious debate, and that should the
Speaker 1: definition be a debate about the kind of society and
Speaker 1: economy you want to live in, particularly when we look
Speaker 1: at lower skilled jobs. Because there's broad support also in
Speaker 1: the US to allow people to come in who do
Speaker 1: higher skilled jobs. But it is a fact of life
Speaker 1: and certainly in the future that we need also lower
Speaker 1: skilled immigrants. So you can only solve this in two ways.
Speaker 1: Either you create more legal channels for lower skilled workers
Speaker 1: that will avoid a lot of misery at the border.
Speaker 1: And these policies that we've been trying to implement a
Speaker 1: border enforcement that go back more than thirty years, and
Speaker 1: we've been trying to do the same again and again
Speaker 1: and again, and it doesn't work because people are still
Speaker 1: attracted by jobs, or you make those jobs not available anymore.
Speaker 1: I do enforce labor law, you know you're really going
Speaker 1: to prosecute employers massively. I don't think that is very likely.
Speaker 1: I'd rather have a different debate about the kinds of
Speaker 1: jobs we create that are jobs that are not attractive
Speaker 1: for native workers, that attract migrant workers. We really need
Speaker 1: to think about how we organize our economy. For instance,
Speaker 1: if you think about care, who's going to take care
Speaker 1: in the future of our children, our elderly. We need
Speaker 1: a serious debate about immigration where we no longer deny
Speaker 1: these economic realities, and on that base we can make decisions.
Speaker 1: But we really cannot divorce the whole debate on immigration
Speaker 1: from a broader debate how to organize our economy. Well,
Speaker 1: that's a long story, it's a complex story, and that
Speaker 1: is the whole point. I think we've seen too much
Speaker 1: politics of denial over the last thirty years, and that
Speaker 1: also explains the mess we're in, not just in the US,
Speaker 1: but also in European Union, where this real demand follow
Speaker 1: is killed labor, which is going to stay because of aging,
Speaker 1: because of increasing education of the native workforce. All indicators
Speaker 1: show that we really need a debate about this, but
Speaker 1: also a debate about work and jobs and for instance,
Speaker 1: minimum wage. These are all connected with immigration, and I
Speaker 1: cannot explain it fully right, Don't I think this is
Speaker 1: a serious debate.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's been really helpful and you got to come
Speaker 2: back and join us once again. Heinde Haas is Professor
Speaker 2: of sociology at the Diversity of Amsterdam. Check out his
Speaker 2: new book, How Migration Really Works The Facts about the
Speaker 2: most divisive issue in politics.