Illegal immigration

Template:Legal status Illegal immigration refers to the immigration of people across national borders in a way that violates the immigration laws of the destined country. In politics, the term may imply a larger set of social issues with disputed consequences in areas such as economy, social welfare, education, health care, slavery, prostitution, crime, legal protections, public services, and human rights.

Terminology

Terminology used in Europe

• clandestine workers (Europe)

Terminology used in Asia

• boat people

Terminology in the United States

Terms used in the United States include:

• illegal alien
• immigrant
• migrant
• criminal alien
• foreign national
• illegal immigrant/ migrant
• undocumented immigrant/ migrant/ alien / worker
• undocumented resident
• paperless immigrant
• f.o.b (fresh off boat)
• Fence bunny
• a moron

"Illegal alien" is the official term used in legislation and by the border patrol for a person who has entered the country illegally or is residing in the United States illegally after entering legally (for example, using a tourist visa and remaining after the visa expires).

"Undocumented worker" is often used by supporters to refer to all undocumented individuals, including children and those who do not work, arguing that it is offensive to describe any human as illegal, whether or not their behavior is illegal. George Lakoff, a University of California linguist and progressive strategist, has argued that "the terms 'aliens' and 'illegals' provoke fear, loathing and dread" and should thus be avoided

The National Association of Hispanic Journalists recommends "undocumented immigrant".

Victor Davis Hanson, neo-conservative historian and author of "Mexifornia: A State of Becoming" has argued that "undocumented worker" is a euphemism or politically correct term for "illegal alien." He states: "'undocumented worker,' for example, is the politically correct synonym for ‘illegal alien.’ . David Ray, of the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) a proponent of immigration reduction, has also criticized the use of the phrase “undocumented immigrant”. He states: “referring to an illegal alien as an ‘undocumented immigrant’ is "like calling a bank robbery an 'unauthorized withdrawal.'"

Causes

One driver of illegal immigration is an attempt to escape civil war, repression, military servitude (such as conscription or national service), or sexism in their native country.

One of the driving forces of illegal immigration is the excessive population growth often found in feeder countries without the corresponding growth in the economy to support that population. This imbalance often causes depressed wages or high unemployment levels, low levels of education, poor health, rampant corruption, inadequate living space, or means of subsistence for themselves and their kids. As the world population keeps growing geometrically in areas that are economically challenged, the excess population is becoming the dominant factor that mounts the "migratory pressure" - a term that is sometimes used to measure the determination of prospective immigrants to enter another country in possible violation of that country's border controls and/or immigration laws.

Many immigrants desire to secure free welfare, free education and free healthcare typically offered by many developed countries for their own citizens.

Methods

For a US perspective on this subject please refer to: Illegal immigration to the United States

Some illegal immigrants enter a country legally and then overstay or violate their visa, while others follow underground routes, such as illegally crossing a border without being inspected by an immigration officer at a Port of Entry (POE), with or without a valid passport and visa.

Most of the estimated 200,000 illegal immigrants in Canada are refugee claimants whose refugee applications were rejected but who have not yet been ejected from the country.

The other way of becoming an illegal immigrant is through bureaucratic means. For example, a person can be allowed to remain in a country - or be protected from expulsion - because he/she needs special treatment for a medical condition, etc., without being able to regularize his/her situation and obtain a work and/or residency permit, let alone naturalization. Hence, categories of people being neither illegal immigrants nor legal citizens are created, living in a judicial "no man's land". Another example is formed by children of foreigners born in countries observing jus soli ("right of territory"), such as France. In that country, one may obtain French nationality if he was born in France - but, due to recent legislative changes, it is only granted at the age of eighteen, and only upon request. Some who, for one reason or another, haven't asked for it, suddenly become illegal aliens on their eighteenth birthday, making them eligible for expulsion by police forces.

Immigrants from nations that do not have an automatic visa agreements, or who would not otherwise qualify for a visa, often cross the borders illegally. In some areas like the U.S.-Mexico border, the Strait of Gibraltar, Fuerteventura and the Strait of Otranto. Because these methods must be extralegal, they are often dangerous. Would-be immigrants suffocate in shipping containers, boxcars, and trucks, sink in unseaworthy vessels, die of dehydration or exposure during long walks without water. Sometimes migrants are abandoned by their human traffickers if there are difficulties, often dying in the process. Others may be victims of intentional killing. The official estimate, for example across the US-Mexican border, is that between 1998 and 2004 there were 1,954 people who died in illegal crossings. These smugglers often charge a hefty fee, and have been known to abuse or even kill [4] their customers in attempts to have the debt repaid.

The Snakeheads gang of Fujian, China, has been smuggling laborers into Pacific Rim nations for over a century, making Chinatowns frequent centers of illegal immigration.[5]

Smuggling of people may also be involuntary on the immigrant's part. Following the close of the legal international slave trade by the European nations and the United States in the early 19th century, the illegal importation of slaves into America has continued, albeit at much reduced levels. The so-called "white slave trade" referred to the smuggling of women, almost always under duress or fraud, for the purposes of forced prostitution. Now more generically called "sexual slavery" it continues to be a problem, particularly in Europe and the Middle East, though there have been increasing cases in the U.S.[6][7] People may also be kidnapped or tricked into slavery to work as laborers, for example in factories. Those trafficked in this manner often face additional barriers to escaping slavery, since their status as illegal immigrants makes it difficult for them to gain access to help or services. For example Burmese women trafficked into Thailand and forced to work in factories or as prostitutes may not speak the language and may be vulnerable to abuse by police due to their illegal immigrant status.

Classification

Immigrants are often divided into political migrants - i.e. refugees - and economic migrants. Those who migrate for personal reasons are generally classed as economic migrants, even if living in the new country greatly reduces their earning potential. Immigrants that may be legal and illegal from both divisions. Some political migrants are offered political asylum as a legal form of migration. Wealthy and talented migrants are often allowed to legally migrate.

Advocates of more restricted immigration divide people into political migrants and economic migrants, while supporters of more open immigration may consider all kind of migrants as refugees.

Legal and political status

See also: Illegal immigration to the United States, Immigration to the United States, Australian immigration, Immigration to the United Kingdom, Illegal immigrants in Malaysia.

Many countries have had or currently have laws restricting immigration for economic or nationalistic political reasons. Whether a person is permitted to stay in a country legally may be decided by quotas or point systems or may be based on considerations such as family ties (marriage, elderly mother, etc.). Exceptions relative to political refugees or to sick people are also common. Immigrants who do not participate in these legal proceedings or who are denied permission under them and still enter or stay in the country are considered illegal immigrants.

Most countries have laws requiring workers to have proper documentation, often intended to prevent or minimize the employment of unauthorized immigrants. However the penalties against employers are often small and the acceptable identification requirements vague and ill-defined as well as being seldom checked or enforced, making it easy for employers to hire unauthorized labor. Unauthorized immigrants are especially popular with many employers because they can pay less than the legal minimum wage or have unsafe working conditions, secure in the knowledge that few unauthorized workers will report the abuse to the authorities. Often the minimum wages in one country can be several times the prevailing wage in the unauthorized immigrant's country, making even these jobs attractive to the unauthorized worker. However, most unauthorized workers are paid well above minimum wage.

In response to the outcry following popular knowledge of the Holocaust, the newly-established United Nations held an international conference on refugees, where it was decided that refugees (legally defined to be people who are persecuted in their original country and then enter another country seeking safety) should be exempted from immigration laws. It is, however, up to the countries involved to decide if a particular immigrant is a refugee or not, and hence whether they are subject to the immigration controls.

The right to freedom of movement of an individual within National borders is often contained within the constitution or in a country's human rights legislation but these rights are restricted to citizens and exclude all others. Some argue that the freedom of movement both within and between countries is a basic human right and that nationalism and immigration policies of state governments violate this human right that those same governments recognise within their own borders. According to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, fundamental human rights are violated when citizens are forbidden to leave their country. (Article 13). This, however, only assists immigrants with the first part of their immigration process and does not assist with the second, finding a new home.

Since immigrants without proper legal status have no valid identification documents such as identity cards, they may have reduced or no access to public health systems, proper housing, education and banks. This lack of access may result in the creation or expansion of an illegal underground economy to provide these services.

Occasionally, authorities issue amnesties (often called regularization, earned legalization or guest worker programs).

The presence of illegal immigrants often generates opposition. A perception may exist among some parts of the public in receiving countries linking illegal (or even legal) immigrants to increases in crime, an accusation that others may claim is "anti-immigrant" or "xenophobic". When the authorities are overwhelmed in their efforts to stop illegal immigration, they have historically provided amnesty. Amnesties, which are becoming less tolerated by the citizenry, waive the "subject to deportation" clause associated with illegal aliens.

Controversy

Critics of the "illegal immigrant" status, such as Saskia Sassen in The Global City (1991, revised 2001), have contended that the artificial creation of legal aliens was necessary to ensure the reduction of production costs and low-wages policies demanded by the "new economics". Others, such as Giorgio Agamben, have pointed out the similarity between an illegal alien, an "enemy combatant" and a Homo Sacer, a figure of Roman law deprived of any civil rights.

Advocates of illegal immigration characterize nearly all migrants as legitimate, implying that the real costs and benefits imposed on the rest of the population are temporary and less important than the human rights issues.

Advocates of stronger restrictions on illegal immigration believe it is a given right of citizens to defend and maintain their traditional culture and standard of living without allowing unrestricted illegal immigration. They argue that illegal immigrants often do not behave on nationalistic interest, saying that their determination to migrate was not driven (or was driven to a lesser extent) by their willingness to abandon their native countries and make the receiving country, with its laws, customs, culture, and socio-political structures, their new homeland. Rather, they argue that many move in search of a higher level of subsistence for themselves and their families, often without feeling any obligation to assimilate or desire to renounce allegiances to their countries of origin and their governments. Those in favor of further restricting illegal immigration say that some show great patriotism for countries to which they would loath to return.

Many members of the public react negatively to the presence of unauthorized immigrants, who allegedly take desired jobs, crowd their streets, markets, schools, prisons and emergency rooms. Such sentiments are often exploited politically. However, allegations that the presence of unauthorized immigrants means increased costs and increased rates of crime and unemployment with few compensating benefits are conversely attacked by unauthorized immigrant advocates as "anti-immigrant" or "xenophobic." Studies of Mexican immigrants to the United States have suggested that unauthorized immigration may in fact be associated with decreased crime.

European Union

Restricting immigration in the European Union has often been driven by the fear the immigrants will bring alien political values that will disrupt or dilute European values, by nativism or general fear of strangers, by fear of wage and benefit reduction, by concerns of adverse impact on public services, or by security interests regarding criminals or terrorists.

A major issue is illegal immigration from Africa across the Mediterranean Sea, especially via the Strait of Gibraltar, where thousands of people die every year in attempts to reach Europe. There have been suggestions about establishing immigrant centres in Morocco, or elsewhere in northern Africa, to give information and protect the people risking their lives to reach Europe.

Southern Spain is a major region of entry for illegal immigrants. It is estimated that about a million illegal immigrants from Africa live and work illegally in this area.

The European Union is developing a common system for immigration and asylum and a single external border control strategy.

In France, helping an illegal immigrant (providing shelter, for example) is prohibited by a law passed on December 27, 1994 under the cohabitation between socialist President François Mitterrand and right-wing Premier ministre Edouard Balladur [8]. The law was heavily criticized by non-governmental organizations (NGOs) such as the CIMADE or the GISTI, left-wing political parties such as the Greens or the French Communist Party, and trade-unions such as the magistrates' Syndicat de la magistrature, who alleged that this brought France to the dark periods of Vichy France during World War II.

In October 2005, dozens of Subsaharian emigrants died trying to bypass the Spanish enclaves of Melilla and Ceuta. Morocco's authorities decided to expel all of them, leaving hundreds stranded in the desert near Oujda (border with a zone of Algeria loaded with landmines) and south of Morocco, without water or food. This raised a public uproar in Europe, although Morocco legitimately pledged that Europe's 1985 Schengen Agreement compelled it to provide Morocco with funding to cope with the emigration influx.

Once in July 2004 and a second time in May 2006, Hellenic Coast Guard ships were caught on film cruising as near as a few hundred meters off the Turkish coast and abandoning clandestine immigrants to the sea. This practice resulted in the drowning of six people between Chios and Karaburun on 26 September 2006 while three others disappeared and 31 could be saved by Turkish gendarmes and fishermen , the whole series of incidents added further strains on Greco-Turkish relations.

United States

Main article: Illegal immigration to the United States

Illegal immigration has been a longstanding issue in the United States, creating immense controversy.

The Pew Hispanic Center forward their research stating that 57% of illegal aliens are of Mexican origin and about 75% are of Latin American origin [9]. They also say report that while the number of legal immigrants (including LPRs, refugees, and asylees) arriving has not varied substantially since the 1980s, the number of illegal aliens has increased dramatically and, since the mid 1990s, has surpassed the number of legal immigrants.[10]

Research by the National Science Foundation advances the position that the costs of social services for illegal aliens are greater than the taxes they pay, while some advocates, such as Francine Lipman writing in the Harvard Latino Law Review, claim they pay enough to cover these costs.

The question of what role illegal aliens play in U.S. crime is also a highly disputed subject. According to a news article written by Olga R. Rodriguez which appeared in 'The New Mexican' dated November 6, 2005, a ranking Drug Enforcement Administration official testified before a Congressional panel that Mexican traffickers supplied 77% of the cocaine, 53% of the methamphetamine and approximately 50% of the heroin that enters the U.S.

Mexico

Mexico has very strict immigration laws pertaining to both illegal and legal immigrants.[11] The Mexican constitution restricts non-citizens or foreign-born persons from participating in politics, holding office, acting as members of the clergy, or serving on the crews of Mexican-flagged ships or airplanes. Certain legal rights are waived in the case of foreigners, such as the right to a deportation hearing or other legal motions. In cases of flagrante delicto, any person may make a citizen's arrest on the offender and any accomplices, turning them over without delay to the nearest authorities.

Mexico has accepted large numbers of immigrants during wars such as World War I (Germany, Yugoslavia, Poland, etc.); the Spanish Civil War, the Stalinist USSR (notably Leon Trotsky) and exilees from the South American and Central American dictatorships. It has also received those who are fleeing their native areas for religious persecution such as the Russian Molokans and Lebanese Christians and Mennonites. However, in the last decades, Mexico has received illegal immigrants as the result of civil war in Central America, many of whom attempt to eventually cross the US border illegally. Some of the immigrants are members of the Mara Salvatrucha, a criminal organization whose members have terrorized various places in Mexico, and in the States have currently extended their activities as far north as Washington, DC. It is said that the U.S. is pressuring Mexico and paying for the deportation of Central American origin.

In the first eight months of 2005 alone, more than 120,000 people from Central America have been deported to their countries of origin. This is a significantly higher percentage than in 2002, when for the entire year, only 130,000 people were deported [12]. Another important group of people are those of Chinese origin, who pay about $5,500 to smugglers to be taken to Mexico from Hong Kong. It is estimated that 2.4% of rejections for work permits in Mexico correspond to Chinese citizens [13]. Many women from Eastern Europe, Asia, the United States, and Central and South America are also offered jobs at table dance establishments in large cities throughout the country causing the National Institute of Migration (INM) in Mexico to raid strip clubs and deport foreigners who work without the proper documentation [14]. After the Argentine economic crisis of 2001 many Argentines have chosen to immigrate to Mexico either temporarily or permanently. Many of these are currently working in the country with the proper documentation, including some who work also in table dance establishments. In 2004, the INM deported 188,000 people at a cost of $10 million [15].

See also

• Rule of law
• Filibuster (military)
• Immigration to the United States
• H.R. 4437
• S. 2611
• Illegal emigration
• 2006 U.S. immigration reform protests
• United States immigration debate
• Mexico
• Ranch Rescue, a U.S. private militia outfit.
• Alien (law)

References

World

• Mireille Rosello; "Representing Illegal Immigrants in France: From Clandestins to L'affaire Des Sans-Papiers De Saint-Bernard" Journal of European Studies, Vol. 28, 1998
• Tranaes, T. and Zimmermann, K.F. (eds), Migrants, Work, and the Welfare State, Odense, University Press of Southern Denmark, (2004)
• Venturini, A. Post-War Migration in Southern Europe. An Economic Approach Cambridge University Press (2004)
• Zimmermann, K.F. (ed.), European Migration: What Do We Know? Oxford University Press, (2005)

United States

• Barkan, Elliott R. "Return of the Nativists? California Public Opinion and Immigration in the 1980s and 1990s." Social Science History 2003 27(2): 229-283. in Project Muse
• Vanessa B. Beasley, ed. Who Belongs in America?: Presidents, Rhetoric, And Immigration (2006)
• Borjas, G.J. "The economics of immigration," Journal of Economic Literature, v 32 (1994), pp. 1667-717
• Cull, Nicholas J. and Carrasco, Davíd, ed. Alambrista and the US-Mexico Border: Film, Music, and Stories of Undocumented Immigrants U. of New Mexico Press, 2004. 225 pp.
• Thomas J. Espenshade; "Unauthorized Immigration to the United States" Annual Review of Sociology. Volume: 21. 1995. pp 195+.
• Flores, William V. "New Citizens, New Rights: Undocumented Immigrants and Latino Cultural Citizenship" Latin American Perspectives 2003 30(2): 87-100
• Nicholas Laham; Ronald Reagan and the Politics of Immigration Reform Praeger Publishers. 2000.
• Lisa Magaña, Straddling the Border: Immigration Policy and the INS (2003)
• Mohl, Raymond A. "Latinization in the Heart of Dixie: Hispanics in Late-twentieth-century Alabama" Alabama Review 2002 55(4): 243-274. Issn: 0002-4341
• Ngai, Mae M. Impossible Subjects: Illegal Aliens and the Making of Modern America (2004),
• Ngai, Mae M. "The Strange Career of the Illegal Alien: Immigration Restriction and Deportation Policy in the United States, 1921-1965" Law and History Review 2003 21(1): 69-107. Issn: 0738-2480 Fulltext in History Cooperative