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Posts Tagged ‘immigration’

Two stories of immigration

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on February 1, 2026| Leave a Comment »

Two stories about immigration caught my eye this week. 

Firstly, here in France, applications for full citizenship are down in 2025 following a tightening of the guidelines issued to the Prefectures. Not only have they increased the required level of French language skill from B1 to B2, but the evidence required to demonstrate “integration” has been increased from verbal claims to written attestations about volunteering, membership of associations and attendance at memorial events. Perhaps, most significantly, for retirees, there is now a requirement that the majority of a person’s income must be sourced in France, so if you are retiring from another country with a pension, that no longer counts as “economic integration”. Well, that’s the end of the road for me! In addition, Justice Minister, Gerard Darmanin. has proposed a two or three year “pause” on ALL legal migration. The overall message here is that the current French authorities see immigration as a bad thing, and despite the fact that almost 10% of the population is of foreign origin, they have no plans to facilitate integration of those 6 million people into society. 

The second article which caught my attention is really the polar opposite of the first. Spain has proposed that the 500,000 “undocumented” people living in Spain can apply for a one year residency permit which is extendable, legalising the position of half a million foreigners, as part of an over all strategy of integration based on human rights and fairness, which, they believe, will improve both Spanish society and the economy. The Far Right don’t like this, of course, arguing amongst other things, that this will make Spain more attractive to immigrants, and that as their numbers increase, then the pay and conditions of Spanish workers will be put at risk. 

I was never a fan of Theresa May’s ‘Hostile Environment” policy. It strikes me as bizarre to think the best way to stop people wanting to come and live in your country is to make living in your country more miserable for them. If the aim of a government is to make their country safer and better for the whole population, it’s counterintuitive to try and make life more precarious and worse for SOME of them. 

The economic argument is not as simple as the Right Wing populists argue either. The Spanish government argues that active integration of immigrants into the agriculture and care sectors, amongst others, for example, will plug the existing employment gaps in those areas. But, in addition to that, what about the immigrants who set up businesses and employ those currently unemployed? And what about those with skills who can then teach and train others, enabling many more people in Spain to get better jobs with better skills?

Perhaps the worst stories about immigration currently are those flowing from the USA which seems to have determined that getting rid of as many black or brown immigrants as possible will be an over all benefit. Deploying masked, armed men to workplaces, schools, courts and homes, snatching people without recourse to lawyers or courts and putting them in detention centres then sending them abroad, is surely one of the harshest regimes of treatment of immigrants in the world. 

Meanwhile Right Wing populist parties across the planet spread an increasingly nasty, prejudiced narrative about immigration, as if it is the greatest, even only, cause of hardship in any country. These narratives are sheer xenophobia, labelling foreigners as criminals or scroungers.

I say, good on the Spanish! Let’s hope their strategy pays off and that other countries begin to follow. Human beings migrate. Always have done, always will. All human beings should have equal rights. They are all of equal value. 

Diversity is Nature’s super-power. 

I believe everyone who lives in the same country should have the same rights, and, be valued the same. I totally oppose discriminatory treatment based on the country of origin of a person, or their family. 

We need to work harder at integration – not just of immigrants into countries, but of whole populations. Inequality has reached record levels, resulting in many more people living lives of exclusion and hardship. Let’s tackle that. Let’s make our countries more equal, more just, and more fair. Not less so. 

“Integration for everyone!” 

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For those who love borders

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on September 25, 2025| Leave a Comment »

Around the world we are seeing a rise in Right Wing politicians with a specific focus on the issue of immigration. Country after country is either reinforcing its borders, or planning to do so. The criteria for authorised immigration are getting tighter and more expensive and the rhetoric against those escaping war, torture, poverty or hunger is becoming more severe. Underpinning all this is a negative stance towards “foreigners” who are blamed for housing shortages, low wages, difficult access to health care, pressures on schools and crime. The answers to these supposed effects include closing borders to new migrants, rounding up unauthorised migrants and deporting them, and even “re-migration” (expelling those with a legitimate right to remain in the country). 

We could look at the facts and try to discover if any or all of these negative effects can indeed be laid at the doors of immigrants, but, frankly, many have already done so, and none of these claims stand up to scrutiny. 

But, let’s take another approach. Let’s think about where we place borders and how we control them. 

In the Middle Ages many cities in Europe built fortified walls around themselves. The gates into the cities were guarded by armed men and nobody could move freely into and out of the city. 

Then as nation states arose those walls came down, either literally, or functionally. The borders were re-drawn around the new nations. 

If you are at all interested in old maps, it’s easy to see that the current “national” borders, have, in many cases, been in existence for only a few decades, and that many have been drawn and re-drawn repeatedly.

But let’s do a thought exercise. What if we were to recreate, if not the actual walls, the borders around cities? What if, for example, we stopped people moving from one part of a country to another part? After all, the arguments against migration from one country to another are mainly down to strains placed on existing services, such as housing, health care and education, on the places to which the migrants move. So, if the problem is people moving into a particular city, or, even area of a city, and the answer is to stop them, why prevent only those coming from other countries? Why not stop those people coming from other cities in the same country? 

China does this. There was a recent report about taxi drivers in Shanghai, many of whom are “migrant workers” whose homes and families are hundreds of miles away (but still in China). These workers have a right to work in Shanghai, live in dormitories together, but have no right to bring their families with them, and no right to health care within Shanghai. 

How does that sound? 

Would you like your country to function like that, controlling the movement of people within the country to stop “locals” in one city from being “invaded” by “hordes” from other cities, or from the countryside? 

The rising tide of anti-foreigner speech, and actions, in populations and amongst politicians, is a return to the Middle Ages. Haven’t we developed since then? Haven’t we learned, since then, to identify with other humans who happen to live further away from us? 

Xenophobia is a political weapon. Migration is not a “legitimate concern”. The issue is how a country uses and directs its resources. If there is a deficit somewhere, then the answer is to address that deficit, not take away freedoms, or stoke fear and hatred of “the other”. 

It makes no more sense to try to control movement over national borders than it does to control movement within them. Setting one part of the population against another is a device to keep the privileged, privileged, to keep the elite, elite, to keep the wealthy, wealthy. 

We have greater wealth in our countries now than we ever have, but we’ve developed an economic/political system which funnels most of it into the hands of a tiny minority. It’s only the richest who are substantially increasing their wealth over the last fifty years. That’s untenable. But it’s not an issue caused by migration, or insufficient control of borders. 

And, for those who say that free movement over borders would be a nightmare, why isn’t it a nightmare to allow free movement within them?

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What’s the problem? Immigration or integration?

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on May 26, 2024| 1 Comment »

I find it pretty depressing how immigration is presented as a problem in so many countries. It seems every far right political group on the planet wants to build walls around their own country and keep any foreigners out. Why? Because people who aren’t born in the country where they now live are a problem to be solved?

Personally, as an immigrant myself, I think everyone who live in the same street, the same village, town, or city, the same country even, should be treated equally. I’m not a problem because of my genealogy or my genes. We are all inhabitants, we who live together, sharing the same roads, the same shops, the same activities. I prefer the concept of “inhabitant” or “resident” over that of “citizen” if, by the latter term, we mean people who have passed whatever administrative and/or economic rules a country applies to people who weren’t born in that particular part of the world.

In fact, more than anything geographical, I feel I am a member of the human race, and a unique expression of Life, just like all the other human beings who I share this planet with, just like all the other astonishing forms of life I share this planet with.

I don’t think immigration is a problem to be solved. The problem to be solved is “integration”. Here’s the definition of integration I work with – “the creation of mutually beneficial bonds between diverse and well differentiated parts”. In other words, how do I live with my fellow “residents”, fellow “inhabitants”, fellow “citizens” in the part of the planet which I call home?

When we don’t create healthy, positive, creative, and caring bonds between each other, we all suffer. We humans have always moved around the Earth, and we always will. Yet, most people who live in a particular part of the world would prefer to stay there – it’s war, violence, and utter poverty that drives out those who would rather stay.

I think we should put our energies and our resources into living well together – that would include treating people in the same place equally no matter where they were born, actively helping immigrants to integrate by teaching them the language, customs and laws of the country, and encouraging their full participation in society. And we need to develop mutually beneficial, caring, creative relationships between countries, instead of hostility, hatred, fear, competition and violence.

We humans are superbly adaptive creatures and we’ve evolved to be able to inhabit almost every corner of this little planet. But we’re going to have to adapt better if we all want to survive….or at least, if we want our grandchildren and their grandchildren to survive. We’ll do that through integration – by the creation of mutually beneficial bonds between ourselves and others.

So, I reject the dominant narrative that immigration is a problem, and I say, loud and clear, that what we should address and “solve” rather, is integration – integration in our streets, our villages, our cities, our countries, and our planet.

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