The Folly of Mass Immigration (Part III of V)

Mass immigration cannot be stopped

The second assumption is that mass illegal immigration cannot be stopped. This is demonstrably false. In 1924, the US government passed legislation that effectively closed the door on European immigration, opening the door to immigration from poor countries with new legislation only in 1965. Australia has shown in recent years that tough policies can reduce illegal immigration to virtually zero. The Netherlands and Denmark have cut back asylum applications by around a half in the last year and cut many other forms of immigration abuse, but the political elite only found the will to do this when their voters turned in desperation to far right parties.

Pro-immigration campaigners who tell the people of Europe that “mass immigration cannot be stopped, so it must be welcomed” are adopting the policies of despots through history of quelling opposition by telling opponents that resistance is futile. The evidence is otherwise. All that is needed is political will.

Mass immigration is mostly beneficial to the host society

The third assumption is that mass immigration is beneficial to the host society. This is at best contentious. In a relatively empty land, such as Australia, Canada or the US, the desire to boost the population via mass immigration can make sense. But in Europe, mass immigration only makes crowded countries even more crowded and unpleasant to live in. It can also create severe problems of coexistence between communities of people forced into unwilling proximity.

Mass immigration can also be very detrimental to the sending countries. In a November 2002 report, the World Bank said that Africa had lost a third of its professionals in recent decades as western nations reduced immigration controls for skilled workers, and that the brain drain was delaying economic growth in the continent, increasing the wealth divide between the west and the rest. Promoting mass immigration just creates a world where everyone with education and energy seeks to move to, or is poached by, the west. This retards development where it is most needed and leaves poor countries in a state of dependency.

However, some particularly failing societies are turning to mass emigration to solve the problems they are unable to solve for themselves. In 2000, the then president of Bangladesh, Sheikh Hasina, was asked by the Los Angeles Times how the country was going to feed, clothe, house and employ the expected doubling of her population by 2050. She replied: “We’ll send them to America.

Globalisation will take that problem away, as you free up all factors of production, also labour. There’ll be free movement, country to country. Globalisation in its purest form should not have any boundaries, so small countries with big populations should be able to send population to countries with big boundaries and small populations.”

But most immigration to Europe is not from full countries to empty ones, for the simple reason that most of Europe is still more densely populated than most of the developing world. Most of the people migrating to Britain each year are in fact moving from a less to a more densely populated land.

Mass immigration is a right not a privilege

The fourth (and most philosophical) assumption is that immigration is a right of individuals, but that societies as a whole have no significant rights to decide who lives among them, except on grounds of “security”. This is the founding principle of the People Flow report, and it is thoroughly wrong. Immigration has always been a privilege, not a right; throughout history, societies have always had the fundamental right to determine who should belong to them. It is hypocritical to profess belief in democracy, then deny people any democratic control over immigration policy, one of the crucial influences on a society’s development.