Economic crisis and new immigration trends and fallout

As the European debt crisis grinds on, immigration continues to inch toward the center of political debate, especially in Southern Europe.  A startling rise in xenophobic Greek activists and the bully-pulpit commandeered by the extreme right-wing party Golden Dawn should give EU leaders pause.  While Golden Dawn holds only 6.9% of the unicameral Greek legislature, less than the Greek Communist Party, the impact on immigration politics cannot be understated.  The EU took an unprecedented step of sanctioning Austria in 1999 when the far right, anti-immigrant Freedom Party (FPO) took second in legislative elections.  The sanctions were quickly lifted, but the FPO has fallen only slightly in popularity.  The fear in Europe is the re-emergence of a radical, nationalist right which in the modern world pivots on the issues of immigration as a proxy for race, religion and class.  

As the economic outlook deteriorates further and further, pressure mounts from nativist segments of society to curtail immigration and limit immigrants’ rights.  Greece is currently the hotspot for European immigration as FRONTEX reports land crossings between Greece and Turkey spiking in 2010.  While this shift may be the result of increased spending on interdiction efforts at sea, it is also likely that the economic downturn has modified the cost-benefit structure of immigration to Europe.  That is to say, Europe is becoming less of a magnet for immigrants due to the prolonged economic and political turmoil.

As witnessed in the United States, the most effective means for stemming the tide of “unwanted” immigration is economic stagnation.  A well-publicized, but perhaps under-recognized Pew Research publication declared that Mexican immigration to the US has fallen to net zero.  This is a subtlety shocking development considering the recent history of Mexican immigration to the US and the resultant political overreactions and polarizations.  It does not appear that the political imagination of the nation has yet grasped this polarity shift in immigration to US.  Immigration remains synonymous with Mexican in the popular discourse.  However, this trend is not an anomaly.  

Various studies find parallels in Europe, this despite several intervening variables not present in the US-Mexico migration order. The first being a much wider gap in Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) per capita between Europe and its direct southern neighbors than between the US and Mexico.  According to World Bank statistics, average Mexican PPP per capita is 30% of that of the US, while the PPP per capita differential between only Italy, Spain and Greece and northern African countries like Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria and Egypt is only 22%.  This brief comparison does not take into account income disparities in more remote migrant origins such as the Middle East and Sub-Saharan Africa.    A second important factor has been the “Arab Spring” which launched many countries along Europe’s southern border into political and economic chaos.  The results have not been as dire as some predicted because while foreign investment and tourism receipts fell dramatically, rising commodity prices, especially oil, have offset some of the impact.  Regardless, this socio-political shift has spurred extraordinary immigration to Europe, in turn fueling anti-immigration rhetoric within Europe.  Witness the spat between France and Italy as France temporarily closed its border to prevent the entry of immigrants fleeing the violence in Libia, many of whom landed in Lampedusa, Italy.  Essentially, immigration to Europe is slowing despite persistent push-factor pressure.

The take-away from both of the European and American cases is by no means clear.  Economic downturn has coincided with heightened enforcement and border pushback, so it is nearly impossible to single out a key driving factor.  While immigration has not played any noticeable role in the US presidential elections, it has become an important political touchstone in European elections.  Perhaps the most interesting fallout from this glacial shift in the global migration order is the reversal of some migration flows to and from Europe.  While the trend is still only nascent, Spanish emigrants are increasingly heading to destinations in Latin America to escape the unchecked deterioration of the Spanish economy.  There are signs that Greeks are increasingly crossing the Bosphorus against the traditional tide of immigration to look for opportunities in Turkey. It is still too early to tell if these signs of movement will indeed ripen into migration trends, but the coming decade will certainly be marked by new global immigration trends.