May 27, 2008
WE Americans see our illegal-immigration crisis in isolation, as if we alone face failing borders. But we're in good shape compared with migrant-flooded countries around the world.
It's a global phenomenon - a new age of mass population transfers that bedevils rich, stable countries and overwhelms the infrastructure of weaker states. And there's no end in sight.
For us, it means focusing seriously (at long last) on securing our borders and facing up to our economy's needs. For struggling states, the scale and speed of population movements mean scarcity, explosive crime, terrorism and anti-immigrant riots that climax in murder.
Just this month: In South Africa, pogroms butchered refugees from Zimbabwe and economic migrants from Mozambique. In India, Muslim fanatics among a mass of Bangladeshi immigrants (to whom even India appears wealthy) set off a string of bombs in Jaipur.
Central Asians fear a demographic takeover by Chinese moving westward; European states struggle to absorb unskilled African illegals and Muslim immigrants out to exploit welfare benefits (while avoiding social integration). The United States confronts the prickly question of what it means to be a nation of immigrants in the 21st century.
Within states, the rural poor swell monster-cities such as Lagos, Sao Paulo and Mumbai. Fleeing such cities, desperate people overload wooden boats, walk across deserts or stow away in aircraft cargo - headed for other continents that offer a glimmer of hope.
On the plus side, the new mobility means a brilliant Indian software engineer in Silicon Valley or a drop-dead-gorgeous Polish barista in a London Starbucks. But, all too often, it means Salvadoran gangbangers in Virginia, no-prospect Muslim kids simmering in Paris or deadly economic competition in Johannesburg.
Why is this happening now? First, it isn't really new. This is only the latest great global migration - the last one occurred over a half-dozen centuries, beginning as the Roman Empire faded. Back then, entire tribes moved, driven from their grazing grounds on the steppes or searching for richer worlds to conquer.
Today's migration is more chaotic and individualized, but swifter. Instead of moving on horseback and fighting hostile tribes, today's migrants fly or ride over-crowded buses, and do battle only with immigration officials or border police. But the world is on the move again.
The immediate reason for these explosive population transfers is simply that we've been stunningly successful at improving nutrition and reducing disease in poverty-stricken countries. Nature no longer takes its natural toll - but few developing states can absorb the results of reduced mortality.
