02 February 2002

Business Leaders Show Growing Interest in Immigration Policy

Governments balance migration needs, security concerns

By Berta Gomez
Washington File Staff Writer

New York City -- Globalization has placed migration policy high on the agenda of business leaders who are pushing for the freer movement of labor across national borders, say experts and policy-makers gathered at the World Economic Forum (WEF) in New York. They add that governments are now faced with the challenge of facilitating legal migration, even as they take steps to protect against terrorism following the September 11 attacks against the United States.

U.S. Congressman Howard Berman, Democrat of California, told reporters February 1 that most WEF participants are saying that restricting immigration flows would be "very bad economic policy" and equally bad humanitarian policy. "Most people agree that enhanced security ... is what is really needed," Berman said.

Berman said his experience in the House of Representatives suggests "a real shift" on the part of U.S. business in support of immigration as a way to fill gaps in the labor market. To illustrate, he pointed to the U.S. growers of perishable foods who launched a campaign to legalize the "huge percentage" of undocumented workers who harvest their crops. Leaders of the U.S. high-tech industry, he added, regularly make "desperate" appeals to Congress for more visas for high-skilled workers.

Brunson McKinley, director-general of the Geneva-based International Organization for Migration (IOM) agreed that migration flows from developing to wealthy countries are likely to continue into the foreseeable future.

He and Berman both rejected the idea that the global economic downturn and the need for stricter security post-September 11 would combine to reduce global migrant flows. Developed countries with low birth rates, aging populations and job opportunities remain "powerful magnets" for youthful immigrants from high population growth countries in the developing world, McKinley said. "This trend is not going away."

Indeed, McKinley predicted that developed countries with strict immigration controls would eventually adopt more liberal policies as economic and demographic pressures increase. He said the German government is now considering a package that would essentially formalize migration flows that have been underway for some time. "[Germany] has long been an immigration country," he said. "They used to do it under the table. Now they'll be doing it over the table."

Even Japan, he said, is likely to adopt looser immigration policies when the need for a larger and younger workforce becomes apparent. "I think they'll eventually become an immigration country," McKinley said. "The more farsighted [analysts] in Japan know that, too."

Susan Martin, director of the Institute for the Study of International Migration at Georgetown University, said the focus on migration at the WEF meetings has been striking. Organizers of the five-day forum have devoted two sessions to discussion of migration issues.

"It's fairly new for corporate leaders to sit around discussing migration," Martin told reporters. She attributed their interest to the pressures of globalization. "Corporate leaders are looking 50 years ahead," she said, "and trying to become -- or remain -- global corporations. They know they can't compete unless they have access to global labor."

McKinley acknowledged that government policy is not keeping up with migration trends, and that governments' emphasis for the time being would be on security.

Changes already underway on that front include deeper scrutiny of travelers, tougher controls along major borders (especially the U.S. borders with Canada and Mexico), data sharing among cooperating countries, and the increased use of fingerprinting, facial geometry and other biometric methods by law enforcement.

But McKinley predicted that countries would eventually agree to address the need for "comprehensive and integrated" migration policies. "I hope refugee migration decreases," he said, "but [economic migration] will grow because the magnet needs of rich countries and the opposite needs of poorer countries will continue."

"I think political leaders will become more accommodating, but I also think business is going to lead the way," McKinley said.