World Policy Institute
America's Immigration "Problem"
Author(s): Saskia Sassen
Source: World Policy Journal, Vol. 6, No. 4 (Fall, 1989), pp XXXXXXXXXX
Published by: The MIT Press and the World Policy Institute
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AMERICA'S IMMIGRATION
"PROBLEM"
Saskia Sassen
Immigration has traditionally aroused strong passions in the United States.
Although Americans like to profess pride in their history as "a nation of
immigrants ," each group of a
ivals, once established, has fought to keep
newcomers out. Over the past two centuries, each new wave of immigrants
has encountered strenuous opposition from earlier a
ivals, who have
insisted that the country was already filled to capacity. (The single excep-
tion to this was the South's eagerness to import ever more slaves.) Similar
efforts to shut out newcomers persist today. But those who would close
the door to immigration are mistaken on two counts: not only do they
underestimate the country's capacity to abso
more people, but they also
fail to appreciate the political and economic forces that give rise to immigra-
tion in the first place.
U.S. policymakers and the public alike believe the causes of immigra-
tion are self-evident: people who migrate to the United States are driven
to do so by poverty, economic stagnation, and overpopulation in their home
countries. Since immigration is thought to result from unfavorable socioeco-
nomic conditions in other countries, it is assumed to be unrelated to U.S.
economic needs or
oader international economic conditions. In this con-
text, the decision on whether to take in immigrants comes to be seen pri-
marily as a humanitarian matter; we admit immigrants by choice and out
of generosity, not because we have any economic motive or political respon-
sibility to do so. An effective immigration policy, by this reasoning, is one
that selectively admits immigrants for such purposes as family reunification
and refugee resettlement, while perhaps seeking to deter migration by
Saskia Sassen is professor and chair of u
an planning in the Graduate
School of Architecture and Planning at Columbia University. This article
is drawn from her most recent book, The Mobility of Labor and Capital:
A Study in International Investment and Labor Flow (New York: Cam-
idge University Press, 1988).
812 World Policy Journal
promoting direct foreign investment, foreign aid, and democracy in the
migrant-sending countries.
Although there are nuances of position, liberals and conservatives alike
accept the prevailing wisdom on the causes of immigration and the best
ways to regulate it. The only disagreement, in fact, is over how strictly
we should limit immigration. Conservatives generally maintain that if
immigration is not severely restricted, we will soon be ove
un by im-
poverished masses from the Third World, although the demand for cheap
agricultural labor at times tempers this position. Liberals tend to be more
charitable, arguing that the United States, as the richest country in the
world, can afford to be generous in offering a haven to the poor and
oppressed. Advocates of a less restrictive policy also note the positive effects
of immigration, such as the growth of cultural diversity and a renewed
spirit of entrepreneurship.
Not surprisingly, U.S. immigration laws have reflected the dominant
assumptions about the proper objectives of immigration policy. The last
two major immigration reforms, passed in 1965 and 1986, have sought
to control immigration through measures aimed at regulating who may
enter legally and preventing illegal immigrants from crossing our borders.
At the same time, the U.S. government has attempted to promote eco-
nomic growth in the migrant-sending countries by encouraging direct for-
eign investment and export-oriented international development assistance,
in the belief that rising economic opportunities in the developing world
will deter emigration. Yet U.S. policies, no matter how carefully devised,
have consistently failed to limit or regulate immigration in the intended way.
The 1965 amendment to the Immigration and Naturalization Act was
meant to open up the United States to more immigration, but to do so
in a way that would allow the government to control entries and reduce
illegal immigration. It sought to eliminate the bias against non-Europeans
that was built into earlier immigration law and to regulate the influx of
immigrants by setting up a series of preference categories within a rather
elaborate system of general quotas.1 Under this system, preference was given
to immediate relatives of U.S. citizens and, to a lesser extent, to immigrants
possessing skills in short supply in the United States, such as nurses and
nannies.
The 1965 law
ought about major changes in immigration patterns,
ut not necessarily the intended ones. The emphasis on family reunification
should have ensured that the bulk of new immigrants would come from
countries that had already sent large numbers of immigrants to the United
States- that is, primarily from Europe. But the dramatic rise in immigra-
America's Immigration "Problem" 813
tion after 1965 was primarily the result of an entirely new wave of migra-
tions from the Cari
ean Basin and South and Southeast Asia. The failure
of U.S. policy was particularly evident in the rapid rise in the number
of undocumented immigrants entering the country. Not only did the level
of Mexican undocumented immigration increase sharply, but a whole series
of new undocumented flows were initiated, mostly from the same coun-
tries that provided the new legal immigration.
The outcry over rising illegal immigration led to a series of congres-
sional proposals that culminated in the 1986 Immigration Reform and
Control Act. This law was intended to rationalize immigration policy and,
in particular, to address the problem of illegal immigration. It features
a limited regularization program that enables undocumented aliens to
legalize their status if they can prove continuous residence in the United
States since before January 1, 1982, among other eligibility criteria. A second
provision of the law seeks to reduce the employment opportunities of
undocumented workers through sanctions against employers who know-
ingly hire them. The third element is an extended guest-worker program
designed to ensure a continuing abundant supply of low-wage workers
for agriculture.
So far, the law's overall effectiveness has been limited. While some 1.8
million immigrants applied to regularize their status2 (a fairly significant
number, though less than expected), there is growing evidence that the
employer sanctions program is resulting in discrimination against minority
workers who are in fact U.S. citizens, as well as various abuses against
undocumented workers. Meanwhile, illegal immigration has apparently
continued to rise. Congressional efforts to co
ect the law's shortcomings
have already begun. In a relatively promising departure from earlier
immigration policy, the Senate recently approved a bill that seeks to give
higher priority to applicants who satisfy labor needs in the United States.3
Though the 54,000-per-year limit placed on such immigrants would still
e small, the proposed law would set an important precedent by
acknowledging that immigrants, while only about 7 percent of the U.S.
labor force, have accounted for 22 percent of the growth in the work force
since 1970, and by responding to U.S. Department of Labor forecasts of
impending labor shortages in a variety of occupations.
Yet even a modified version of the 1986 law has little chance of success-
fully regulating immigration for one simple reason: like earlier laws, it
is based on a faulty understanding of the causes of immigration. By focusing
na
owly on immigrants and on the immigration process itself, U.S.
policymakers have ignored the
oader international forces, many of them
814 World Policy Journal
generated or at least encouraged by the United States, that have helped
give rise to migration flows.
In the 1960s and 1970s, the United States played a crucial role in the
development of today's global economic system. It was a key exporter of
capital, promoted the development of export-manufacturing enclaves in
many Third World countries, and passed legislation aimed at opening
its own and other countries* economies to the flow of capital, goods, ser-
vices, and information. The emergence of a global economy- and the cen-
tral military, political, and economic role played by the United States in
this process- contributed both to the creation a
oad of pools of po-
tential emigrants and to the formation of linkages between industrial-
ized and developing countries that subsequently were to serve as
idges
for international migration. Paradoxically, the very measures commonly
thought to deter immigration- foreign investment and the promotion
of export-oriented growth in developing countries- seem to have had pre-
cisely the opposite effect. The clearest proof of this is the fact that several
of the newly industrializing countries with the highest growth rates in
the world are simultaneously becoming the most important suppliers of
immigrants to the United States.
At the same time, the transformation of the occupational and income
structure of the United States- itself in large part a result of the globali-
zation of production - has expanded the supply of low-wage jobs. The
decline of manufacturing and the growth of the service sector have increased