Mass immigration has shifted the international community’s understanding of international relations today. This ongoing issue became a socio-political phenomenon due to a variety of factors and has created turmoil around the globe. The question remains what position liberal states should and can take in the face of this crisis. In this essay, I will consider whether liberal states are indeed bound to accept unwanted immigration, or if there are ways to mitigate these currents.
I will first analyse this question through an examination of borders, specifically how effectively liberal states are able to control them, using the examples of the Mexican-American border and the Cuban-American border. I will then juxtapose this argument with a case study of the Mediterranean Sea, a border which is immensely more difficult to control. I will then evaluate how a nation’s internal pressure groups can influence its government opening its borders by evaluating how certain groups have operated in the United States.
I will then compare the situation to that of the European region, whose history has made it all the more difficult for liberal nations to reject unwanted immigration. Finally, I will demonstrate the importance of both humanitarian international organizations and nongovernmental organizations in the immigration debate, with a particular focus on both the European Union and Canada. I will examine how some of these organizations are able to prompt liberal states into accepting unwanted immigrants while others are not.
Firstly, it is important to address the commonly-made assumption that liberal states have a choice in allowing or refusing immigrants access to their territory. In reality, many nation-states cannot effectively control circulation surrounding their borders and therefore are seemingly bound to accept unwanted immigration. Geographic location plays a large part in determining the efficiency of border policy. One example is the border regulation between Mexico and the US. For context, this frontier expands to 3 145 kilometres and separates Mexico from California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas. Despite its massive length, this border has been maintained relatively efficiently by American governmental forces.
The environment surrounding the frontier is largely desert-like and the landscape is predominantly flat, which provides space to set up watch towers with wide-ranging views of the area, allows Border Control officials to patrol areas of high circulation by vehicle and permits the construction of detainment centres for immigrants who have been caught attempting to cross the border. Many policies set into place during the 1990s have sought to enforce stricter border control by “doubling the number of border patrol agents to ten thousand by the year 2000” (Joppke, 1998: 281).
For example, in California, this enforcement includes a “fourteen mile, ten foot high, triple steel fence south of San Diego” (Joppke, 1998: 281). While illegal crossings do take place, as the border is too large to be perfectly protected at all times, access to the United States is a daunting task for most potential immigrants.
The Cuban-American border is another example of a frontier efficiently controlled by the US. Despite the fact that this frontier is separated by water and not by land, the restrictionist policies the American government established to diminish Cuban immigrational flows makes it extremely difficult for Cuban migrants to access the US this way. The policy in question – entitled “wet foot, dry foot” (Blitzer, 2016: 4), enacted in 1995 “in an effort to slow Cuban migration” (Blitzer, 2016: 7), ensured that Cubans were consistently rejected if they attempted to access the US by water. This was enforceable due to the relative proximity of Cuba and South Florida, which enabled the US Coast Guard and Border Patrol to intercept large numbers of unwanted immigrants in the Florida Straits.
However, geographic location can equally make a border a challenging task to manage for a nation-state. In a stark contrast to California’s deserted plains, the majority of immigrants coming into Europe do not arrive by land but rather by sea. According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (or UNHCR), the Mediterranean is the most common point of access to Europe, with more than 120 000 arrivals in European territory in 2019. The Mediterranean, which covers an area of 2.5 million km2, is an epicentre for immigrational activity due to the fact that Middle East, North and East Africa, which account for a great deal of immigrants, are all connected to Europe through the Mediterranean Sea.
Moreover, the challenges posed by a maritime border are far more complex than those posed by a terrestrial border or a narrow strait. For one, it is difficult to control circulation when the majority of coastal areas involved are predominantly unregulated, making it much easier for immigrants to access European soil. The volatile weather conditions in the Mediterranean Sea make it immensely difficult to cross but also difficult to patrol. The fact that the European region is made up of many independent but inter-connected countries, rather than one territory like the US, results in few closed-border policies being implemented, such as externalization; which aims “to keep immigration management outside the EU borders” and “occurs through responsibility-sharing with third countries” (Kopacz-Thomaidis, 2019: 2). Looking at these reasons, it becomes apparent how regulating maritime borders would be a challenge for liberal states.
I have shed light on the strategic importance of geographically manageable borders: liberal states seem to be bound to accept unwanted immigration if their borders are too challenging to control and maintain. Adding to this, it appears that some nation-states possess little agency concerning mass immigration due to the influence of lobby groups present within these countries.
Lobbying is defined as “attempts to exert influence on the formation or implementation of public policy” (Brown, McLean, McMillan, 2018: 331). Advocacy groups play an essential role within any society: they often challenge governments’ measures and policies regarding socio-political issues to the benefit of marginalized groups.
I found that some of the most active pro-immigrant groups are situated in the United States. Many ethnic and civil groups stand firmly against sanctions for employers hiring illegal immigrants as part of their businesses. These groups have argued that “any measure against illegal immigration” (Joppke, 1998: 273) is a mark of anti-Hispanic sentiment, stemming from a fundamentally xenophobic discourse.
These client groups have gone to great lengths to protect immigration in the US: an example of this can be found when the Hispanic lobby “succeeded in stalling…the Simpson-Mazzoli bill” (Joppke, 1998: 274) during the 1980s, which aimed to punish employers who did not actively search whether or not their employees were legal citizens. Although the bill eventually passed, it was not enforced by most employers.
Recently, these advocacy groups have amassed support from a wide range of organizations, such as the the Americans for Tax Reform, made primarily of business owners who felt financially disadvantaged as they were obligated to “pay a heavy tax on each foreign worker they sponsored” (Joppke, 1998: 279). These civic and ethnic lobbying groups were able to successfully influence American politics. In this way, it becomes apparent how liberal states like the United States can be pushed into accepting unwanted immigration if enough powerful groups support it.
However, lobbying groups do not have the same amount of power worldwide. While this is a “recurrent process” in the United States, engendering much debate and the rise of powerful interest groups, European states have accepted immigrants “not by will, but by default.” Here, immigration has largely been a “nonrecurrent, historically unique process” (Joppke, 1998: 281) as seen with the case of family migration. This process has been taking place for decades, under the auspices of two main regimes. The first is guest-worker regimes, popularized during the postwar era as a way of rebuilding nations that were economically damaged during World War II.
The second is post-colonial migration, as colonial subjects moved from disadvantaged countries to their respective colonial powers to pursue new opportunities. This type of chain migration is most notable in countries such as Germany or France and shows how immigration in Europe is a historically accepted phenomenon based on external factors that have less to do with states’ chosen policies and more to do with historical processes and events.
Despite this historical context, “European states have not actively solicited the belated arrival of the spouses and children, not to mention the extended family, of its labor migrants” (Joppke, 1998: 281), meaning that family immigration is essentially unwanted by European states. However, their acceptance can be understood in terms of morally legal rights, seeing as they have accepted immigrants for such a long period of time under the guise of aid for victims of totalitarianism and financial disparity.
As a result, the traditional European immigration process “cannot be understood in terms of client politics” as lobbies are not responsible for this shift in pro-immigration policies. There is “no entrenched pro-immigration lobby in Europe comparable to the United States” (Joppke, 1998: 282). In other words, European states have accepted unwanted immigration due to historical factors rather than a true desire to welcome them.
I have now established how governments can be bound to accept immigration either because they have succumbed to the pressures of client groups or because they have traditionally done so. However, advocacy groups on the national level are not the only organizations to influence the policies of liberal states; the same can be seen with international humanitarian organizations as well.
International organizations (IOs) and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) that work in the humanitarian field set a standard as to how liberal democracies should handle mass immigration. Firstly, they have established that this issue is at its core a humanitarian that must be resolved through the aid of liberal states across the globe. International organizations, defined as institutions possessing “legal authority” and “decision-making power” (Brown, McLean, McMillan, 2018: 542) are heavily involved with the international migration crisis.
Additionally, NGOs, defined as “groups of persons or of societies, freely created by private initiative, that pursue an interest in matters that cross or transcend national borders and are not profit” (Charnovitz, 2006: 350) are significantly active on this issue as well. However, they have different approaches as to how to address it.
For the most part, IOs are affiliated with governmental entities, meaning they serve the interests of the international community by engaging nation-states in fulfilling the causes they vouch for. This is significant because these organizations obtain their legitimacy thought their influence on government decision-making. Liberal nations are expected to abide by the demands of such organizations because they by definition embody democratic principles that value the input of democratic institutions. IOs have become powerful vessels of change: institutions such as the UNHRC, the European Commission and the International Organization for Migration have advocated for the rights of immigrants by encouraging liberal nations to accept immigrants on the basis of a humanitarian cause, however unwanted they may be. According to the United Nations website, “protecting the safety, dignity and human rights and fundamental freedoms of all migrants” is a priority within the organization. The New York Declaration for Refugees and Migrants recognizes “the need for a comprehensive approach to migration”.
However, being part of these international organizations does but this does not necessarily equate to following every policy they establish. An example of this involves Canada’s membership in the Refugee Convention. Canada has been scrutinized for implementing its own Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, “which includes more stringent exclusions on the basis of criminality than the exclusions or reasons for expulsion in the Refugee Convention” (Dauvergne, 2003: 5).
This policy contradicts the Convention’s principle of “refoulement”, this being the “effective right to remain in a host state” (Dauvergne, 2003: 4).
Similarly to IOs, NGOs have also become influential players in the mass immigration debate. Many of these organizations uphold immigrant rights by openly challenging governments’ hostile attitude towards foreigners. These organizations include Watch the Med, the Migrant Offshore Aid Station (MOAS) and SOS Méditerrannée. However, NGOs differ from IOs in the way they are organized and in their membership. Indeed, “the NGO enjoys a relationship with the individual that is voluntary”, meaning “individuals join and support an NGO out of commitment to its purpose” (Charnovitz, 2016: 348).
Moreover, the creation of these organizations is often a response to injustices being committed by nation-states towards foreigners: the rejection of immigrants is interpreted by humanitarian organizations as a blatant display of xenophobia. Despite European states accepting immigration as a mark of a historical process, the recent rise of alt-right European governance has led to xenophobic discourse being utilized to reject the presence of foreigners, which NGOs have attempted to combat.
An example of this is the humanitarian association Watch the Med, a “hotline for people in distress at sea” (Stierl, 2018: 706). The hotline works by alerting a rescue team who takes refugees in danger of drowning to shore, when they would have typically been sent back to their original countries by governmental entities. Watch the Med has directly opposed the distinctly anti-immigrational measures of some European states. From this, it appears liberal states are bound to accept unwanted immigration which results from the actions of these humanitarian groups.
Nevertheless, NGOs face many obstacles in enacting aid towards immigrants at sea due to the reluctance of nation-states in supporting their humanitarian cause. I have established previously that NGOs work independently from governments, even going so far as to directly oppose them if they “are unable to uphold certain fundamental rights” (Esperti, Pécoud, 2017: 8). As a result, “the role of NGOs in rescue operations” (Esperti, Pécoud, 2017: 5) challenges nation-states’ sovereign power and often results in conflict.
This phenomenon can be seen through a case study of MOAS, which embodies the same purpose as Watch the Med. However, the humanitarian work undertaken by this organization was significantly hampered by nations’ border forces that rejected incoming immigrants brought by MOAS. Through this case study, it becomes clear that liberal states possess the power to counteract the measures of certain NGOs.
Taking all of these arguments into consideration, I will conclude by affirming that liberal states can be bound to accept unwanted immigration if the circumstances allow. Through the examples I’ve shown, it appears that liberal nations often have little say on the issue, whether because of impracticable borders that are difficult to enforce, lobbies pressuring governments into conforming to their agendas, an array of historical processes, or the expectations of international organizations. To forcibly expel immigrants from their territory, these states would need to amass an incredible amount of financial resources that would enable them to successfully regulate their borders at all times and/or go against the very nature of their liberal status by imposing policies that would be unpopular both domestically and internationally. As a result, liberal nations will be forced to continue to accept unwanted immigration, rather than suffer the repercussions of rejecting this phenomenon.
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