Aliens—A Global Problem
“WE GO to Johannesburg to seek money because there is no work here,” said a migrant worker from the rurals of southern Africa. He states: “If there was work here we wouldn’t bother to go to Johannesburg.” His touching explanation describes the dilemma that many aliens and migrant workers face.
But the sheer enormity of migration over the last few decades is frightening some people. (See box, page 5.) The Spanish daily El País reported: “Racism and xenophobia have suddenly reappeared in the new Germany.” Violent mobs, described by the press as neo-Nazi skinheads, have attacked immigrants.
Some immigration officials admit that they follow a policy of exclusion. An immigration officer in one Asian country declared that his job was to ‘keep foreigners out.’ Also, commenting on the recent influx of refugees from an Eastern European country, Time magazine tells of a high-ranking official who said: “We don’t want to make them feel too comfortable because we want them to go back.”
Even more scathing were the remarks of a journalist in France who was convinced that the ‘foreigners immigrating there were a menace.’ His reasons? They are of a “different race, [speak] different languages, [and have] different values.” His conclusion? “We should deport as many as we can, [and] isolate the rest.”
With such antialien sentiments surrounding them, it is little wonder that foreigners face a wall of prejudice from local communities who feel threatened by the sudden influx of strangers. Typically, one incensed local Israeli bemoaned the fact that “landlords prefer the Soviet immigrants” because the government provides these with a cash grant when they settle in Israel. As a result, local citizens are forced by rent increases to move from their dwellings.
It is no secret that foreigners often take on the menial tasks that local citizens despise. Consequently, many of the newcomers have to work under harsh conditions for depressed wages—especially if they are illegal immigrants. In addition, in the workplace aliens often suffer much discrimination because of their foreign status.
Irrespective of who they are or where they try to settle, the majority of immigrants face the painful process of healing their severed roots and forming new bonds for the future. The journal U.S.News & World Report says that aliens “often begin by feeling excluded and overwhelmed.” For some the effort is too great. Concerning these, the report continues: “The tragedy of losing a first home is compounded by the failure to find a second.” For many this sense of dislocation has much to do with the immense task of coming to grips with a new language.
How Do You Say . . . ?
Have you ever had to learn another language and adapt to another culture? What effect did that have on you? Most likely “the net result of your labors is a nagging feeling of incompleteness,” answers Stanislaw Baranczak, Polish immigrant and writer in the United States. Yes, language is essential to being a functioning part of a society. Learning a new language may be a particularly trying aspect of integration, especially for the older adult alien.
For these immigrants, learning a language is often a vicious circle. The journal Aging says that when aliens cannot cope with the language and cultural loss, it often causes depression, which in turn does not permit them to concentrate on the demands of learning the new language. Ultimately, the foreigner becomes more and more reluctant to take on the risk and sometimes humiliation of learning the language. The problem is compounded when the children assimilate the language and culture much faster than their parents do. This often leads to friction and a generation gap in immigrant families, that is, if the whole family migrates together.
Shattered Families
One of the least documented and yet most tragic results of mass migration is the disastrous effect it has on the family unit. More often than not, families are fragmented when either one or both parents leave their children in the care of other family members while they seek better economic prospects elsewhere. The findings of the Second Carnegie Inquiry Into Poverty and Development in Southern Africa comments that this kind of migration “distorts . . . the family structure.” The report documents specific cases of how families have broken up when individual family members have migrated separately.
These are just some of the problems that immigrants face the world over, not to mention the cost of migration, legalizing of the move, and decisions that have to be made about health, housing, education, and other family members.
So, in the face of all these difficulties, why do aliens migrate in the first place?
[Box on page 4]
Partners at Work
WHILE there are certain problems associated with an unbridled influx of foreigners, there is also much evidence to show that in many cases aliens are an asset to their adopted country.
“West Germany and its foreign workers have clearly profited from one another,” says Time magazine, adding that “the steel mills of the Ruhr and the Mercedes assembly lines outside Stuttgart are powered by guest workers.” Also, according to National Geographic, “New York’s garment industry would have collapsed” without the use of immigrant labor.
Economists recognize the valuable contribution these migrants make to their host countries. Despite suffering gross prejudice, Turks, Pakistanis, and Algerians in Europe have learned to adapt. “They make do,” says U.S.News & World Report, and will continue to do so “until Europe . . . discovers, for straight economic reasons, that it needs them.”
Desperately desirous of succeeding in their new countries, foreigners tend to be more self-sufficient and less reliant on government social support systems than locals are. “Nothing is so unfounded as the charge that immigrants go on welfare,” said one U.S. immigration adviser who handled the cases of more than 3,000 aliens.
Often, entire neighborhoods have been renovated by foreigners who seek to improve their surroundings. When South Africa experienced a sudden influx of Portuguese refugees after war broke out in Angola and Mozambique, entire suburbs in Johannesburg were taken over and upgraded by the Portuguese community.
[Box on page 5]
Some Major Migration Statistics:
▶ 4.5 million migrants, including 1.5 million North Africans, form 8 percent of France’s population
▶ In just one sector of the Mexico-U.S. border, 800 Border Patrol officers arrest, on the average, 1,500 illegal immigrants every night
▶ Some 20 percent of Australia’s population is foreign-born
▶ A million Poles may be working illegally in Western Europe
▶ In a recent year, 350,000 men legally migrated to South Africa on contract work. The number of illegal foreigners is about 1.2 million
▶ At least 185,000 Soviet Jews immigrated to Israel in 1990
▶ Over 900,000 Southeast Asians have moved to the United States since 1975
▶ Every week, at least a thousand people emigrate from Hong Kong