Immigration is an issue that affects almost every country of moderate to great wealth. In this blog I will focus on immigration in America and Europe. As I've pointed out in previous blogs, Europe is being flooded with migrants from North Africa and Arabia. Most of these migrants are males 18 to 25. Many of these men claim to be under 18 so that they can recieve welfare from the state. Some people claim that migrants entering Europe represent a small portion of the migrants coming from the Middle East. However, most of the countries outside of Europe especially in the Middle East that are taking in migrants only allow these migrants to stay in refugee camps. Migrants tend to stay at refugee camps for ten or more years as they wait for their claims for asylum to be processed. The children in the refugee camps are not going to school and the adults are not working. This results in billions of dollars of lost human capital. These refugee camps are run by the United Nations. This shows that the United Nations is untrustworthy. Others have argued that the migrants in both Europe and America are simply a source of cheap labor. This argument holds water when one considers the long history of factories using immigrants as cheap labor in America. Also, the meat packing industry is notorious for using illegal immigrats and providing poor working conditions. These workers are often paid less then minumum wage and do not get overtime pay for working more than forty hours a week. The agriculture industry is another example of such use of immigrants. However, these farms tend to have more legal immigrants that have work visas that allow them to come to the U.S and work.
America and Europe have an aging population as people live longer. Also, people are having less kids. This could lead to a labor shortage and a large population of elderly people that lack a labor force large enough to support them. In some parts of America unemployment is still high while in others there is a labor shortage. One solution would be to have immigrants and poor people move to parts of the country where there is a labor shortage such as North Dakota. This would reduce poverty in rural and urban areas. Also, it would allow developing countries to have more resources to develop their labor force. For if these countries have a way to send their unskilled workers to other places to work then it would free up resources that could be used for education and healthcare. Eventually, the infant mortality rate and birth rate would go down in these countries. Thus, allowing them to focus on education and modernization. I am not suggesting that unskilled workers is always a bad thing for a country to have. A society needs people to peform dirty work.
It is important to note that when Europe was industrializing in the 1800s the unskilled workers were able to go to the colonies in the Americas and Africa. This is by means justification for colonialism. The birth rate and mortality rate declined in Europe. Also, a well educated middle class of doctors, lawyers, and professors began to emerge. A wealthy elite of industrialist also emerged. By the late 1800s workers enjoyed some leisure time and better pay thanks to labor unions. There are other ways to improve wages and working conditions besides labor unions such as teaching the workers better negotiating skills. This is a better solution than labor unions. Labor unions tend to donate to political compaigns and often to support public policies that would not benefit the employees. Indeed, if immigrants and poor people are sent to work in areas where labor is high in demand then these workers will need to be taught how to negotiate with their employer.
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