The way our democracies deal with the problem of immigration, in Europe and the United States, is shameful, a mix of abstractness and instrumentalization. Shallow abstractness on the part of the Left, ignoble instrumentalization on the part of the Right. Both of these positions over the years have gone to extremes, to the advantage of the Right, which has made this issue its main workhorse, garnering a huge consensus often used to narrow the spaces of freedom. Why has this occurred?
Migration phenomena have always existed in history. Between 1850 and 1914 about 50 million Europeans moved to the United States, Latin America, Australia and New Zealand. And most of them contributed to the economic growth of those countries.
Today, migration is made easier by means of transportation and democratic countries' focus on the rights of persecuted people. In addition to migrants seeking work, there are some 22.5 million refugees, fleeing war and persecution, including asylum seekers.
Accepting everyone is impossible, rejecting them all is unfair and self-defeating
The Left shows itself to be superficial and obtuse: it does not examine this problem with lucidity ,it indulges in generic proclamations, it does not see or does not want to see the repercussions of uncontrolled immigration without proper integration and thus does not take into account the reactions of ordinary people anxious especially about security.
The Right throws gasoline on the fire over rational, non-Di deli citizen concerns, plays on fears about those who are different and are perceived as a threat to their jobs, identity and safety.
Instead of finding together a reasonable solution to a complex problem, the Right and the Left speculate on it and take their positions to extremes .
Yet the paradox of immigration is that the countries of the West badly need it to keep their economies going. Fewer and fewer children are being born, elderly people in need of domestic care are increasing, and many jobs are being turned down by citizens of developed economies. By 2050 there will be a shortage of 35 million people of working age in Europe....
Logically, the first to want migrants should be those very countries that fear them instead. These states should decide how many job-seeking migrants they need by picking them up in their countries of origin and agreeing to host a portion of the refugees to be brought into the productive world, for whom special reception centers should be set up with a fair distribution to be decided at the UN.
For economic migrants, for example. Europe could set up centers in the main countries of origin in which to collect the requests of those who want to come to live and work in Europe, scheduling legal flows and crushing human trafficking by all means. An operation that, coordinated and well-managed, would have significantly lower economic, social and human costs than the confusing management of illegal immigration.
If this mechanism were well thought out, one could proceed to reject all migrants who choose the irregular route.
What is happening in the United States is the most emblematic demonstration of opposing extremes on immigration issues.
On the one hand, Democrats who govern cities and states , are not concerned with regulating and managing illegal immigration and are also tolerant of illegal behavior by minority immigrants. On the other, the brutality with which Trump exploits the issue by trying to use it to reinforce his authoritarianism.
The U.S. is home to 12 million illegal migrants. Almost all of them work and are integrated. And they don't steal anyone's job. It is true that they are not loved by regular migrants. But they are there now and are useful to the U.S. economy.
Trump proclaims that he wants to deport them all knowing that it is technically impossible and that it would shut down thousands of businesses. But he does not care to address the problem but only to stir up social hatred in order to legitimize his authoritarianism. Thus all undocumented migrants are portrayed as stragglers and dangerous, and not just some small minorities, those toward whom the Democrats show irresponsible tolerance.
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