The Uninvited: Refugees at the Rich Man's Gate

by Jeremy Harding

Clandestine migration is the catch-all expression for the efforts of refugees and economic migrants to breach the rich world. The author has followed migrants and refugees in Morocco, Spain, Italy, Kosovo and Albania. In this evocative documentary journalism, he asks how much longer exclusionary immigration policies can work.

Genres: Nonfiction

128 pages, Paperback

First published May 11, 2000

Reviews

[Peter · Rating 5 out of 5]

"This short book should be required reading for all those who wish to reap the rewards of the global economy while ignoring the responsibilities that come with it."
Irish Times, 20/05/00

In today's newspaper, under the headline
"Cruelty and cowardice replace common interest"
I read

At the Houses of Parliament yesterday, a demonstration was held...in protest at changes to family immigration rules.
...The rules are partly a consequence of David Cameron's cruel, opportunistic and unrealisable pledge before the last general election to bring the net migration into the UK down.
...They target spouses who settle in our country. Among the measures is an expansion of the probationary period from two to five years.
...Finally, nobody earning less than £18,600 annually will be allowed to bring spouses into Britain in the first place. That rises by £2,400 a year for each child a couple is mischievous enough to have.
Taken as a whole, these measures represent a shameless attack on the poorest people in our society, a retreat in the face of lies and propaganda from the right wing press, and a further criminalisation of the pursuit of happiness by those who happen to be born in countries less wealthy than ours.
In this, it is in keeping with what passes for a debate on immigration in our country. It is true that Labour underestimated the scale of modern migration; that the flip-side of any persons civic right is another person's civic duty, so that just as we campaign for migrant rights we must engender migrant duties; and that state- multiculturalism can under mine social bonds. But migrants are not the thieving villains of Daily Mail caricature. They are generally hard working, keen to learn and contribute.
The sums raised by these proposed measures would hardly pay for lunch in the City. Yet the message sent by them is clear. A country which relies ever more heavily on it's migrant population wants to substitute cruelty and cowardice where compassion and common sense once prevailed
Amol Rajan,'i', 10 July 2012

A week later the headline of the same paper, referreing to a report by the The OBR, The English Governments Fiscal watchdog:-

"Britain needs 'decades of immigration'Migrants not austerity, to rebuild the economy"
'i', 13/07/12


and finally from 'The Uninvited', pp100: -

At the root of their (the politicians) ill temper is the knowledge that asylum obligations and broader migratory pressures force governments into areas they cannot control. To inhibit immigration in one way is to encourage it in others. to deny it all together, as Europe is now trying top do, is simply to invite a growing disregard for the law.

Immigration and population movement are a fact of life, and intrinsic to the nature of man, the modern world, and a direct consequence of our collective history. Jeremy Harding's book, written 12 years ago, as sharp and relevant now as then, is nothing short of a wake up call.
He covers a lot of ground in what is essentially two long essays weighing in at around 120 pages, that look at the issues of migration within the European context from every point of impact and departure; Why do people move, often paying more than a years wages, even risking life and limb to arrive at their destination? Is it poverty? War? Hardship? or greed for a slice of the western consumerist pie? This book is an examination and an attempt to provide an answer through investigative journalism and balanced argument.

He discusses the immigration issues and policies that The European Union seeks to administer and enforce at from a brief European history of migration, with an eye to the Wars of the last century, since it was in response to these that the foundations for current policy were laid, through the political, demographic, socioeconomic and even environmental issues at work, down to human perspectives from the cutting edge as it were; the traffickers, the migrants, the border police and those who have to make decisions about those unfortunates who deem it necessary to risk there lives in the hope of asylum here AND those who get caught in the crossfire; A startling example being an African business man, who frequently commutes between Europe and Africa, finding claiming asylum the only avenue left to him in the face of ever tighter immigration measures, in order to maintain his legitimate inter continental business visits. Or, "Immigration officials" to quote the author, working under enormous pressure "are asked to juggle the skills of the grief counselor with those of the claims assessor for a hard-bitten insurance company; all the while they have a wary eye on annual immigration statistics" pp54
There is also an intelligent attempt en route to tease out the difference between political refugees, economic refugees and plain migration.

The conclusion he reaches is that migration and immigration are essential to the development of the third world and the survival of the first and that accepting immigration is a duty reciprocal to rights that the west claims for itself, and as such needs to be reassessed. Words and ideas that champion freedom of movement and greater consumer choice are shown to be empty rhetoric when viewed in the light of unintelligent, reactionary and inhibitive policies, that create and feed several 'black markets' and illicit economies by aiming at restriction rather than sensible management. Behind the political rhetoric, almost 'across the board', is an underlying vision of Fortress Europe, a rich, fertile Alpine valley under the protection of the privileged few. Policies that have this as their point of departure tend, by default, toward collusion and agreement with the regimes from which people flee; those fleeing are at best undesirables, at worst criminals. He argues that the young migrant labour is needed in the host economies and money, education and development that it generates in the donor states. Freedom and rights are not only valid in reciprocation, they are essential to survival and growth. In practice they seem only to apply to the wealthier northern hemisphere or the west however you wish to economically divide the planet. The 1999 Treaty of Amsterdam suggests that the right of EU citizens to free movement should be extended to those who have successfully claimed asylum here.This has yet to be realised in practice. From this we can conclude that the stigma of the political refugee is a persistent one and difficult to break free from.
There is then also a often overlooked ethically aspect to the whole issue and any ensuing debate. On this point I here quote from a a conversation between the author and senior member of the Spanish 'Guardia', Border Patrol;

"What colonial power seriously tried to develop an infrastructure in it's African Possessions?" Captain Jose Rebollo...asked when I suggested that migrants who made it over the perimeter were very far from being downtrodden or defeated. He thought it wrong to attribute the force that drove them to their own strength of character when in it was so evidently a material issue of misery- and history. Rebollo was hazy about the big picture but he was still on the right track.
"What power ever attempted to play down tribal differences?" he went on. "And when Africa was distributed to the Europeans, was the division not done with a ruler? We, the colonial powers are reaping what we sowed..."