An “Unplanned” Immigration
Living in Austria, but also in Germany and Switzerland, some of the most beautiful and prosperous countries in the world, immigration never came to my mind. Traveling the world—from New Zealand to Washington State — I realized that every country has unique, positive aspects, but also some things I was not fond of. I would have never imagined that one day I would give in and immigrate to Canada to live with my husband.
But there was no other way to work around the following issues: my profession was not in very high demand in Canada, I was neither a VIP nor had I world recognition in the arts or in sport, I lacked a million or more dollars to become an investor, and I did not come into this country as a recognized refugee.
All the immigration tracks were closed for me, but one: in the family member group. Shortly after my husband and I were married in Ottawa, I applied as the only way to become a permanent resident. My husband did not want to move to Austria. After applying to Immigration Canada for permission to stay in the country on compassionate/family grounds, it was granted soon.
Usually, one has to stay outside of Canada for their immigration application. So, I was lucky!
After passing a medical exam, getting all my papers together, and filling out many pages of a questionnaire, I was on my way to obtain a permanent resident card and to become a Canadian citizen three years later. Usually, one has to stay outside of Canada for their immigration application. So, I was lucky!
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Immigrants’ and Refugees’ Cultural and Other Shocks
Immigration is a topic high on my agenda, because not only did I immigrate myself, but I also co-founded, worked, and volunteered for seven years at my own immigration NGO to help refugees and immigrants adjust to life in a new country. While supporting immigrants, I learned firsthand how difficult and stressful it is to start a whole new life in a foreign country.
Immigrants deal with issues such as learning a new language, experiencing a new culture, making new friends, and being left alone to find a meaningful occupation. For many, it even means starting a totally new career.
Most immigrants have sold their homes, their vehicles, and all their belongings. They also left family and friends behind—not to mention their sometimes successful careers. The one-way ticket into a new life is, in many cases, a path of no return. War refugees might finally be safe after being forced to abandon their homeland, but they bring their scars and post-traumatic stress disorder with them.
This is a huge burden when adjusting to life in a foreign country—be it Canada, Germany, the USA, Sweden, or the UK—while experiencing a different climate and sometimes underlying (or openly) racism.
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A World of Immigrants
Every piece of land on the planet has been conquered and re-conquered multiple times in the past twenty thousand years. Immigration has existed since the beginning of civilisation, for many reasons: drought, wars, earthquakes, tsunamis, “wanderlust”, political or religious persecution, or just the search for greener pastures. We all move! No country in the world has had its population remain the same since the last ice age.
During the last thousand years, millions of Europeans, starting with the Vikings, the Basques, and the Portuguese, entered North America. As new immigrants, they occupied land that was native to those who had come tens of thousands of years before them. They often killed the original population or forced them from their ancestors’ places into less desirable areas.
Once precious metals were discovered in these native reservations, the inhabitants were forced to relocate again, becoming refugees. Not an honourable way for Europeans to settle in a new country!
But that was not all: to have a cheap (read: free) workforce, hundreds of thousands of slaves were captured in Africa and brought over to North and South America, some even as far as to Europe. In the southern United States in particular, they had to toil for their masters in cotton fields, in construction, or as domestics.
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Immigration Today
No single American today can claim that they did not descend from an immigrant background! However, except for the Natives! North Americans are either first-generation immigrants or have ancestors who are immigrants. The United States was built by immigrants, and it will always be a country of immigrants. If they like it or not…
When we think of Chinese, Italians, Germans, English, French, etc., we picture distinct people, cultures, food, and languages. When we think of Americans or Canadians, we picture a variety of countries. And it is always changing.
When people used to picture Americans, they saw white people from England, Germany, and Scandinavia, and black people descended from slaves. Then Irish, Italian, Asian, African, Middle-Eastern, and Jewish immigrants came. Now, the picture we have of American newcomers are those from Latin America.
In Canada and the USA, immigration is relatively professionally organized compared to many other countries worldwide. One can meet a political refugee from Nepal or from the Republic of Congo, a skilled worker from South Africa or from Chile, or a business investor from Europe or China. There are people from India or Brazil who want to offer their children a better life and education in a Western country. There are war refugees from the Middle East and North Africa, and occasionally, artists from Russia or France.
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Sometimes Second Class Citizens…
Contrary to 2015 news images when war refugees from Syria were met by locals at train stations in the middle of Europe with “Welcome” posters, it is difficult to find a country that really welcomes immigrants from the heart.
During the large wave of Syrian refugees to Germany and other Central European countries, tens of thousands of helpers were on hand and volunteered in refugee camps. Some even offered their homes for a short while to those who survived the dangerous crossing of small boats of the Mediterranean Sea.
First, these refugees experienced the war with heavy bombing, and then a grim journey over the Mediterranean Sea, and hundreds of miles on foot to their destination, and getting fleeced and taken advantage of by unethical characters.
However, there are these right-wing fascists who burned down houses where refugees live, and countries like Poland and Hungary that flatly refused to take any war refugees in, contrary to the Geneva Convention they once signed.
Then some folks never travel, or live in remote areas, who have never talked to someone from another part of the world, and who might be reluctant to have them as neighbours.
The extreme right assumes immigrants (especially those from south of the border or from Islamic countries) are violent, here to steal (white) people’s jobs, deal with drugs, and create “anchor” babies (for which they gain legal status to stay in America, for example). One just needs to remember the racist remarks during the last election campaign and the establishment of ICE in the USA.
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Undocumented Immigrats
When it comes to undocumented immigration, these human beings, also referred to (by those, whose ancestors stole the land) as “illegals” or “illegal aliens,” are working mostly in lower-paying jobs and are sometimes uneducated (not by will), and without previous economic resources from their corrupt home countries.
They are just trying to escape poverty and crime. Most immigrants do pay taxes and do not want a free ride. They just want a stable life and a better future for their children.
For the majority of those undocumented, honest workers, even spending $250 back to their country’s US consulate to apply for a visa is often financially unachievable. Plus, they will be laughed in their faces for not being able to show assets, such as property in their names, or prove a cushy salary that almost no one has.
Undocumented immigrants send money back to their families, and a part of these countries’ total income comes from these transfers. On the other hand, the USA or Canada gets cheap workers, especially for the food industry. Economists say that without these workers, food in the US would at least double in price.
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Investors and Academics
Even investors or skilled workers experience this “invisible wall” as immigrants. Neighbours might not invite newcomers over for a BBQ, or immigrant children might not be invited by their peers to a birthday party or sleepover. It prominently manifests in jobs only being given to locals, friends, or family members (nepotism) and not to people “from away,” or by asking for “local experience,” which certainly cannot be provided right away.
To get local experience, you need a job, and to get a job, you need local experience.
Considering that professions are tightly regulated through professional associations that fight for high salaries and benefits, members of these associations are not going to let any outsiders into their club! Just look at the numerous newcomers who are physicians, nurses, or teachers who are struggling to get their foreign licence recognized and to find meaningful employment.
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Governments and the Big Immigration “Business”
The bureaucracy of immigration is certainly enormous. Additionally, the fees that some countries’ governments charge immigration applicants, plus the costs for the medical exams, affidavits, photocopies, etc., add up to thousands of dollars.
For example, in Canada, the immigration quota is over 250,000 people per annum. Seventy-five percent are independent applicants (not refugees) who have to pay government fees, and have to prove they have at least a certain amount of money per person to bring into the country and have a certain education degree.
Each applicant pays $1,500 for the application and processing, and is required to bring at least $18,000 into Canada to prove that they can live in their new country without relying on government support.
250,000 x 0.75 x $1,500 = $281,250,000 a year being brought into Canada, just from immigration fees alone. Even if half of that money is used for processing costs and labour, it is a good chunk of revenue.
Additionally: $18,000 x 250,000 = $ 3,690,000,000. This is the amount that immigrants bring into Canada on average, and spend within a couple of weeks in their new home country.
As one can see, immigrants bring billions of dollars per year into the economy. Also, immigrants are generating jobs for thousands of government workers, immigration advisers & lawyers, workers at immigration services and language schools, translators, physicians … and later, some immigrants start businesses, so they employ even more locals and other newcomers.
A study at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln
(http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1663&context=greatplainsresearch) concludes that immigration stimulates both labour supply and demand, thus explaining the subsequent rebound in employment, average wages, and economic growth.
When immigrants arrive at their destination, they need homes, and they consume many other things in their new place of residence, such as furniture, appliances, kitchen equipment, table and glassware, and cars. They need the services of translators, maybe even lawyers and accountants. It is safe to say, they spend every dollar they bring into their new country within weeks or months.
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The Economy Benefits from Both Legal and Illegal Immigration
An Economic Report of the President (ERP) devotes an entire chapter to immigration and reports that "A comprehensive accounting of the benefits and costs of immigration shows the benefits of immigration exceed the costs." The following are among the ERP's other related findings:
- Most immigrant families have a positive net fiscal impact on the U.S., adding $88,000 more in tax revenues than they consume in services; and
- Social Security payroll taxes paid by improperly identified (undocumented) workers have led to billions of funding surplus for the Social Security Administration.
- The North American economy is benefiting from these illegal immigrants in more than one way. For example, many illegal immigrants pay taxes in order for the IRS and the immigration department to ignore them. For the same reason, they do not use healthcare if possible (or any other services), as medical records show immigration status, which increases their risk of getting exposed.
- Illegal immigrants don’t cost citizens much money. Emergency health care is provided by Medicaid, which is paid for by payroll taxes, and even an illegal immigrant who does not file federal income taxes will pay payroll taxes through his employer.
- They are contributing billions of dollars a year to Social Security, but may never reap any retirement benefits from it. (http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/09/undocumented-immigrants-and-taxes/499604/).
Immigrants often toil in jobs locals wouldn’t want in the first place. These days, North Americans are not eager to perform demanding, back-breaking agricultural labour.
Cruising through the vineyards of the Napa or Sonoma Valley, one can discover Mexican workers harvesting the endless rows of vegetables, salad, or berry crops, and the almond and orange fields of California or Florida.
Even in the apple farms of Washington State, 95% of the workforce is either from Mexico, or a country in Central or South America. The same can be seen in the meat-packing industry in the USA, in domestic labour, or in the landscaping field.
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Helping Immigrants to Thrive
New immigrants are trying to adapt to life in another country and struggle every day to fit in. When we help new immigrants to become part of our culture, we can make our country a better place to live for everyone. When immigrants succeed, we all benefit!
Why not try helping someone in the checkout line at the grocery store to understand the instructions or make change? It helps the line move faster. If we speak slowly and help them learn some English, everything in our daily lives is easier. Learning a new language is very difficult, but they won't be able to assimilate if they don't learn the English language. Some people say that these newcomers are stupid or not willing to learn the rules, while they probably are just not able to understand the language or the rules.
If we are friendly and welcoming to new neighbours, they will learn how to fit in, and there will be less friction. If there is a neighbourhood meeting, take them along. Many of them come from entirely different cultures and have to be shown how to fit into ours. You can tell them about open houses and parent-teacher meetings at the local school. Their country's schools might not have wanted the parents to be involved, and they don't understand how important it is here. Your children's schools will be better schools if more of the parents are involved and help out. And your children will learn about other countries and cultures from these parents and students, too.
Should there be a fire or weather emergency, check on them. Many don't know where to go or who to ask about phone and electric services they have lost. They don't know there are shelters and help is available. Keeping your neighbours safe will make your neighbourhood better, and maybe they will be helping you next time. A close community of good neighbours has less crime, drugs, and other dangerous activities. In other words, do the same things for these newcomers that you would want them to do for you if you were a new resident in their country.
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More Help and Honesty from Governments
Why advertise and list “professions in demand” when immigrants who qualify cannot work in their profession of expertise due to nepotism and overblown requirements from government and professional associations?
Government agencies need to create a system of hiring and promotion on the basis of merit. Having scientists and other professionals work as cab drivers or kitchen help, while ignoring their expertise, is more than humiliating.
Jane Cullingworth, project coordinator of the Policy Roundtable Mobilizing Professions and Trades in Canada, said:
“We have an aggressive immigration policy that targets skilled workers to come to this country, but we don't have an aggressive policy once they get here to make sure they utilize the skills for which they've been recruited.”
There are several myths that the government uses to support skilled immigration visas:
a) The misconception of full-time employment.
b) The misconception of a burgeoning job market.
c) The misconception that an underclass of society does not exist, or that the underclass are not actively seeking work or a means to improve their life prospects.
d) The misconception that higher-skilled workers in our society (including engineers, programmers, scientists, etc.) are always well paid.
I got to know more than 400 newcomers in person; none of them found a position equivalent to their education/skills/experience.
Conclusion
Many societies, communities, organizations, and cultures tend to resist change. This is especially true when change comes from outside sources, reinforced by authority figures who generally shape cultural expectations to revere conformity more than innovation. This pattern, an “ideal type” to be sure, is especially common in traditional rural areas, among multi-generational families, and in religious and cultural organizations.
What is needed is a 21st-century immigration system that meets economic and national security imperatives and upholds our proud traditions as a nation of laws and a nation of immigrants.
Throughout the world’s history, great nations have declined or even vanished because they built up insular walls. Globalization will see us all (no matter in which country we live) either descend into openness or timid isolation.
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Immigrants in Culture and Entrepreneurship
Just think of the many artists, musicians, and entertainers who contributed to the culture of their new homelands. And I am not even mentioning the many scientists who moved to the “New World.” An article in the National Institutes of Health https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3856769/ mentions the well- known disproportionate role of immigrants and their children in creating twentieth-century popular music.
For example, Irving Berlin, who was born as Israel Baline in Russia, and who wrote “White Christmas,” “Easter Parade,” “God Bless America,” and numerous others. The author of the article, Charles Hirschman, mentions that many of the most highly regarded composers and playwrights of Broadway were the children of immigrants, including George and Ira Gershwin, Richard Rodgers, Lorenz Hart, Jerome Kern, Harold Arlen, and Leonard Bernstein.
Immigrants help to “drive” cities. For example, in New York where newcomers account for 45 percent of the workforce and 49 percent of small business owners, they endow the Big Apple with much of its incredible cultural vibrancy.
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Immigrants Create Jobs for Themselves and Others
Though many immigrants find menial work or are unable to find work in their field, many also turn to entrepreneurship. According to the US Small Business Administration (https://www.sba.gov), immigrants are 30 percent more likely to start a business in the United States than non-immigrants, and 18 percent of all small business owners in the United States are immigrants.
Immigrant-owned businesses create jobs for American workers. According to the Fiscal Policy Institute http://www.fiscalpolicy.org, small businesses owned by immigrants employed an estimated 4.7 million people in 2007, and according to the latest estimates, these small businesses generated more than $776 billion annually.
Immigrants are also more likely to create their own jobs. According to the U.S. Department of Labor, 7.5 percent of foreign-born citizens are self-employed, compared to 6.6 percent among the native born.
According to 2014 data http://www.renewoureconomy.org/research/40-2-percent-of-2016-fortune-500-firms-founded-by-immigrants-or-their-children-new-report-on-immigrant-entrepreneurship-shows/.
19.1 percent of immigrants from the Middle East and North Africa were entrepreneurs. Similarly, 11.1 percent of foreign-born Hispanics were self-employed, as were 10.6 percent of Asian immigrants. The national rate of entrepreneurship among working Americans was only 9.5 percent that year.
Immigrants also develop cutting-edge technologies and companies. According to the National Venture Capital Association, immigrants have started 25 percent of public US companies that were backed by venture capital investors. This list includes Google, eBay, Yahoo!, Sun Microsystems, and Intel. Immigrants are our engineers, scientists, and innovators.
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Skills and Experience
According to the Census Bureau, despite making up only 16 percent of the resident population holding a bachelor’s degree or higher, immigrants represent 33 percent of engineers, 27 percent of mathematicians, statisticians, and computer scientists, and 24 percent of physical scientists.
Additionally, according to the Partnership for a New American Economy http://www.renewoureconomy.org/, in 2011, foreign-born inventors were credited with contributing to more than 75 percent of patents issued to the top 10 patent-producing universities.
Current Population Survey data show that the foreign-born percentage of working scientists and engineers increased from 14 percent in 1994 to 24 percent in 2006 in the USA, known as the birthplace of scientists and engineers. In many scientific fields, the role of American citizens is secondary. In 2006, American citizens received only 41 percent of all doctoral degrees in mathematics and 40 percent in physics.
Immigrants are a very important part of our international competitiveness, especially in technology-intensive and service industries. Compared to US-born Americans, immigrants are more likely to hold an advanced degree and are almost twice as likely to hold a Ph.D.
Immigrants and their children are overrepresented in a broad range of rare achievements, including Nobel Prize winners, leading scientists, and top-performing and creative artists.
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Americans and Canadians complaining about illegal immigration are hypocrites to some degree, as their ancestors often came illegally to North America.
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