I am so sick of seeing countries praised for having “enlightened” immigration policies when what they actually do is accept the migrants they need for their economy and reject the rest.
They always justify this on the basis of the rights of individual migrants, but the net outcome is that some rich country has avoided the cost of educating and training a person with valuable skills, while some poor country has been deprived of the services of someone whom they paid to educate and train—but also, potentially, of one of the people who would have added a lot of value to their country.
It’s difficult to see this in most typical jobs (doctors, engineers, nurses, …), but anyone who follows football (i.e. soccer) will understand how this works. The best soccer players from Africa and South America play in Europe. If we focus on their individual rights, then it feels unfair to deny them the chance to emigrate. But if we focus on the rights of people in their home countries, this is daylight robbery—countries which produce some of the best players in the world have mediocre leagues, while rich countries have high quality leagues, often mostly with foreign players.
Obviously, in the case of football, it’s not such a big deal. And, with football, at least they can still watch on tv, and the players will still (mostly) be available for the national team.
With other jobs, the person is just lost to the country, and the result will be an inferior quality of life for those who remain.
If we accept that the individual’s rights to emigrate trump those of their country of origin, at minimum we need some form of compensation which is appropriate to the scale of the problem.
I don’t have a solution—but sometimes I worry that we’re very quick to jump to the conclusion that the individual’s freedom is more important than everything else, especially when it’s convenient. The countries who use this argument don’t hesitate to deny the same freedom to immigrate to people who do not have useful skills, and they don’t seem to lose too much sleep over it.
I love that you wrote this.
I am so sick of seeing countries praised for having “enlightened” immigration policies when what they actually do is accept the migrants they need for their economy and reject the rest.
They always justify this on the basis of the rights of individual migrants, but the net outcome is that some rich country has avoided the cost of educating and training a person with valuable skills, while some poor country has been deprived of the services of someone whom they paid to educate and train—but also, potentially, of one of the people who would have added a lot of value to their country.
It’s difficult to see this in most typical jobs (doctors, engineers, nurses, …), but anyone who follows football (i.e. soccer) will understand how this works. The best soccer players from Africa and South America play in Europe. If we focus on their individual rights, then it feels unfair to deny them the chance to emigrate. But if we focus on the rights of people in their home countries, this is daylight robbery—countries which produce some of the best players in the world have mediocre leagues, while rich countries have high quality leagues, often mostly with foreign players.
Obviously, in the case of football, it’s not such a big deal. And, with football, at least they can still watch on tv, and the players will still (mostly) be available for the national team.
With other jobs, the person is just lost to the country, and the result will be an inferior quality of life for those who remain.
If we accept that the individual’s rights to emigrate trump those of their country of origin, at minimum we need some form of compensation which is appropriate to the scale of the problem.
I don’t have a solution—but sometimes I worry that we’re very quick to jump to the conclusion that the individual’s freedom is more important than everything else, especially when it’s convenient. The countries who use this argument don’t hesitate to deny the same freedom to immigrate to people who do not have useful skills, and they don’t seem to lose too much sleep over it.