Emigration Is (Not) Bad: Rethinking the Debate
The Ministry of External Affairs, in a question to the Rajya Sabha, gave a response that over 2 lakh Indians gave up their citizenship in 2024. Since 2022, every year, this is the figure of number of Indians giving up Indian citizenship. The past two to three years in India have seen extensive talk about the number of people moving out and relinquishing their citizenship. People also give a very catchy term for that- "Brain Drain", where intelligent and well-qualified citizens are leaving the country for opportunities elsewhere. Then there is the argument of demographic change, where regions are seeing young people leave for green pastures and old people remain with no one to take care of them. All of them are true and valid points, but there is another side of the debate which we often ignore and miss.
The causes of migration can be broadly categorised as push and pull factors. Only if both of them work together, mass migration usually happen. As we have already discussed multiple times before, human migration or movement of people has been a very natural phenomenon for ages. It has been an obvious response to climate change, natural disasters, wars, habitat destruction, etc. In our previous posts, we discussed multiple times how the current Westphalian Nation-State model fails people in terms of freedom of movement and migration. We believe we live in a world that helps us maximise our aspirations and have the freedom to live wherever we want.
According to the IOM report 2023, over 281 M people live outside their native countries or are immigrants. Compared to the 8 B global population, which is hardly 3.5% of the global population. But the more problematic statistic is that more than half of the migrants are from China, India, and Mexico. Asia contributes to 40% of all migrants around the world. Oh, that's scary; Asians are taking over the world. But that's because they are the majority population in the world. Contrary to most beliefs, Christians are the largest migrant group in the destination countries. In Europe, it's Christians followed by the religiously unaffiliated.
Coming to the politics of migration, we have very interesting things. Traditionally Left Wing has opposed immigration, as they feel that it puts natives at a disadvantage over wages and jobs. Additionally, they believed movement of cheap labour becomes a victim of exploitation, poor living conditions and much more. At that time, the right was supportive of all forms of migration due to economic reasons. Things have changed a lot since then. The right wing is the current opponent-in-chief of emigration. They fear demographic change, cultural decline, population decline and brain drain. On the flip side, the Left is welcoming immigrants due to social, economic and political reasons. Immigration has been an important case of left-right differentiation between both left and right, mainly in the West.
Here are a few reasons why emigration the contrary to popular thought, is not a bad idea.
One of the major reasons why people emigrate is to seek a better life and attain a better standard of living. Often, many immigrants do succeed in that, as they aspire for it more vigorously than the natives. Many reports suggest that in many countries, immigrants earn significantly higher than the natives. Most of the emigrants are successful in leading a good life by educating and earning much better. It has helped in changing their lives not only for themselves but also for several generations. For emigrants, the country they move to provides them with a lot of exposure, experiences and increased wages. All of these improve their stature and ultimately give them a stable and better quality of life. This can also inspire many people back at home. But what is it for the country they move to?
The country they move to will benefit from the output they work, whatever contribution they give to it, and most importantly, there will be a change in lifestyle towards a cosmopolitan lifestyle where immigrants around the world live, thrive and integrate. They also change the culture of the local place and reshape it. Often, people fear change in culture, especially if it comes from immigrants, but the difference here is, it is more positively seen over time. Culture is also something that constantly evolves through influences and adaptations.
So what does the home country get in return? They are not abandoning their home countries. Similarly, for overpopulated countries like India, a handful of people moving out will not change anything back at home. There still exists excessive competition and struggling opportunities. As affluent people move abroad, others in the queue can take the opportunities. India still has a good, talented population back at home waiting to contribute their best to society. Not all talent in India comes from the Tier 1 colleges.
The World Development Report 2023, migrants around the world sent back remittances to their home countries of around $656 B, which is roughly the GDP of Belgium. Remittances are important to countries around the world as they make up 3% or more in more than sixty countries. Indian origin immigrants sent back $135.46 B back home, which is an important part of the country's GDP. Aren't they sending all of their money back home then?
The contribution of immigrants, mainly in monetary terms, stays in their guest country itself, they spend a lot of money they earn and contribute to the local economy. The taxes they pay are also local. The money for houses, they rent, the food they eat, the clothes they buy, the time and facilities they use for leisure are also spent locally. Moreover, the non-monetary contributions they provide are much more significant, and no numerical value can be used to represent that. If there is a teacher from another country who is teaching here, he is teaching the students who belong here and hence contributing his knowledge and skills to the people here.
Immigrants give a lot of prestige and pride to their home country abroad. These immigrants are the representatives of the home countries around the world. For example, the immigrants from Kerala have a representation across the world, which has given the state a lot of prestige and acceptance. The tech CEOs who work in Silicon Valley are also contributing a lot to the growth of startups and the IT sector in India.
Lastly, the importance of the Diaspora is something we cannot miss. Diaspora of a country is an added strength and key to better diplomatic relations. Diaspora represents the best of one's country abroad. In the era of public diplomacy, the diaspora has a key role to play. Diaspora acts as a bridge between two countries, bringing them closer. India is the best example of it. Diaspora has played a key role in the betterment of relations between India and Western countries. In some other cases, this can also hurt the relations, like what happened between India and Canada. Similarly, Iranian, Russian, Turkish diaspora, etc. are heavily against their government at home, hence there is no scope for building relations and that negatively backslides relations.
Controversies and Concerns
Most people do see one side of this debate and try to make up their minds, but here is something which people opposing both immigration and emigration which one should also listen to. Immigrants are vulnerable and highly discriminated people across the world. Any country's legal system will prioritise citizens or local people over immigrants. Even most countries deny them basic civil liberties such as freedom of speech, expression, dissent and many more until they attain citizenship. Additionally, local people who may not accept immigrants can discriminate, persecute, disenfranchise and stick themselves in a spiral of stereotypes. It will take a very long time to overcome stereotypes and hatred. In the short term, they will lead to travel restrictions, visa restrictions and travel bans. Trump's Muslim ban, enacted in his first term, is a controversial example of that. All these will affect people back at home who are planning to move abroad.
The next controversy comes around the question of integration, assimilation and cultural appropriation. It is always a dilemma for immigrants to choose whether to protect the culture of their home country or assimilate into the culture of the host country. Often, you will get a grey area. South Asian cultures believe that their own culture is superior and valuable, hence immigrants from that area are more inclined to their home country. Whereas the East Asian cultures believe in assimilation. Different cultural, religious and national groups behave differently. That is why this debate always comes up. Western countries give more importance to individual liberty and your right to follow any culture of your choice. Eastern countries and African countries may not. While moving to newer countries, make sure to follow the rules, norms, and values of the host country. Otherwise, it will be tougher for you to survive, and it can get difficult for you. This will definitely be a big deal if you are not used to all this.
Lastly, let us speak about illegal immigrants and illegal immigration. They are the people who use unconventional methods, and violate laws during movement across countries and even settle there without appropriate documents. Today, the immigration debate has become synonymous with illegal immigration. In Western countries, the far right has become dominant with the rise of both legal and illegal immigration. Many people see illegal immigrants as lazy, criminals, terrorists and a grave threat to their indigenous culture and society. This is just a misunderstanding, they work in jobs which natives won't do, like cleaning, working on farms, restaurants, etc., mostly below the minimum wage. In the US, during the 2022-2023 period, illegal immigrants provided $100 B in taxes to the US government. In return, they get no benefits as they are here illegally. The idea that they don't pay taxes and live as freeloaders is largely untrue. We already discussed above that immigrants commit far fewer crimes than natives. This holds true for both illegal and legal immigrants.
Also Read: Mass deportations and immigration in the US
When we discuss the issue of illegal immigrants, we must differentiate and also address the issue of asylum seekers and refugees, but that goes beyond the scope of this article.
Myth busters that we countered in the section we covered in the section
- Emigrants Abandon their Home Countries
- Emigrants harm the economy by leaving
- Immigration erodes and harms local culture and economy
- Immigrants do not pay taxes, but take away all the benefits
Solutions to consider regarding concerns
As far as the topic of emigration goes, we have to consider the consequences of emigration as well. We had already discussed the above; it comes with a massive burden on the home country, as a tax-paying, hard-working, highly educated population is settling elsewhere. This means there should be incentives for those emigrants to come back and contribute in both monetary and non-monetary terms. The main reasons why societies are ageing are not just because people are moving out, but also because the rich, educated and well-off are not opting to have more children. The global fertility rates are falling. Hence, blaming everything on emigration is not helping solve the problems.
The best way to stop the ageing of societies is to allow more immigration. This will help overcome demographic-related problems. This is something that states like Kerala can focus on. Creating welcoming measures for immigrants, converting societies to cosmopolitan ones, and building multilingual and multicultural societies can help bridge this. Most importantly, let's stop demonising immigrants and immigration as a threat and focus on the benefits and opportunities.
References
https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/over-2-lakh-indians-gave-up-citizenship-in-2024-government-9048163
https://www.un.org/en/fight-racism/vulnerable-groups/migrants
https://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/migration/brief/remittances-knomad
https://www.iom.int/resources/interactive-world-migration-report-2024
https://itep.org/study-undocumented-immigrants-contribute-nearly-100-billion-in-taxes-a-year/
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/business/india-business/remittances-at-a-record-high-indian-diaspora-sends-home-135-46-billion-inflows-more-than-double-in-eight-years/articleshow/122153757.cms
https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2015/05/07/404949167/china-india-surpass-mexico-as-leading-sources-of-new-immigrants-to-u-s
https://www.un.org/hi/desa/number-international-migrants-reaches-272-million-continuing-upward-trend-all
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