Immigration Issues: Problems and Benefits

Solution Preview

Your point that all immigrants are human beings who seek a better/different life is an important one, but often the first point to be lost in the rhetoric. Immigration is 'voting with the feet'; a request for new rules in a new place. It is also as old as the human race. Before we delve too deeply into the bulk of your questions, we should define immigration. At its simplest level, immigration is the movement of people. The reason or motivation may vary, but the dynamic remains unchanged. Whether arbitrary or contrived, external circumstances drive movement of people around and throughout the planet. If, as archeologists assert, the modern human originated in the deserts of Ethiopia/Eritrea, it is likely that environmental factors led ultimately to the first human migration - out of Africa and up through the Mediterranean, into Europe, across to Asia and then to the Western Hemisphere. To some extent, the story of the human race is one of migration - always seeking higher ground, greener pastures, better water supply, away from conflict, away from oppression, etc.
(http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/human-migration.html)
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0603/feature2/images/mp_full.2.jpg)

Migration seems to be a constant dynamic of almost all living creatures. Only when the entity of the sovereign state comes into effect do we get the semantic switch from 'migration' to 'immigration' because the artificial and arbitrary imposition of state boundaries creates barriers to open and free immigration. Where in previous eras, environment, geography and the slow pace of travel limited the migrant; in the common era, while environment and geography remain important factors, it is now the "state" which presents the most significant challenge to the migrant. Why is that? It is not only because human beings tend to be naturally xenophobic. It is also because the balance of the social contract between the state apparatus and its people is economically fragile. Assuming that the supply of resources is limited for any state, the uncontrolled influx of people into that state, as noble a goal as that might be, will eventually tip that balance. Citizens of a state pay taxes, which fund the social contract, administered by the state apparatus. Those citizens have an expectation of benefit as they are in effect, shareholders. The state derives its economic welfare via an analysis of assets (tax revenue)/liability(expectations). What happens to the analysis (the ability of the state to meet ...