Legalization for Undocumented Immigrants: Lessons for the United States from Southern Europe
After the failed attempt at Comprehensive Immigration Reform in the summer of 2007, the United States still has to determine what to do with the estimated 12 million undocumented individuals currently living within its borders. Employed in largely unskilled occupations in the agriculture, construction, meat packing, domestic care, and services industries, undocumented migrants are often a crucial source of labor when native-born Americans are unable or unwilling to perform the duties required of such jobs. The most often-discussed and controversial policy option to deal with such a large undocumented population is to provide a path to legal status or even citizenship for migrants already in the country.
Though the United States has had its own history with “amnesties” for undocumented migrants (it legalized 2.7 million under a bill passed in 1987), Southern Europe has enacted mass legalizations in much more recent memory. Bordering the Mediterranean, the countries of Spain, Italy, Greece, and Portugal saw large influxes of unauthorized migrants and growing informal economies throughout the 1990s and 2000s. In an effort to bring undocumented migrants out of the shadows and into the taxpaying workforce, all four countries conducted periodic amnesties which (at the time) provoked significantly less political outcry than the United States has experienced over Comprehensive Immigration Reform.
A recent New York Times article details the aftermath of the most recent Spanish amnesty for the undocumented, which has had benefits, such as increased tax revenue, but also drawbacks, such as possible inflows of more undocumented migrants in anticipation of amnesties in the future. The case study raises a number of questions for both Europe and the United States: Have the economic, social, and humanitarian benefits of amnesties outweighed the costs to the host society? Will similar amnesties in Southern Europe be feasible in the future, given Northern European opposition (strongest in France) and growing anti-immigrant movements in Italy and Spain? Are there other feasible solutions to dealing with the problem of unauthorized migration, and are border enforcement measures effective in an increasingly globalized and mobile world? And finally, what can the United States learn from the political compromises in Europe to form a truly comprehensive immigration reform?
To be sure, the similarities between Southern Europe and the United States – long borders, unauthorized migration flows, and significant informal economies – should not to be ignored. However, the economic climate of the 1990s and early 2000s (when most of the European amnesties took place) stands in stark contrast to the current economic outlook of the United States in light of the credit crunch, increased fuel prices, and a possible recession. Given economic worries and the heated nature of the immigration debate, it seems that a mass legalization measure would cost any American leader a great deal of political capital. Senators McCain and Obama should keep this in mind, as both have made campaign promises to fix the broken immigration system during their respective administrations.