An Immigration Warning - From the Boston Globe?!
A Lesson in Immigration: Guest worker experiments transformed Europe. That's the headline of the article, and that's pretty much what it's about. The article chronicles how in 1961 Germany recruited a few thousand Turks to do jobs that Germans wouldn't do (though they don't mention that millions of German men were sort of 'disappeared' about 17 years earlier, which might help explain the worker shortage) and that led to the mess they have now. The basic problem, of course, is that guest workers just don't leave.
Europe's guest worker programs were mostly scrapped during the recessions of the 1970s, but in a pattern reflecting the Hispanic flow into the United States, the movement of Muslims to Europe only accelerated. Those early guest workers routinely overstayed their one- or two-year permits, or lived from extension to extension, but faced scant risk of deportation unless they committed serious crimes.I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop - you know, where they try to argue that America's more open-borders approach is so much better than Europe's more closed-society approach, but it never came. Sure, there was this stupid comment:
Birth rates in some European countries are plunging dramatically. Immigrants earning wages and paying taxes appear to represent the best chance the continent has of keeping its place in the world's economic front ranks.but that was followed by this in the very next sentence:
Many of the original guest workers are now retired, enjoying the comfortable pensions that are the pride of Europe. But their children and their grandchildren are trapped between two worlds, too 'Europeanized' ever to return to the Middle East or North Africa, but lacking the language skills and education to forge ahead in their new countries.Ya - they're going to keep Europe in the world's economic front ranks. One interesting point is that Germany is now turning to Polish and Lithuanian workers rather than Turks and Arabs - in other words, fellow Europeans. One thing we definitely are smarter about here is not providing welfare benefits to immigrants. But otherwise, the Europeans seem to be a lot wiser about - or at least have awakened to - the long-term demographic consequences of immigration. So this is quite surprising coming from the Boston Globe - will anybody up there be persuaded?
posted by ziel | 4/20/2006 12:04:00 AM
13 Comments:
I hear our honored guest workers (read illegal immigrants) are planning a massive strike on May Day to show us ungrateful gringos how valuable they are. I think this is a great idea, one that legal residents should participate in as well. But rather than NOT working, we should do EXTRA work, such as cutting our own lawns, washing our own laundry, cooking a taco for ourselves (I’ll be glad to supply instructions), fixing a patch of drywall in our house. If someone’s business will be hurt by the “brown flu”, I’d be glad to take a day off from work and fill in for the duration. Let’s prove we can rise to the occasion and do what’s necessary like the WW 2 generation did so well; that we’re not spoiled sissies who couldn’t lay down mulch or plant grass if our pampered lives depended on it.
And let’s expand the actions for the illegals. How about they don’t use publicly funded roads? How about we have them take their kids out of publicly paid for schools, stay out of/check out of taxpayer-supported hospitals, refuse any government assistance completely.
I figure this two pronged approach will truly show how crippled we’d be without our unregistered workers.
From what I have heard, most of the German-born, second- and third-generation Turks in Germany ARE German for almost all intents and purposes. They are largely secular in outlook and follow German rather than Turkish cultural norms. Many of them speak only German, except maybe for a few words in Turkish that they use with their grandmothers. While it is true that many have Turkish rather than German citizenship, that's due primarily to the perculiarities of German citizenship law.
Peter
Iron Rails & Iron Weights
"Anonymous said... we should do EXTRA work, such as cutting our own lawns, washing our own laundry, cooking a taco for ourselves (I’ll be glad to supply instructions), fixing a patch of drywall in our house."
That is an excellent idea. But I'll bet 90% of the U.S. population already does those chores for themselves anyway. It is the wealthy who need to get over their aversion to any form of physical labor and mow their own damn yards!
One of those pallet factories where ICE made their big Photo Op raid yesterday was in my neck of the woods (Biglerville, PA). (And if they were serious about cracking down on employers who hire illegals, I can think of a dozen or so other places in the same vicinity they could have raided, too.) And what draws illegal aliens into this area is the miles and miles of fruit orchards nearby. I tell you, it is the orchards who are the biggest Trojan Horse through which illegals gain a foothold in the local workforce in this part of the country, just as it is the big vegetable produce farms out west that are a magnet for illegal aliens in that part of the country. So, if people in this country really wanted to make a dent in illegal immigration, they could do it by not buying domestically produced fruit and vegetables.
Personally, I take vitamins and fiber capsules, and never eat fruits and vegetables, and my health is fine.
BOYCOTT THE U.S. FRUIT AND VEGETABLE INDUSTRY!
"While it is true that many have Turkish rather than German citizenship, that's due primarily to the perculiarities of German citizenship law."
The real peculiarity is the absurd birthright citizenship policy of the US. As far as I know, no other country (aside from our northern neighbor, the Peoples' Republic of Canuckistan-where who can be hauled into a "human relations" kangaroo court and fined heavily for criticizing immigration or homosexuality) in the developed world has blanket birthright citizenship. And the idea that it is required by the 14th Amendment has been effectively refuted many times. For an example see
here
"...-where who can be hauled into a "human relations" kangaroo court "
Should be "you" not "who".
I think France also has blanket birthright citizenship.
In any case, i'll keep on my broken record refrain.
Guest workers are fine as long as they are spayed or neutered.
France is mildly restrictive when it comes to birthright citizenship. It seems that the child does not actually acquire citizenship until age 18.
http://www.spaef.com/GPS_PUB/1_3_1_hagedorn.html
The Code Civil of 1998 providesthat a person acquires automatically French citizenship, if he fulfills the following:
§ 22-7 Code Civil of 1998:
Automatic Acquisition of Citizenship for Second Generation Migrants
·born in France and
·resided in France for at least five years (continuously or discontinuously between the ages of 11 and 18).
·The young migrant has the right to refuse the automatic acquisition of French citizenship 6 months before or 12 months after his eighteenth birthday
(though they don't mention that millions of German men were sort of 'disappeared' about 17 years earlier, which might help explain the worker shortage)- -
But there was no holocaust..
"One interesting point is that Germany is now turning to Polish and Lithuanian workers rather than Turks and Arabs - in other words, fellow Europeans."
Yep. Germany now has the highest levels of European immigration of any country in the world, plus the German government is providing all kinds of incentives for European-descended (particularly Germanic) people in North and South America to learn some German and immigrate to Germany. In some German cities you'll find whole neighborhoods populated with Czechs, Russians, Greeks, Slovaks and Hungarians, even a good number of Irish and British enclaves here and there.
France finally seems to have caught onto this as well, shutting down the spigot from North Africa (and deporting Arabs at a fast clip) while inviting in millions from places like Romania and Bulgaria. Even the Netherlands is going in this direction.
Seems that only the UK really, among European countries, seems intent on filling itself up with people from Africa, Jamaica and South Asia. They're following the US model of effectively turning the nation's founding population into a minority in its own land. When I was in Continental Europe, I met literally dozens of Britons who had permanently emigrated from their homeland, settling in places like Italy or Germany (come to think of it, met quite a few Aussies and Americans too). People can sense when a ship's captains have stupidly blown a hole in the hull, and they'll jump into the lifeboats as soon as they can to reach land.
(though they don't mention that millions of German men were sort of 'disappeared' about 17 years earlier, which might help explain the worker shortage)- -
But there was no holocaust..
Don't quit your day job to take up the life of an absurdist comedian.
Right, I was talking about the ~10 - 20 million Germans killed in the war - there never were that many Jews in Germany. The millions of Jews killed came from Eastern Europe mostly - and of course the work done by exterminated German Jews oculd not have been replaced by Turks.
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