Open%20borders%20The%20case%20against%20immigration%20controls%20-%20Teresa%20Hayter

166 Open Borders
right are interviewed on television, it becomes even harder to understand
how such specimens can consider themselves to be of superior stock.
MIGRATION AND THE THIRD WORLD
A big question is whether or not migration is in the interest of the peoples of
the Third World. If it is beneficial, or at least not harmful, for the countries
that the migrants go to, it could be that it was damaging for the countries
they leave. This argument is sometimes used, either cynically or sincerely, by
the proponents of immigration controls. Usually it is a self-serving argument;
it is hardly likely that those who resort to it genuinely believe that the justification
for immigration controls, and all the suffering they impose on
individuals, is that they help the Third World. Quite apart from the question
of the enforced flight of some people for whom the alternative would be death,
imprisonment and torture, and the economic benefits to some of the
individuals who migrate, it is likely that migration leads to some redistribution,
however imperfect, of the world’s wealth in favour of the Third World.
One of the largest international flows of resources in the world today is
‘remittances’, or money saved by migrant workers and sent back to their
families. The amounts are difficult to estimate. The World Bank publishes
figures on remittances transmitted through official channels. These are
widely considered to be serious underestimates since remittances are often
made through unofficial channels, or made in kind, carried by migrants
when they return home, and not recorded in the statistics. In addition, the
fact that exchange rates are often undervalued in Third World countries
magnifies the purchasing power of the foreign exchange remitted. Nevertheless
even the official figures for remittances are higher than the figures
for foreign aid. The World Bank figure for remittances in 1998 was $52.8
billion. Its figure for foreign aid was $50 billion, of which only $23 billion
was actually grants to developing countries. The figures are roughly
equivalent to 1 per cent of the national income and 5 per cent of the exports
of all middle- and low-income countries.
Remittances are of course not evenly distributed. They are concentrated
precisely in the areas of high emigration, and therefore not necessarily in the
poorest countries and regions. But they have many advantages over other
forms of international financial transfers. They are not the result of any
‘charity’ from the rich countries, but are the product of the hard work of the
migrants themselves, who have come to recuperate some small part of the
wealth that has been stolen from them over centuries of imperialism. They
are without doubt preferable to aid from the World Bank, the International
Monetary Fund (IMF) and other official sources. Unlike bank loans and most
official aid, they do not have to be repaid. Although remittances are not a
secure form of income, nor are aid and foreign bank loans. And remittances
come without conditions. They are not tied to purchases of doubtfully useful