3071-The political economy of new slavery

Jeroen Doomernik 49
movement of people and offer better protection to the basic human
rights of those who are on the move.
If it is certain that investment in more severe restrictions in the
present asylum-based immigration system, and in more intensive border
controls, can only exacerbate the plight of many immigrants, it seems
sensible to investigate the benefits of taking the opposite route: the
liberalization of immigration regimes. A number of ways can be
discussed by which present regimes could be made more liberal but
it seems worthwhile to first of all look at the likely consequences of
completely discarding conventional immigration controls. The sole
external control would then be to register the purpose of a visit when
a person first entered the territory of a state whether the purpose stated
was simply to visit relatives, friends, do some sight-seeing, or even to
look for employment, no person should be kept from doing what they
desired and no conditions should be attached, provided this person
does not claim any benefits, arrives with health insurance and without
the intention to commit a crime. This person could then file a claim
for protection under the Geneva Convention, but that would hardly
be necessary as he/she will be safe from deportation under the nonrefoulement
clause that is part of the Convention. From this perspective
it would be taken for granted that an immigrant is willing and able to
provide for his or her own upkeep. Only where this is not the case, and
the Convention applies, would state responsibility come into view.
For welfare states such an approach implies a system of differentiated
citizenship, that is, not every person residing within their territories can
be granted equal access to society’s scarce resources, let alone claim
social security and/or unemployment benefits. Instead, an immigrant
should accumulate rights through the duration of his/her stay and the
volume of his/her contribution to society. This, obviously, can only
function where a system of internal controls (at the gates of the welfare
state) replaces those at the physical borders. 14 Not all states are able
(those without a central population register) or willing (for example, the
United States) to implement such controls.
Anyway, and as already mentioned earlier in this chapter, at present it
is not very likely that governments would be willing to completely open
up their borders to foreigners. Still, moving away from ever-increasing
restrictionism and in the direction of more permeable borders would
seem the only way out of the current ‘arms race’ between human
smugglers and receiving states. The advantages would be numerous.
For one, the amounts of funds spent on all sides could dramatically
decrease. The billions spent on border controls and the administrative