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Can we use local solutions for global problems?

Last week I read an interesting article about how, due to the economic crisis, there is a debate about implementing new immigration laws. Those laws, however, will not benefit immigrants.

The article used statistics and interviews with public officials and with experts to explain how, due to the arrival in mass of undocumented workers, native-born workers have trouble finding jobs in this economy. For that reason, a proposal by the government is to increase sanctions for undocumented workers, to deter other undocumented immigrants to enter the country.

According to this article, there are two main proposals now being debated. One proposal asks for up to 60 days of detention prior to deportation for undocumented workers guilty of using fake IDs to get a job. The second one would limit or cancel family reunification benefits for those workers.

This is a story that could have happened in Utah, where a new immigration enforcement package will go into effect on July 1, 2009. Or it could have been a story about the federal Court of Appeals of the Eight District, based in St. Louis, Missouri, that recently said local authorities (cities and counties) can impose sanctions for employers who hire undocumented immigrants.

Alternatively, the article could have been about Nebraska, where the local legislature recently approved new immigration laws, or about Colorado, where the immigration package went into effect between August 2006 and January 2007.

The story, however, had nothing to do with any of those states or with any other state, because it had nothing to do with the United States. It was a story about how the arrival of undocumented African immigrants is impacting Spain and how the government of Spain plans to deal with the situation.

The fact is Spain and France have problems due to the arrival of African immigrants. Germany faces a similar situation with Turkish immigrants; Italy, with Romanians and Albanians; Mexico, with people from Central America; Argentina, with people from neighboring countries; and the United States, with Latin American immigrants.

This fact reveals how complex is the global movement of people and how little we and our governments understand about this issue.

The massive movement of people looking for a better life is nothing new. It has happened many times since ancient times and neither walls nor armies or laws were able to properly control the movement of people.

Now that our world has become globalized and technologically interconnected, and now that the international movement of goods and services has reached unprecedented levels, it should be obvious the movement of people due to economic, religious, social, and political reasons will also reach unprecedented levels.

It is not reasonable therefore to think that local “solutions” implemented by a city, by a state, or even by the federal government will solve the immigration problem, because immigration is a global problem.

Perhaps it’s time to think globally and to share the responsibility of finding solutions for the immigration issue, as governments now do regarding other challenging global issues.

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