The recent recession was blamed for various impacts on the American society. It had a tremendous impact on policies and budget cuts. Therefore, it is not surprising to connect the recession to one of the most influential processes in the American society building, meaning the process of migration. The main task of this paper is to find how the recession affected immigration process in the United States. The answer would be that recession had not decreased the immigration flow as much as it was expected and it resulted in more negative consequences rather than positive ones.
Key words: illegal immigration, recession, tolerance, public policy, Mexican border.
The Recession and Public Tolerance to Immigrants
The recent economic crisis and further recession had various impacts on the national and global societies. The recession was blamed for increase in social tensions, racial intolerance and even cultural changes in the American society. It had a tremendous impact on policies of various levels and budget shortages. Therefore, it is not surprising to connect the recession to one of the most important processes in the American state and society building, meaning the process of migration. The main task of this paper is to show how the recession affected immigration process in the United States. The central thesis of this paper is that recession had not decreased the immigration flow as much as it was expected and it resulted in certain negative consequences.
First of all, according to the general economic model, described by Chris Tilly, the main impact of the recession on the immigration in the USA was supposed to be a decline (Tilly 2011). In this context, he meant that the migration was triggered by economic interests, meaning the movement of people from the poorer third-world countries to the wealthier countries of the West. Since economic immigrants target wealthy countries in order to gain profit which they cannot earn in home countries, the economic recession and subsequent decline in the number of jobs available was supposed to decrease the number of those immigrants (Hero 2010). Although the number of illegal migrants in the USA had fallen from 12 million in 2007 to 11.1 million in 2009, “the Mexico-USA flow alone account for 11.6 million out of total bilateral migration stock of 30 million in 2010” (Tilly 2011, p. 676).
Although in various countries no substantial connection between recession and intolerant attitude to immigrants was found, the immigrants’ history and ethno-cultural diversity of the American society proved to result in unemployment differences in respect to racial and immigrant statuses. Tilly argued that “unemployment also varies among natives by race and ethnicity, so that US-born Latinos and US-born non-whites fared worse than their foreign-born counterparts” (2011, p. 685). Thus, the flow of new migration to the country contributes only to the increase of interracial intolerance on the basis of competition for the employment positions. The best example of this was described by Rodney Hero in his comparison of different ethno-racial group in USA. The fact that in the urban areas Latinos and Afro-Americans usually lives close to each other due to the socio-economic status, the tension between two groups is usually much more severe than between any of these groups and the white population of the country (Hero 2010, p. 450).
Thus, the constant flow of immigrants from Mexico contributes to the increase of tensions between those categories of society and subsequent need of resources and new policies for the improvement of situation. In this context, recession resulted in differentiation of the society, disruption of its fragile balance of tolerance and acceptance and triggered public claim for the building of the wall between two states. Overall, the recession contributed to marginalization of certain groups of illegal immigrants in the American society and subsequent need for the extreme measures targeting at stabilization of tolerance and national well-being in the American society.
References
Hero, E. Rodney. (2010). Immigration and Social Policy in the United States. The Annual
Review of Political Science, 13, 445-468.
Tilly, Chris. (2011). The Impact of The Economic Crisis on International Migration: A
Review. Work Employment Society, 25 (4), 675-692.
