Open borders and international migration policy : the effects of unrestricted immigration in the ... united states, france, and ireland

Joel Fetzer's book is the result of a dare put forward at a symposium about his ability to demonstrate, in contexts as diverse as Dublin, Marseille, and Miami, the positive and negative impacts of open borders on the host society. The work is highly topical: Europe has experienced flows of asylum seekers on a scale not seen in the past 30 years; thousands of migrants are dying in the Mediterranean trying to reach this continent; the smuggling industry benefits economically from immigration restrictions; and camps are formed at the migration bottlenecks of Calais, Ceuta, and Melilla and at the Greco-Turkish border. Considerable sums of money are spent by the countries of immigration to counter such flows. The negative effects of closed borders thus do not need to be demonstrated. But what are the effects of opening the borders on the social environment? This is the question that Joel Fetzer's book addresses with originality, focusing on cases of so-called uncontrolled immigration. An expert on access to social citizenship, he covers the labor market, public finances, housing, schools, crime, and racial violence in turn and shows that there is no single answer to all of these questions; everything depends on the context, and the negative social effects of uncontrolled immigration in Marseille or Dublin may become positive in Miami or vice versa depending on the issues discussed. This is the only rational response to costbenefit analyses of migration, which often deal with the topic without addressing the diversity of contexts in which they are used. The result of an initial challenge from a colleague, this book thus presents us with a great substantive challenge. "Although political philosophers debate the morality of open borders, few social scientists have explored what would happen if immigration were no longer limited. This book looks at three historical examples of temporarily unrestricted migration into the United States, France, and Ireland: the arrival of Mariel Cubans in Miami (Florida) in 1980, the flight of Pied Noir and Harki refugees from Algeria to Marseille in 1962, and the migration of Poles and other new European Union 'Accession 8' citizens into Dublin in 2004. Based on personal interviews, archival research, and statistical analysis, the study finds that the effects of these population movements on the economics, politics, and social life of these cities were much less catastrophic than opponents of free immigration claim. Detailed chapters cover schools, crime, ethnic politics, unemployment and wages, public finances, housing, and racial violence"-- Provided by publisher Front Matter....Pages i-xiv Theories of Open Borders....Pages 1-19 The Effect of Unrestricted Immigration on Labor Markets....Pages 20-34 The Effect of Unrestricted Immigration on Public Finances....Pages 35-49 The Effects of Unrestricted Immigration on the Housing Market....Pages 50-65 The Effect of Unrestricted Immigration on Schools....Pages 66-81 The Effect of Unrestricted Immigration on Crime....Pages 82-99 The Effect of Unrestricted Immigration on Ethnic Voting and Racial Violence....Pages 100-116 How Harmful Is Unrestricted Immigration?....Pages 117-122 Back Matter....Pages 123-156