Netflix sent me a DVD this weekend that unexpectedly illustrated some of the immigration policies that may form part of our discussions this session. “Paper Dolls” is a documentary that chronicles the lives of a performing group of trans-gendered Philippine men working as home health aides in Israel.
As acts of violence and terrorism escalated during the Second Intifada, Israel closed its borders and deported many of its Palestinian workers, thus creating the need for replacement workers to be brought in from abroad. These relaxed immigration policies attracted many Philippine healthcare workers, including the members of the Paper Dolls. Most of the documentary subjects had not been open about their trans-sexuality in the Philippines but found a higher degree of freedom under Israeli law and societal norms, even as they navigated discrimination in the Orthodox suburbs where many of their patients lived.
However, the work permits received by these immigrants soon proved highly restrictive. Losing one’s job as an elderly caretaker with a family brought about the immediate invalidation of a work permit, creating an underclass of newly undocumented foreigners living in fear of aggressive immigration raids. According to the documentary subjects, there was little hope in Israel of an immigrant working hard and eventually obtaining citizenship, apart from marriage and conversion to Judaism.
The situation of the Philippine workers also provides an interesting contrast to the former-Soviet and the Ethiopian immigrants who arrived in Israel as part of the aliyah policies that were intended to grant Israeli citizenship to Jews around the world. It also illustrates the high rates of emigration of Philippine nationals around the world, where they often encounter difficult conditions and discrimination. Remittances from these emigrants now form a substantial part of the Philippine economy.
The topics raise complicated questions about managing workforce, immigration and integration issues when formulating policy:
How can a country with limited population growth meet its workforce demands? What opportunities for true integration and citizenship should exist for "guest workers"? What responsibility does the host country have towards immigrants when the jobs disappear? How much do emigrant home countries depend on remittances from its citizens abroad?
John Hunt
NB: hyperlinks are underlined above for clicking.
John
ReplyDeleteAn interesting post about immigration that does indeed touch on many of the issues we spoke and about on Saturday, and will speak about more on Day 4 when we look at comparative immigration policy. Israel is an excellent example of a country that bases immigration and citizenship laws on ius (or jus) sanguinis, “the right of blood”, i.e if you have the correct blood in you (or in this case religion) you can have the right of immigration/citizenship. Germany is another country that has practiced ius sanguinis, which is why until a few years ago the descendants of German emigrants could become German citizens if they wanted to move back to Germany, but Turkish workers in German and their children, who may have lived there for 30 years, remained “guest workers” without citizenship rights. This has now been changed in Germany for exactly the reason you discuss. You can’t expect “integration” from people who have no rights/ Ius sanguinis is contrasted with ius solis. I’ll go into more details on Day 4.
John Casey
Japan, which also restricts immigration and only allows guest workers whose parents or grandparents emigrated from Japan, recently instituted a plan to offer to pay Latin American guest workers (known as Nikkei Brazilians) who entered through this restrictive program to go home -- but they must promise to never seek to work in Japan again.
ReplyDeletehttp://www..nytimes.com/2009/04/23/business/global/23immigrant.html
Not everyone in Japan is in favor of the new policy, Hidenori Sakanaka, the director of Japan’s Immigration Policy Institute calls the policy disgraceful and believes Japan is “kicking itself in the foot,” because it won’t always be in a recession and may need these people or others again in the future.
Prosperous corners of Italy, such as Treviso, are grappling with many of the same issues.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/36873424-11de-8a33-0000779fd2ac.html
“Lion’s Roar Echoes in Immigration Debates” highlights the problems recession is causing for the citizens and guest workers of Treviso. Local politicians have equated people with commodities and stated “Immigrants are a resource. As long as we need them for labour, we will request them…. Now we are entering a period of crisis and redundancies are possible. Without work they must go home to their countries.”
The Bush administration attempted to pass immigration reforms in the US in 2007, but failed due to controversy over amnesty issues for current illegal aliens in the country. President Obama has stated he will address the issue in his first year, but to date nothing has been done. In 2008, 350,000 illegal aliens were deported from the US.
http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/i/immigration_and_refugees/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier
Carol Starmack
Ireland, a country more used to advocating on the rights of its emigrants abroad than in dealing with record number of immigrants to its own shores, was recently forced to change its ius solis laws:
ReplyDeleteFirst, a Supreme Court judgment in January 2003 removed the automatic right to permanent residence for non-national parents of Irish-born children. This ruling followed a rapidly increasing number of applications for asylum, some of which were thought to be unfounded and in abuse of Ireland's asylum system and citizenship laws. More recently, the government proposed a national "citizenship referendum" to eliminate an Irish-born child's automatic right to citizenship when the parents are not Irish nationals. The public overwhelmingly passed this referendum in June 2004.
http://www.migrationinformation.org/Profiles/display.cfm?ID=260
John
Immigration is basically a cool thing --- variety adds to who we are.
ReplyDelete