We live in a renewed age of mass immigration, most of which is from totalitarian nations and regions of underdevelopment, economic hardship, and political repression. This has happened before – specifically from 1840 to 1920, when the emigration was from Europe and Asia to the United States.
Waves of emigration are as old as humanity itself. However, emigration is distinct from a diaspora, when all or much of a group or tribe is forced from their homeland.
The most famous of these is the Jewish diaspora, which saw the Biblical Israelites leave their “promised land” to settle primarily in various parts of Europe and North Africa. But there have been a number of equally painful and more recent diasporas, including a group we now call “gypsies” from northern India who moved eastward through Europe. After a holocaust in Turkey, there was also a diaspora of Armenians, although they, like the Jews, have a new national homeland to return to.
Then there was the diaspora of the Rusyns (also known as the Carpatho-Rusyns, Ruthenians, or Lemko) who do not have a nation of their own. Their homeland was in and around the Carpathian Mountains of Eastern Europe, a region shared by several nations. The Rusyns were scattered among these nations and were continually a persecuted minority wherever they lived in the region, including Poland, Slovakia, Romania, Ukraine, and Russia. After several attempts to create a nation of their own were thwarted before and after World War I, a Rusyn diaspora occurred, mostly to the U.S.
Unlike these three diasporas, and others like them, impoverished or persecuted Irish, German, Italian, Polish, Russian, Scandinavian, and other European emigrants came to the U.S., Canada, and South America, but left behind large populations in their native countries.
With the European discovery of North and South America and the exploration of Africa and Asia, many English, Spanish, Portuguese, and Dutch colonial settlers also emigrated to the colonies of their respective nations. Some also effectuated the cruel and involuntary emigration of black slaves from Africa.
Still another kind of immigration has occurred when nations fighting abroad withdrew from the battlefields and provided sanctuary for native citizens who helped them and faced retribution. A prime example of this is the immigration of South Vietnamese advisors to the United States following the Vietnam War.
Today, many emigrants still seek to come to the United States, but a significant number are also relocating to Western Europe.
The earlier period of mass immigration coincided with the emergence of the Industrial Age, and the immigrants, many of whom were peasants and farmers, provided laborers for the U.S. to become the military and economic superpower at the end of the last century and the beginning of the present one.
Religious and ideological concerns, however, draw a contrast between the two periods. Early U.S. immigrants kept many of their religious and some of their cultural traditions, but most of them accepted and adapted to the American political and economic system. In the current wave of immigration, however, some immigrants are rejecting the U.S. system and values, creating hostility and tensions.
This is much more pronounced in Europe, where tensions have exploded into widespread backlash and violence.
This was dramatically illustrated in a series of recent national elections across the continent, culminating in the just-held local elections in Great Britain, where the two major political parties, the ruling Labour Party and opposition Conservative Party, each suffered stunning defeats by candidates primarily of the anti-immigration Reform Party and also candidates of smaller parties. Partly because of the immigration issue, the Conservative Party had recently lost power, and now the ruling Labor Party is in big trouble over the same crisis.
Similar voter reactions in France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Austria, and Scandinavia have upended local politics in these nations as well. Notably, the debate has not always fallen along traditional left vs. right political lines. In nations such as Denmark, leftist ruling parties that advocate for stricter immigration have been re-elected.
In contrast, the Trump administration has successfully sealed the United States’ southern border in a remarkably short period of time, and while deportation and other related issues remain unresolved, the public outcry against illegal immigration has been significantly reduced.
Immigration to Western democracies is necessary and positive when it is orderly and legal. Populations of most developed democracies are declining due to lower birth rates. Immigrant families not only boost population numbers, but they also usually have higher birth rates. Immigrants also provide a necessary workforce addition.
When immigrant groups quickly adapt and assimilate, they provide professional and cultural enhancement to their destination countries and societies.
A very modern phenomenon, however, has seen a number of immigrants who come either with criminal or terrorist backgrounds. In Europe, which is more culturally homogenous, many immigrants do not adapt to accept the traditions, laws, and values of their new home, but instead attempt to disrupt and overturn them.
While proponents of mass migration point to previous waves of emigration as justification for their positions, emigrations today have far more complex and differing motivations. The right of any nation to control its borders and welcome immigrants and refugees in an orderly way cannot be reduced or waived by abstract slogans, emotional responses, or arbitrary loss of national sovereignty. When the latter has occurred in the United States and in Europe, political tensions have risen sharply — and upended elected governments.
As so many recent national elections have demonstrated, balancing lawful immigration with protecting national unity and security is a powerful issue. Ignoring or minimizing it will not make it go away.
Herald Boas is a contributor to AMAC Newsline.
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