The So-called Traffickers, Again

EU Commissioner for Migration, Dimitris Avramopoulos, has referred to the smugglers of people, topical in Italy during the past week or so, as "employing new methods in order to exploit desperate people" (BBC article). I don't know this fellow, but I am willing to bet the much-maligned "traffickers" have done far more for truly desperate people than Mr Avramopoulos is likely to ever do.

 

Remarkable statement? Not at all. Apply some economic thinking and it will be clear that Avramopoulos is quite the troublemaker compared to the smugglers. According to the same BBC article, Avramopoulos has called for "decisive and co-ordinated EU-wide action" against his moral betters. But if they face greater risks when doing what they do, they must charge a higher price from the refugees or their business is no longer profitable (according to the same BBC article again, the Italian Police calculate that the smugglers "made $3 million from the recent 359 illegal immigrants", but that is counting only revenues and not expenses and risk and the statement is probably made with a view to whip up opinion against the smugglers).

 

Has Mr Avramopoulos ever brought individuals fleeing war into comparative safety? If he has, the number saved will probably fade in comparison to just one ship full of refugees, and there are of course many ships. Made Avramopoulos objects to the high fares charged, but then he should advocate indecisive, rather than decisive, and uncoordinated, rather than co-ordinated, action so as to reduce the risks faced by the smugglers. The smugglers will still want to make a profit, but competition will force down the price they charge, just like no-one pays hundreds of dollars for a loaf of bread though any baker would want that kind of payment.

 

Maybe Mr Avramopoulos objects to the rough circumstances the immigrants face during their journey to the EU? But if he does, then he should advocate the same things as are listed above. Then smugglers are likelier to compete on comfort as well as on price. Compare again to other market situations, where one pays less for flying "no-frills" airlines, more for first-class train tickets, etc.

 

What does Mr Avramopoulos imagine is the best alternative for these illegal immigrants? Where are the shipping companies, airlines, buses, trains, etc., that take them to Europe for less money and with more comfort? If I were in the immigrants' position, I would probably wish to be "exploited" by the smugglers, too. And Mr Avramopoulos would condemn my saviours.

These things are not hard to figure out. So, unless Mr Avramopoulos be either ignorant or just plain stupid, what he really objects to is immigrants. I wish he would just say so, but I don't expect him to, because that would leave the door open for accusations of xenophobia and a lack of compassion with the unfortunate people who flee war-torn countries, characteristics which are true mainly of Bad Men.

The Migrants in the Port of Gallipoli

The news recently has contained reports from two distressed ships in the Adriatic and Ionian Seas. The burning one, and the one containing refugees, illegal immigrants, that was tugged to the port of Gallipoli in Southern Italy early on New Year's Eve (Newsweek's report). Apparently, smugglers of people often abandon ship if they fear an inspection by the authorities will cause them to be found out.

 

I would imagine that events such as these cause other "human traffickers" to be reminded of the risks involved in their trade and therefore to think twice before trying to carry more immigrants to Europe (or anywhere), and that is too bad. The people being smuggled evidently desire to come to Europe. The smugglers, at a price, are willing to take the legal risk to get them there. The evidence as far as I can judge suggests that the people of the recipient countries are mostly better off by the influx of others. What stands in the way for immigrants is typically nothing more than some silly legislation.

 

The reports from this particular incident mention a spokesman for the Italian Coastguard saying that a "disaster" was averted as the abandoned cargo ship could be safely tugged into port. While I am not clear on exactly why the ship was abandoned, it would seem that, in similar episodes, disaster could also be averted if the authorities simply stopped inspecting cargo ships in the first place. Then the people smugglers would lack one reason to abandon ship and smuggling would be safer. This would cause the prices which illegal immigrants have to pay to fall, and more people to get what they want.

 

The Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial in Jerusalem intends to list the many individuals who helped the Jews escape the terrible fate which the Nazis wanted for them. The so-called "human traffickers" who carry illegal immigrants to better places are not in general nearly as righteous as the ones listed in Jerusalem; they resist legislation preventing free movement of people rather than the outright killing or enslavement of them, and their motives are pecuniary (morally neutral) rather than humanitarian, but in terms of what their actions ultimately accomplish they deserve far more honour than do the ones wishing to put a stop to their trade and prevent people from peacefully crossing borders.

No news report I have seen mentions what will happen to the individuals whose risky journey to Europe is now at an end, though I guess it will be some kind of lengthy internment at first, followed by the granting of asylum at best or deportation at worst. I hope they can somehow have a better new year than that.

Do Immigrants Import Bad Institutions?

One of the best arguments against laxer or no immigration restrictions is that third-world institutions may rub off their flavour on first-world policies. For instance, a person may be interested in how the presence of more immigrants as a share of a state's population impacts that state's general level of "freedom", such as defined by researchers William P. Ruger and Jason Sorens in their "Freedom in the 50 States" project. From their website and from the Migration Policy Institute, I collected data to make a small graph depicting the percentage-point change in immigrants' share of each state's population between 2000 and 2012, and the same state's change in the freedom index between 2001 and 2011 (the years do not match exactly due to limited data availability).

Before proceeding, I should point out that, while data on freedom may not be of much concern to everyone, they should help inform the present case, since changes will reflect what has happened to policy in general. Thus, if nothing jumps out from the data, immigration might not impact policy much. So, without further ado, this is what I found (click to enlarge):

 

 

In case the quality is too poor for the graph to be informative, there is a slight tendency for states which have declined in terms of freedom to have had an increase in immigrants' share of total population. But this tendency is slight indeed; Nevada, New Jersey and Maryland are the three points farthest to the right which have seen declines in freedom. Remove them and no trend is visible at all. However, these states also happen to be the ones which have had the greatest increase in immigrants as a share of their populations, so one should not speak with too great certainty.

 

One might suspect that the origin of the increased share of foreign-borns matters. In Maryland, persons born in Latin America were 40.1 per cent of all foreign-borns in 2012, up from 34 per cent in 2000. The corresponding numbers for Europeans and Asians are 10.5 and 16.8, and 32.5 and 35, respectively (i.e. decreases for both groups). African-born individuals were the only major group to join the Latin Americans among those increasing their shares, being 15.4 per cent in 2012 and 12.1 in 2000. Perhaps there is something fishy about Latin American and African institutions?

However, the share of Latin American-borns in Nevada declined over the same twelve-year period (from 61.4 to 58.2), and Africans' share increased only a little bit (from 1.6 to 2.3). Asian-borns were the big relative gainers, up from 22.9 to 29.1 per cent. New Jersey, the third state to have had much immigration and a sizable decline in freedom, offers further heterogeneity; its biggest changes were a decline in the Europeans' share from 23.9 to 15.9 per cent, and an increase in the Asians' share from 27.8 to 32.1 per cent. The other groups did not change much. More detailed data are available here.

 

Which leads me to conclude that,  in the main, the thing that is really conspicuous about my graph is that nothing stands out. Now I would be a fool to make any grandiose claims based on this unsophisticated little exercise, but it is some evidence that immigrants' impact is not too great. Increases in shares of the population by several percentage points over just twelve years are not associated with any general changes in Ruger and Sorens' Freedom Index, so maybe fears of imported third-world institutions are overblown?

Why Should Illegal Immigration Be A Problem?

Law Professor Ilya Somin recently discussed perceptions of legislation and associated possibilities to justify illegal immigration. Bascially, irrespective of whether there is a strong, weak or a non-existant presumption in favour of obeying legislation, the squalor of the world's poor makes their violating immigration restrictions easily justifiable. Anyone who reads Somin's argument would, I believe, find it very difficult to argue against illegal immigration simply because it is illegal.

 

I don't know, but I suspect that much opposition to immigration is not based on its illegality. I also suspect that part of the unspoken case against immigration from poor countries is the fact that, at least in the short run, the number of poor people in the vicinity of current citizens would go up, and many current citizens do not like to look at poor folks. Perhaps this objection is sometimes rephrased as a fear of losing national identity, or culture.

If part of the case against immigration is unspoken, one would expect the arguments which are used to be rather insincere. If so, they should be easier to beat, but beating them will not necessarily do anything to address the true reason for opposition to immigration. If, for instance, one argues the risk of losing culture or identity, the easy response is that an individual can choose any identity or culture he wants, and that it might be a bit much to demand to control the national origin of one's neighbours.

If someone offers as an argument against illegal immigration the idea that they would get on welfare programmes, the easy retort to the stated argument would be that one could make welfare benefits conditional on citizenship, or on having lived in the country for at least five years, or something like that.

But if the unstated argument really is that it is unpleasant to look at poor people, pointing out that one can choose one's culture or restricting eligibility for welfare payments will accomplish very little in the case for open borders.