NICK CORNISH for TIME ENTRY POINT Clothes lie discarded on a beach near Otranto after asylum seekers have swum ashore

Posted Sunday, June 16, 2002; 11:45 a.m. BST
No wonder. The only electoral politics that matter are in the nation states. But while political survival is a compelling prod to action, national leaders should not be led astray by immigration myths. They would do well, in fact, to counter some of the following misconceptions:

EUROPE IS BEING OVERRUN BY ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS
Not really. The typical illegal is, in fact, already here, having overstayed his or her visa or failed to leave after an asylum request was denied. The extent of the new flow of illegals is hard to measure, but most experts believe it is considerably smaller than the flow of family members coming to join relatives; in most European countries, they make up more than half of all legal immigration. What changes is the capacity of the European economy to absorb those migrants and — closely related to that — the psychological state of resident populations. Though the E.U. economy is hardly in dire straits, many Europeans feel the squeeze put on the welfare state, the fear of unemployment and the uncertainty of the post-Sept. 11 world — and see immigrants as convenient scapegoats.

IMMIGRATION INCREASES UNEMPLOYMENT
In most E.U. countries, the rate of unemployment among immigrants is much higher than that among the native workforce. And there is no direct correlation between a country's unemployment rate and the number of immigrants it hosts. Moreover, most foreigners in the E.U. are working, often at jobs that wouldn't otherwise be filled. Dick Schoof, head of the Dutch Immigration and Naturalization Service, has acknowledged that his country's signature floriculture industry — including the flower that has become something of a national symbol, the tulip, a Turkish import — would collapse without foreign labor. Steel mills, restaurant kitchens and the spanking clean homes of the European bourgeoisie all depend on foreign workers. The need for skilled labor from outside Europe is no less acute. The main association of European employers, unice, comments that "restrictive common criteria are not the way forward in a context where E.U. member states compete on a global scale to attract highly skilled personnel." Europe's dilemma, says migration expert Han Entzinger of Erasmus University in Rotterdam, is that "markets need migrants, but the people don't want them."

BORDERS CAN BE SEALED AGAINST ILLEGALS
The U.S. has found it impossible to seal off one southern land border; it is a much tougher proposition for a poorly coordinated E.U. that has external land borders with 11 countries, not to mention the Mediterranean Sea. "Governments need to realize that more border controls and tougher visa requirements can have the perverse consequence of encouraging illegal immigration," says Nicola Rogers, an immigration lawyer in London. "If you cut off legal means, people just turn to smugglers." The O.E.C.D.'s Garson agrees about the ineffectiveness of efforts to head off illegal flows, but thinks they should be strengthened anyway. "Efforts to stop illegal migrants may be the only way governments have of selling the need to let in the ones we need for employment," he says.

EUROPE IS FULL
Compared to what? The idea that there is no room left for newcomers became a clarion call for Pim Fortuyn in the Netherlands. But that country's most densely populated region, the urban agglomeration that stretches from Amsterdam to Rotterdam, is less densely settled than southeastern England or Germany's Ruhr Valley, where politicans have yet to get much traction from the "Enough is enough" slogan. Currently, the E.U. takes in about 5% of the world's refugee population, according to the UNHCR. "What we're dealing with now are the consequences not of today's immigrants, but the children of the people we took in the 1960s and 1970s," says Garson. "These children had better opportunities for education than their parents and grandparents, yet paradoxically they can't find jobs." That suggests that Europe's bigger challenge is integrating its existing minorities, even if politicians prefer to concentrate on the more dramatic business of stopping new ones from coming in.

Every individual's story is different, but in the accompanying vignettes we chronicle some of the way stations along an immigrant's path that highlight the risks and the promises of that journey.

1 | 2

Get the Magazine — Try 4 Issues Free!

Commission for Racial Equality The latest statistics and thinking on integration world-immigration.com A site offering news and information on immigration issues UK Immigration Law Tthe Institute of Advanced Legal Studies and University of Bristol Law Library The Committee to Defend Asylum Seekers Website devoted to action in support of refugees and asylum-seekers

	TIMEeurope.com Tropical Trouble A violent battle over Madagascar's Presidency shows how hard it can be to displace Africa's political dinosaurs RELIGION Miracle Man Of the 462 saints canonized by Pope John Paul II, Padre Pio is the clear favorite of the millions who visit San Giovanni Rotondo EXHIBITIONS Secret Gardens France's 11th annual International Garden Festival gets earthy PROFILE Beyond Superbrat John McEnroe turns a critical eye on himself