Latest update April 7th, 2026 12:30 AM
Migration and the poverty paradox
DEAR EDITOR,
According to former US president Franklin D Roosevelt, “The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much, it is whether we provide enough for those who have little”.
The philosophy of raising everyone’s standard of living is what made the United States the most powerful country in the world because the vast majority of the world saw the US as the land of opportunity where a person can improve their standard of living and this attracted the world most gifted people in all fields of human endeavour.
This is no longer the case. The US has become insular exemplified by US president Donald Trump’s policies of America First and we are not concern about no one else. His administration has implemented tough and restrictive student and work visa policies and that one reason application and enrolment to US institutions declined in 2018 for the second year in a row.
The world has a vacuum because their is no country that want the poor or the huddled masses as is written on the statue of liberty “Give me your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free. The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me. I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
Immigration was important because the new nation needed immigrants to work in mines, harvest crops and to build infrastructure. Reality always has contradiction. As the statue of liberty was being erected in New York Harbour to celebrate the end of slavery and their 100th year of nationhood, Americans were demanding that the Chinese be barred from immigrating to the US and Congress eventually complied with the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act. There was always hostility towards immigrants but it is increasing.
The total undocumented population in the US is dropping from a high of 12.2 million in 2007 to 10.5 million in 2017, according Pew Research Centre. This is mainly due to more Mexican leaving than entering. Mexicans are no longer the majority of undocumented immigrants (47%). In 2017, about 4.4 million Caribbean immigrants resided in the US, which is 10% of the 44.5 million immigrants. Thousands of Guyanese reside in the US and if the environment get more hostile for immigrants many will return home.
The US ranks 34 among 50 wealthy countries with per capita GDP of over US$20,000 in net immigration. Demographic trends in the US point to a severe labour crunch. With dropping fertility rate of native born American, the number of working age American with domestic born parents is expected to fall by eight million from 2015 to 2035. The US Census Bureau in 2017 revised downward by 50 million, its population forecast for 2050.
Immigration to Europe is relatively small but Europe has moved from a continent of net emigration in 19th and first half of the 20th centuries to net immigration from the 1950s to present. Data release by International Organisation on Migration for the third quarter of 2017 recorded 146,287 total arrival to Europe.
China, a competing hegemon, is obsessively focused on its economic rise. Their President Xi Jinping said, “The Chinese people are a great people; they are industrious and brave, and they never pause in the pursuit of progress”. China does not want the poor or the huddled masses (poor immigrants).
No nation today recognize that it is usually the peasants or poor burning desire for progress that create great wealth as well as crime and mayhem. Poverty is a two edge sword it make many desire wealth by any means necessary.
This create good and evil. Necessity (needing or needy people) is the mother of invention. Immigrants are willing to take risk. Risk taking is important to progress. I am not advocating for any country to take in immigrants because that is a decision that should be made by consensus.
Yours truly,
Brian E Plummer
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