Immigration-Different Views

There are two very different debates on immigration taking place in Germany and the United States which might shed some light on the whole immigration issue.

Specifically I am referring to the Arizona Immigration Laws recently enacted and the removal of a Governor of the Bundesbank (the German Central Bank) for his comments on immigration.

Let's start with Arizona. It is strange that the big discussions about illegal immigration are taking place now after the overall illegal immigrant numbers as provided by Homeland Security are down around 10% over the last two years and there are estimates that the numbers of new illegal immigrants is down by almost 2/3rds over the same period.

Furthermore, the Homeland Security and DHS numbers for illegal immigrants in Arizona show that of the total in the US around 5.5% live in Arizona, and that they make up less than 1.75% of the Arizona population.

Granted there is extreme violence taking place in Mexico as the various Drug cartels battle it out for supremacy, and granted that a new area of profit for these cartels is human trafficking, it is still somewhat confusing that the discussion in Arizona has suddenly taken on a fever pitch. Or is it?

There is a mid-term election. The right wing press is full of stories of how the Obama Administration and the Democrats in general are focusing on the illegal immigrant communities. This "unwritten contract" is muted to be "you vote for us and we make you part of the entitlement society".

It's almost as if the Democrats were somehow in cahoots with the Mexican cartel to ensure that the demographics provide Democrat Governments into eternity.

Now to me this sounds ridiculously far-fetched, but as I said it is trumpeted in the right wing press almost daily. It appears to be making good electoral sense as well as it plays on fears of the unknown and frankly hints of discrimination if not outright racism.

Now it gets even more sordid however. There appears to be a close relationship between Governor Jan Brewer (R) of Arizona and a private prison company that stands to make significant profits incarcerating illegal immigrants "discovered" by the Arizona Police Force.

Chuck Coughlin is Brewer's campaign chairman, policy adviser and a lobbyist for the largest private prison company in the country. And he's one of two people in the Brewer administration with ties to Corrections Corporation of America which just happens to be a major contributor to her campaign.

Long story short, it would appear that the question of immigration in the US as it is being played out is primarily aimed at creating a populist message to discredit the current administration as part of a great "socialist" plot. It would also appear that there are some serious questions bordering on corruption at the highest levels of Arizona state politics.

Now turn our attention to the immigration scandal in Germany.

Thilo Sarrazin, former Finance Minister for the State if Berlin and currently a Board Member of the Bundesbank has written a book "Deutschland Schafft Sich Ab" which essentially translates into "Germany Self-Destructs". The premise of the book appears to be that the current demographic trends in Germany-rapidly declining birthrates of "native" Germans and rapidly expanding birthrates of immigrants, especially in the Turkish/Muslim communities in Germany is resulting in a "dumbing down" of Germany.

He posits that there is a cultural tendency in Islam not to promote integration in general and specifically is anti-educational, especially for women. He singles Islam out as promoting violence, dictatorship and terrorism, and blames a culture of "honor" as specifically promoting violence in young men, especially those who do poorly in school.

Now Mr Sarrazin claims that he has always been willing to address issues directly and that he has written this book to promote discussion and welcomes arguments which disprove his theories. I would perhaps accept this approach if it were not that he also writes that all Jew carry the same gene, as do Basques. Why he includes Basques is beyond me, but the more important point is that he thereby takes what was ostensibly a discussion of a culture clash and turns it into a racial identity debate.

Given the past history of such debates he disqualifies himself to me-and thereby in my opinion should be removed from his position at the Bundesbank.

But, and this is a difficult point for me, he has opened up a debate which currently takes place in private and has to be brought into the open.

How do countries integrate immigrant groups into their society at large? Is assimilation the goal, is it possible?

To me the debate in the U.S. seems to focus on illegal immigrants. I appreciate that this is a concern. But I am more interested in how we as a nation are dealing with the integration of our "legal" immigrants.

I am always taken aback when I first arrive in the U.S. how I am constantly presented with the choice to continue in English, or Spanish. One of the first tenets of integration in my mind was the requirement to learn the language of the country to which one had arrived.

This doesn't appear to be occurring in the U.S., and it is part of Mr Sarrazin's discusson, despite however distastefully wrapped.

Education, beginning with the need to learn the language of the "new" country has to be the primary objective of immigrant communities. If we fail in this basic endeavour, than I fear that all nations with immigrant communities could suffer divisive disruption in the future.