Page 192 - Contemporary Political Sociology Globalization Politics and Power

178 Citizenship

involve migrants from the developing world. In the US, it is over the
increase in illegal immigrants from Mexico that the alarm has been raised.
In fact, restrictions on entry by Mexicans into the US have never been
closely enforced and employers have long made use of low - skill, low -
wage, agricultural workers from south of the border. Indeed, until quite
recently undocumented migrants in the US were entitled to gain legal
residence if they could prove they had been in the country and of “ good
conduct, ” for several years (Sassen, 2006 : 295). However, due mainly to
worsening conditions in the Caribbean Basin, there has been an increase
in illegal immigration in this region since the 1970s. As a result there have
been increased restrictions on crossing the border into the US and new
limits on illegal migrants gaining legal residence. In Europe, illegal immi-
gration is seen as a problem especially in relation to opening up national
borders within the European Union. Unskilled manual labor has been
recruited to build up service industries in Spain, Italy, Portugal, and
Greece, until recently providers of migrant labor for elsewhere and now
the destination for illegal immigrants from North Africa. Other European
countries are concerned because they see the opening of national borders
as allowing the spread of illegal immigrants throughout the Union.
Numbers of asylum - seekers in Europe and North America have actually
dropped since the steep rise in the 1980s because of restrictive measures.
But, as Castles and Miller point out, much migration is simply unre-
corded, and, in general, it is likely to grow with inequalities of living
standards between the global North and South, and confl icts and wars

that mean people have to flee their homes. Furthermore, working against
the restrictions, there is the fact that international migration, like other
processes of globalization, is made easier with networks of digitalized
communication and transportation across borders (Castles and Miller,
2005 : 4 – 5).
As a result, all states have taken measures to discourage new forms of
migration. In the US, there have been attempts to control illegal immigra-
tion, by penalizing employers who knowingly hire unauthorized aliens
and by stricter policing of the border with Mexico. In Europe, immigra-
tion measures have been linked to the institutions of the European Union.
While to some extent travel across borders within the Union has been
made easier, increased resources have been made available for surveillance
of the external borders and the policing of migrants and asylum appli-
cants, including a computerized database of criminals and deported and
unwanted persons. There is also growing international cooperation
between the countries of Europe, North America, and Australasia to
facilitate harmonization of immigration policies and to combat illegal