When You Take Away the Benefits

Australia was a venue for migrants.  People left South East Asia for Australia.  Thousands of people boarded shaky ships and set sail for Australia.

When these migrants learned they would be shipped to New Guinea or to Nairu, they thought twice about leaving their home countries.

Sure, if they were running for their lives they will be happy for safety, no matter where it is.  Just to know that they won’t be killed is enough.  They don’t need three course meals, designer clothing, they need to survive.  So those who would still leave South East Asia for Australia would not be devastated when they found themselves in New Guinea or Nairu.

But if they were running for a big job, for a car, for all sorts of benefits, they will be very upset.  For it wasn’t that they were in fear for their lives, they were following the money.

For example, during a hurricane some people ran into an outside toilet for safety.   They didn’t want to be in an outside toilet, sure, but they were running for their lives, and went into that toilet to survive.

If they had been running to get out of the rain, they would continue to a bar or restaurant or some fancy house with a veranda.  But they ran into the first safe place which was a small concrete outside toilet.   Not ideal, but safe.

The difference between running for your life and running is obvious.

If hotels were marked as ‘shelters’ then everyone would travel dozens of miles to reach that shelter.  As the shelters are often empty rooms in schools or other buildings, people only go to the shelter when they have no choice.

Hotels are no shelters.  If you book a room, you get the shelter.  If you think you can sit in the lobby, think again.

When one runs to another country if the benefits of that country are removed, the desirability is also removed.

Everyone leaving North Africa and the Middle East want to go to Europe for the benefits.  They don’t want to go to Turkmenistan, they don’t want to stay in Turkey.   They don’t want to go where they won’t get first rate health care, better housing, and a job.

If the benefits were removed,  migration would be limited.

Years ago, when Muammar Gaddafi was in power, most migrants which reached Libya, went no further.  They would be accommodated there.   With the end of Gaddafi there is no sense in trying to stay in Libya where they would suffer.   So they go across the Mediterranean with their eyes on Germany.

The same is true in the United States.

If there were no jobs there would be no migrants.  It is as simple as that.  But there are jobs.  There are millions of jobs.   They are ‘off the books’ jobs which are paid for in cash.   The employer doesn’t pay any taxes for these workers for they don’t officially exist.

An American would be on the books, have to get paid vacations and holidays, and have limited hours before overtime, and if they were hurt on the job, they would get compensation.

A Mexican is off the books.  He is only paid when he is there, working.  He has no limited hours.  If he is hurt on the job, he bears the loss.

The Employer can declare forty employees, but have one hundred.  It is cheaper to have those extra sixty getting less pay than what the Employer would have to pay in overtime for ten workers.

Many jobs do not have many takers.  Way back in the 1950s there was a grabbing up of Jamaicans to go to England to fill blue collar positions.   There was a ‘man power’ shortage.   Bus Drivers were largely Jamaica.  Maids, were largely Jamaican.   Nurses Aides were Jamaican.

This is because there were not enough people to take the jobs, so bringing in people from the ‘colonies’ was how to fill the jobs.

In America there was a shortage of maids, of nurses aides as well. Bringing people in from the Caribbean was how to fill those jobs.   Thousands of people in America today were born in the Caribbean came up as maids, and stayed in America for the rest of their lives, marrying, having children.

Even today, there are people being recruited for skilled jobs where there seems to be a shortage.  Often in the computer industry, for example, techies from all over the world are virtually head hunted and given good positions in American based companies.

If the jobs dried up, so would immigration.

The focus should be on drying up the jobs.  Making sure nationals were not unemployed and homeless and living on the street, when there are jobs available.

What has happened in America, especially, is the focus on moving factories abroad where the locals can be paid pennies and of hiring undocumented aliens to fill jobs in America so that salaries can be kept down.

Yes, After the World Wars there was a serious man power shortage.  So many people had been killed, so much work was needed to get the country on its feet, that bringing in thousands of people from abroad was necessary. But today?

If there was not a single American who was homeless or unemployed, then one can make the argument that alien labour is required.   But with so many unemployed and homeless Americans, the argument falls flat.

If there were no jobs, the only migrants would be refugees, running for their lives, not running for the money.