Who Belongs and Why

Contemporary migration flows from poorer to wealthier nations have sparked many reactions, as David Stoll observes. Indeed, in major receiving countries around the world, immigration issues are some of the most heated topics that many politicians or others mindful about their public persona try to evade. And Stoll’s reflections go right to the center of these discussions, taking up the larger question of who belongs in a society and why. This is a difficult question that policy makers and academics of all stripes ponder, discuss, debate, but do not settle because there is no single or simple answer that can fit all cases. Each migration flow has its own history, its own moment, and dynamics and, on the other hand, each receiving society has its own views and policies of inclusion, history of migration, and overall context of reception. Thus, a migratory flow from country A to country B at a particular historical point elicits a set of policy responses that differ from those that come up in dealing with migration from country C to country B, and yet a different set of policies await people who migrate from country A to country D. Although a comprehensive immigration policy would be based on a common denominator that can cover multiple scenarios, for the purpose of this discussion I will only deal with one case. Thus, rather than responding at a general level to Stoll’s opinions, I will use the same example he used, Guatemalan migration to the United States, to outline a concrete response. Stoll links two interesting questions—a receiving state’s moral obligation and views about citizenship and inclusion/ exclusion. Before I address these, I would like to note two points that make it difficult at times to follow Stoll’s logic. He starts out from the presumption that individuals migrate from a country that has no other links to the receiving country than the actual migration and, he reasons, “hundreds of millions of people around the world” dream of migrating to the United States in search of the same lifestyle. This treatment generates an image that looks a bit chaotic and blurs significant aspects about how migrations are patterned and organized. I will explain. Stoll uses the metaphor of a conversation between potential migrants and U.S. citizens; migration represents one chapter of this long conversation between North Americans and Guatemalans. However, left out of this image about this long historical conversation are critical aspects of the relationship between Guatemala and the United States that have profoundly shaped the U.S.-bound migration flows from Guatemala. Guatemalans’ motivations for migration and for wishing to migrate to the United States are not independent of the deeply unequal relations between the two countries. Yes, there is agency at play here as individuals make these decisions to migrate, but these are shaped by broader forces. Contemporary migration flows from Guatemala (as well as from many other countries, particularly in that region) have roots in political events and economic transformations that have occurred within the context of the Cold War or its aftermath. As we know from the scholarship on international migration, contemporary migration flows are directed to the centers of power of their respective regions. Thus, the migration flows we see from the Caribbean to Britain or from the Maghreb to France are not random or mere coincidences. As it has been observed in other contexts, the emergence of regular migratory flows requires the prior penetration of the strong state’s institutions into those of the weaker one such that migration flows around the world are patterned, and Soc (2009) 46:416–418 DOI 10.1007/s12115-009-9248-z