The Geopolitics of Immigration
The United States came into being through mass movements of
populations. The movements came in waves from all over the world and,
depending upon the historical moment, they served differing purposes,
but there were two constants. First, each wave served an indispensable
economic, political, military or social function.
The United States --
as a nation and regime -- would not have evolved as it did without them.
Second, each wave of immigrants was viewed ambiguously by those who
were already in-country. Depending upon the time or place, some saw the
new immigrants as an indispensable boon; others saw them as a
catastrophe. The debate currently under way in the United States is
probably the oldest in the United States: Are new immigrants a blessing
or catastrophe? So much for the obvious.
What is interesting about the discussion of immigration is the extent
to which it is dominated by confusion, particularly about the nature of
immigrants. When the term "immigrant" is used, it is frequently
intended to mean one of two things: Sometimes it means non-U.S. citizens
who have come to reside in the United States legally. Alternatively, it
can mean a socially or linguistically distinct group that lives in the
United States regardless of legal status. When you put these together in
their various permutations, the discourse on immigration can become
chaotic. It is necessary to simplify and clarify the concept of
"immigrant."
Initial U.S. immigration took two basic forms. There were the
voluntary migrants, ranging from the Europeans in the 17th century to
Asians today. There were the involuntary migrants -- primarily Africans
-- who were forced to come to the continent against their will. This is
one of the critical fault lines running through U.S. history. An
immigrant who came from China in 1995 has much more in common with the
Puritans who arrived in New England more than 300 years ago than either
has with the Africans. The former came by choice, seeking solutions to
their personal or political problems. The latter came by force, brought
here to solve the personal or political problems of others. This is one
fault line.
The second fault line is between those who came to the United States
and those to whom the United States came. The Native American tribes,
for example, were conquered and subjugated by the immigrants who came to
the United States before and after its founding. It should be noted
that this is a process that has taken place many times in human history.
Indeed, many Native American tribes that occupied the United States
prior to the foreign invasion had supplanted other tribes -- many of
which were obliterated in the process. Nevertheless, in a strictly
social sense, Native American tribes were militarily defeated and
subjugated, their legal status in the United States was sometimes
ambiguous and their social status was frequently that of outsiders. They
became immigrants because the occupants of the new United States moved
and dislocated them.
There was a second group of people in this class: Mexicans. A
substantial portion of the United States, running from California to
Texas, was conquered territory, taken from Mexico in the first half of
the 19th century. Mexico existed on terrain that Spain had seized from
the Aztecs, who conquered it from prior inhabitants. Again, this should
not be framed in moral terms. It should be framed in geopolitical terms.
When the United States conquered the southwest, the Mexican
population that continued to inhabit the region was not an immigrant
population, but a conquered one. As with the Native Americans, this was
less a case of them moving to the United States than the United States
moving to them.
The response of the Mexicans varied, as is always the case, and they
developed a complex identity. Over time, they accepted the political
dominance of the United States and became, for a host of reasons, U.S.
citizens. Many assimilated into the dominant culture. Others accepted
the legal status of U.S. citizens while maintaining a distinct cultural
identity. Still others accepted legal status while maintaining intense
cultural and economic relations across the border with Mexico. Others
continued to regard themselves primarily as Mexican.
The U.S.-Mexican border is in some fundamental ways arbitrary. The
line of demarcation defines political and military relationships, but
does not define economic or cultural relationships. The borderlands --
and they run hundreds of miles deep into the United States at some
points -- have extremely close cultural and economic links with Mexico.
Where there are economic links, there always are movements of
population. It is inherent.
The persistence of cross-border relations is inevitable in
borderlands that have been politically and militarily subjugated, but in
which the prior population has been neither annihilated nor expelled.
Where the group on the conquered side of the border is sufficiently
large, self-contained and self-aware, this condition can exist for
generations. A glance at the Balkans offers an extreme example. In the
case of the United States and its Mexican population, it also has
continued to exist.
This never has developed into a secessionist movement, for a number
of reasons. First, the preponderance of U.S. power when compared to
Mexico made this a meaningless goal. Second, the strength of the U.S.
economy compared to the Mexican economy did not make rejoining Mexico
attractive. Finally, the culture in the occupied territories evolved
over the past 150 years, yielding a complex culture that ranged from
wholly assimilated to complex hybrids to predominantly Mexican.
Secessionism has not been a viable consideration since the end of the
U.S. Civil War. Nor will it become an issue unless a remarkable change
in the balance between the United States and Mexico takes place.
It would be a mistake, however, to think of the cross-border
movements along the Mexican-U.S. border in the same way we think of the
migration of people to the United States from other places such as India
or China, which are an entirely different phenomenon -- part of the
long process of migrations to the United States that has taken place
since before its founding. In these, individuals made decisions -- even
if they were part of a mass movement from their countries -- to move to
the United States and, in moving to the United States, to adopt the
dominant American culture to facilitate assimilation. The Mexican
migrations are the result of movements in a borderland that has been
created through military conquest and the resulting political process.
The movement from Mexico is, from a legal standpoint, a cross-border
migration. In reality, it is simply an internal migration within a
territory whose boundaries were superimposed by history. Put
differently, if the United States had lost the Mexican-American war,
these migrations would be no more noteworthy than the mass migration to
California from the rest of the United States in the middle of the 20th
century. But the United States did not lose the war -- and the migration
is across international borders.
It should be noted that this also distinguishes Mexican population
movements from immigration from other Hispanic countries. The closest
you can come to an equivalent is in Puerto Rico, whose inhabitants are
U.S. citizens due to prior conquest. They neither pose the legal
problems of Mexicans nor can they simply slip across the border.
The Mexican case is one-of-a-kind, and the difficulty of sealing the
border is indicative of the real issue. There are those who call for
sealing the border and, technically, it could be done although the cost
would be formidable. More important, turning the politico-military
frontier into an effective barrier to movement would generate social
havoc. It would be a barrier running down the middle of an integrated
social and economic reality. The costs for the region would be enormous,
piled on top of the cost of walling off the frontier from the Gulf of
Mexico to the Pacific.
If the U.S. goal is to create an orderly migration process from
Mexico, which fits into a broader immigration policy that includes the
rest of the world, that probably cannot be done. Controlling immigration
in general is difficult, but controlling the movement of an indigenous
population in a borderland whose frontiers do not cohere to social or
economic reality is impossible.
This is not intended to be a guide to social policy. Our general view
is that social policies dealing with complex issues usually have such
wildly unexpected consequences that it is more like rolling the dice
than crafting strategy. We nevertheless understand that there will be a
social policy, hotly debated by all sides that will wind up not doing
what anyone expects, but actually will do something very different.
The point we are trying to make is simpler. First, the question of
Mexican population movements has to be treated completely separately
from other immigrations. These are apples and oranges. Second, placing
controls along the U.S.-Mexican frontier is probably impossible. Unless
we are prepared to hermetically seal the frontier, populations will flow
endlessly around barriers, driven by economic and social factors.
Mexico simply does not end at the Mexican border, and it hasn't since
the United States defeated Mexico. Neither the United States nor Mexico
can do anything about the situation.
The issue, from our point of view, cuts to the heart of geopolitics
as a theory. Geopolitics argues that geographic reality creates
political, social, economic and military realities. These can be shaped
by policies and perhaps even controlled to some extent, but the driving
realities of geopolitics can never simply be obliterated, except by
overwhelming effort and difficulty. The United States is not prepared to
do any of these things and, therefore, the things the United States is
prepared to do are doomed to ineffectiveness.
(Editor's Note: Originally published Jan. 15, 2004, this has been re-featured due to its timeless content.)
