Hein de Haas: "You cannot have economic growth and at the same time less immigration: you have to choose"

BarcelonaThe Dutch sociologist and geographer Hein de Haas (1969) is one of the leading European experts on migration. Director of the International Migration Institute at the University of Oxford and professor at the University of Maastricht, his latest book, The Myths of Immigration (Península), dismantles the discourses on the right and on the left. He has lived and worked in Morocco.

What motivated the entry of 70,000 people into Ceuta between last July 30 and 31?

— There is too much discussion about the causes of this crisis. And many theories. Whether Morocco did it on purpose, whether there were fewer controls due to the celebration of the Feast of the Throne, whether it is all the result of an international conspiracy... I believe all this debate distracts from what really matters: why do these crises keep happening? This has not been the first migration crisis in Spain, nor in the Mediterranean, nor in Europe in general, nor in the world, if we look at what is happening in the United States. A historical perspective is needed.

We go back to Spain's entry into the European Union and the Schengen area.

— In 1991, visas were introduced for Moroccans, and they could no longer enter Spanish territory freely as they had until then. In these thirty-five years, despite large investments in border control, neither Spain nor the United States nor anyone else has been able to stop immigration. On the contrary, the number of Moroccans living in Spain has not stopped growing: while in 1991 there were about 50,000, right now there are 1.2 million. This is the paradox: migration control policies do not work, and it is because they intervene in the symptoms, but not in the root causes.

Which ones are they?

— The real reason why undocumented migration has not stopped since 1991, and the reason for this crisis in Ceuta, but also for those in the Strait of Gibraltar or the Canary Islands, is an open secret. Everyone knows it and no one dares to say it. On one hand, there is a labor market that demands undocumented labor and at the same time a lot of tolerance for its hiring, and on the other, zero opportunities for legal and regulated immigration. Most immigrants come to Europe because they know they will find work there, even if they do not have documents. And this was the paradoxical effect of the Schengen Agreement in Spain or Italy: the end of free entry from the Mediterranean for North Africans coincided with an enormous boom in the economy.

So what do the flows depend on in the case of Morocco and Spain?

— Young Moroccans know that there is work and they tell others about it. And when there is none, they stop coming. That is what happened with the 2008 crisis: immigration plummeted and many Moroccans returned and, in fact, there were also Spaniards who emigrated to Morocco.

The pull effect is the labor market.

— Yes, the prospect of finding work is what makes people emigrate. The pull effect is the labor market, not social benefits or the healthcare system. This can be seen in many TikTok videos recorded by young migrants: they talk about work. I have confirmed this in my research in Morocco and also in Senegal. Young people risk the journey by boatto the Canary Islands because they know that, if they arrive, they will have work. The problem is the mismatch between the reality of the labor market, which demands migrant labor, and the lack of pathways to migrate legally: this is what makes people cross borders illegally.

This labor demand focuses on sectors such as construction, care, hospitality, agriculture, or meat processing, which are very important in the case of the Spanish economy.

— In Europe and the United States there is a discourse according to which we need highly skilled workers and do not need low-skilled workers. This denies a reality that we know perfectly well. If you look at agriculture, construction, care –especially informal care, care for the elderly and, in some cases, also childcare–, and if you also look at cleaning and everything that has to do with food –from cultivation and harvesting to processing and distribution–, the entire delivery sector, everywhere these jobs have been increasingly occupied by migrant workers. Most of them, by the way, with papers, and we must emphasize this, but, obviously, there is also a significant number of undocumented people. Spain and Italy are paradigmatic cases, partly because until now there has been a fairly high level of tolerance. Everyone knows that migrants are essential in the care sector: for the elderly, but also for children. But it is the great taboo in the debate on migration. As long as we have this demand for labor, as long as we tolerate it, we will exploit migrant workers. There is large-scale tolerance for hiring undocumented workers, and as long as this happens, people will continue to come. For the simple fact that in Spain, depending on how you calculate it and the sector in which you work, you can earn between five and ten times more than in Morocco.

But there is no legal path for this labor migration.

— When I interview migrants in Morocco, most do not want to take the risk of migrating in a small boat, because people know it is dangerous. Most prefer to try it with a student visa, or with someone else's passport who resembles them, or in all sorts of other ways, or by hiding in a van or a truck. In reality, most people enter legally and then, simply, stay beyond the period authorized by the visa. Or they use other routes, such as family reunification or the asylum route. And all of this is an effect of the lack of legal work visas.

And how can this be solved?

— This does not correspond to me but to the politicians. More opportunities for legal migration can be created to control it better, or one can act on this labor demand by intervening in the labor market in these sectors and placing controls on the platform economy. But, obviously, this will affect the economic interests of some people, some very powerful businessmen, and also of the Spanish economy as a whole. The question is whether we are willing to pay the price of placing limits on this informal labor market. Governments can do it if they want, but they are not willing to do so because they do not want to bear the costs. The fundamental dilemma of governments is that, if you really want to reduce migration, in some way you must slow down economic growth. And this is not what we want. You cannot have a successful, open, and dynamic economy without it generating a demand for migration, which at the same time accelerates economic growth. One cannot have economic growth and at the same time less immigration: you have to choose.

His research has also debunked the idea that migration is the result of poverty: people migrate when a country reaches a certain level of development.

— This is perhaps the great migration myth of the left. It ignores that development in poor countries tends to generate more migration, both within borders—movements from villages to large cities—as well as migration that crosses borders. Because migrating is expensive. Migration is often presented as an act of desperation, but crossing international borders generally requires significant resources: qualifications, skills, contacts, money to obtain a visa... Even paying a smuggler represents a huge barrier for many people. That is why we see that the main countries of emigration in the world are middle-income countries: we do not see migrants from Chad, Sudan, or Mali as we do from Morocco, for example. And there is another reason that has to do not only with resources, but with modernization, education, and access to media. Young people who have studied no longer want to be peasants or farmers, nor accept simple jobs with which their parents might have been satisfied. They have different life ambitions, more aspirations. They are motivated to move to big cities, where life is more stimulating, or abroad, where they can pursue a professional career and achieve a certain lifestyle. That is why we see that, when countries like Morocco have developed over the last forty years, and move from a low to a middle income, more people have begun to emigrate.

It was also like this in the history of Spain: the great migrations to Germany or Switzerland did not occur in the post-war period, in the forties, but in the sixties.

— Obviously, when countries become even richer, the situation changes. And Morocco seems to find itself at what we call in migration science the peak level of migration. If (and it is a big conditional) Morocco achieves rapid economic development during the next ten or twenty years, then it can be expected that migration will decrease, as happened in the past in the countries of southern Europe, which had been major countries of emigration during the fifties and sixties. With development, the establishment of democracy – in the case of Spain – and rapid economic growth, they transformed into countries of immigration. This is what is happening right now in Turkey. And it is what we also see in Mexico.

And what will happen in the Canary Islands with immigration from West Africa?

— Senegal is typically one of those countries that will likely experience an emigration boom parallel to its development. And Morocco is already starting to attract migrants. If you walk through Casablanca or Marrakech today, you see many workers from sub-Saharan Africa who occupy jobs that Moroccans no longer want to do.

What role do social networks play in migratory processes?

— We do not yet have much scientific evidence for it. But it is reasonable to assume that social media has accelerated the dissemination of information when an opportunity to move appears. Information also circulated before, by phone or email, but with social media, the effect is like a waterfall. They can probably explain in part the amplification of this wave. But the key is not the networks, but the effect that is produced when a border is closed. In the nineties, many Moroccans went to Spain to work in the fields, earned some money, and then returned to Morocco: people came and went and only had to pay for a ferry ticket. When a border is closed, two unwanted effects are created: the first is that it forces migrants to stay and the other effect is what I call “now-or-never migration rushes”: if you have a population like that of northern Morocco that feels frustrated and that can literally see Spain on the other side of the strait or the Ceuta fence, when the slightest opportunity seems to appear, there is a cascade effect. And social media only amplifies it.

Spain was one of the first European countries to establish border control outsourcing agreements with countries like Morocco or Mauritania. Is it a good idea?

— I do not want to get into politics, but obviously this makes Western countries more dependent on authoritarian regimes. I prefer to analyze it in terms of interests. What has happened in North Africa or Turkey? If you look at the long-term geopolitical situation, these countries are not really interested in stopping migration; they have an enormous economic and political interest in it continuing. For a country like Morocco, migrants' remittances are much more important than all the development aid they receive from Europe. And furthermore, having young people migrate lowers internal social tensions. Naturally, in these agreements there is a quid pro quo: the North African governments get something in return. Support for border control, financial support, or in the case of Morocco, political issues related to Western Sahara, for example. These dynamics are very clear. In a way, these countries have a strategic interest in these crises occurring from time to time, which reinforce this perception of threat on the part of Europe.

Gaddafi already did it in Libya in the past, threatening Europe with a “black invasion”.

— It is completely megalomaniacal to think that North African leaders can organize migration. Obviously, they can influence temporary peaks in arrivals and create political panic in Europe, and then obtain benefits from it. Thus, migration becomes a bargaining chip. European politicians want to convey the perception that they have the situation under control, and this creates an incentive to collaborate with these countries. But we do not realize that these countries are not passive victims. They have an active interest in it.

Is there a good dose of hypocrisy?

— If we analyze the long-term European strategic interest, the very politicians who say that this migration must stop know that these migrants do all kinds of useful jobs. There are many ambiguities, many stories that are not told. Therefore, migration is rather a bargaining chip within a broader geopolitical game. Migration is a small issue, but it is exaggerated because everyone knows how politically sensitive it is.