Immigration: A new Issue?

The immigration law in Arizona has raised an intense debate about how to deal with this situation as is seen related to crime, unemployment and drugs. Indeed, immigration is as old as humankind. The rise and fall of many civilizations are associated to this phenomenon.

The most well known historic effect of immigration has been documented in the fall of the Roman Empire. Barbarians push into the northern frontiers of the empire looking for better places to live in. Indeed, the common idea of Romans fighting in the frontier against barbarians is false. When the Roman Empire started growing through the Mediterranean it gave the nationality to many of the people living in the conquered countries. First all Italy got the Roman filiation, and afterwards most of the citizens of the Empire. Romans themselves adopted much of the values of Greek and Egyptian cultures. While getting into other countries, they expanded these values to those places: language, law, architecture, etc.

Sharing the Roman Nationality with conquered countries was not a philanthropic attitude. They needed an alliance with other people in order to keep their power. Spreading the Roman Civilization through the Mediterranean was a way to consolidate its superiority.

Indeed, the strategy had a limit. The first German tribes arriving to the borders of the Empire were used as a shelter to protect Roman territories from other non Romanized tribes. These allied were granted with lands within the Empire and adopted the Roman Civilization. But the process continued, and new tribes arrived, everyday fiercer. Once shared its culture with almost all the Mediterranean, the value of Rome itself was diminished, and that ended with its political fall, but not of its culture.

Could have Rome survived longer if it would have kept the nationality for just Romans? Surely not. Its alliances politicies allow them to get superiority over all the Mediterranean and further, just coming from a small country village. A confrontation and isolation strategy would have never allowed them to acquire the empire on the size it got.

After World War II, the USA raised as the dominant country in the world. It shared this position with the URSS until late ‘80s. Indeed, American history is filled up with immigration waves that increased the power of the Country. The first colonies were founded by protestant immigrants. Soon African slaves were forced to get in. After the independence waves of Irish, Chinese, Italians, European Jewish, Latin-Americans, and many others came in. All made an specific contribution to the wellfare and power of the country.

In the last years it has been highly documented the impact of immigrants in the Armed Forces fighting in the Middle East. The participation of immigrants in low quality jobs is highly known. 10 years ago I visit a meat processing plant in Iowa. I was surprised as almost all workers, except for senior management, were Latin-Americans. Very few of them speak English (and very few of senior Management speak Spanish). Indeed, highly qualified immigration workers are also part of the story. American Universities retain third world professors in their classrooms; American firms hire highly qualified professionals.

Is it possible to keep highly qualified people and exclude the low level ones? America can choose to become a fortress. American sons can fill the places in the Army. They can also choose to have a more expensive way of leaving paying higher for low quality jobs, as to be of interest for Americans. May be it is feasible, but probably this will cause the final end to the American superiority in the world.

When Rome faced the last years of its superiority, it excluded from the ruling elites some German origin generals because politicians didn’t trust them. Probably this was the final reason for the fall. The only way that the prevalence of American culture continues is that it shares it and spread it through the world.