What Goes Unmentioned

In his latest New York Times column Tom Friedman lurches uncontrollably into a good observation:

During the late 19th and the 20th centuries the world shifted from being governed by large empires in many regions to being governed by independent nation-states. And the 50 years after World II were a great time to be a weak little nation-state — for several reasons.

First, because there were two superpowers competing for your affection by throwing foreign aid at you, building your army, buying your cheap goods and educating your kids at their universities. Second, climate change was moderate. Third, populations were still under control in the developing world. Fourth, no one had a cellphone to easily organize movements against your government or even see what Paris or Phoenix looked like. Fifth, China was not in the World Trade Organization, so every poor country could be in textiles and other low-wage industries.

All of those advantages disappeared in the early 21st century. Climate-driven extreme weather — floods, droughts, record-setting heat and cold — on top of man-made deforestation began to hammer many countries, especially their small-scale farmers. Developing-world populations exploded thanks to improved health care. Africa went from 140 million people in 1900 to one billion in 2010 to a projected 2.5 billion by 2050. The same surge happened in Central America, in countries like Guatemala.

Meanwhile, the smartphone enabled citizens to easily compare their living standards with Paris or Phoenix — and find a human trafficker app to take them there. Also, China joined the W.T.O., gobbling up low-wage industries, and the end of the Cold War meant no superpower wanted to touch your country, because all it would win was a bill.

The result: It’s much harder to be a weak country today, and the weakest of them are starting to fail or fracture and hemorrhage their people. That’s Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador and Venezuela in our hemisphere and Sudan, Syria, Afghanistan, Libya and many countries in sub-Saharan Africa across the Atlantic.

This is creating wide zones of “disorder” — and the biggest geopolitical trend in the world is all the people trying to get out of zones of disorder into the world of order. And that is what’s creating all the populist, nationalist, anti-immigrant backlashes in the world of order — particularly in America and Europe.

That is the real context for this immigration crisis. What’s the answer? Well, if you look at what slowed the flood of single Mexican men illegally and legally coming to America in the last decade, it was the combination of greater economic opportunity in Mexico, thanks in part to Nafta, plus slower population growth in Mexico, plus improved governance in Mexico, plus better border security along the Mexico-U.S. border.

That same formula has to be applied now to Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador.

demonstrating that even a stopped clock is right twice a day. There are some critical factors he leaves unmentioned in his analysis. The first is that there are poor people in the United States, too. As many as 20 million Americans live in “extreme poverty”—half of the poverty income. That’s about $6,000 for an individual and $24,000 for a family of four. 20 million is a number equivalent to the entire population of Guatemala, the largest Central American country.

It is not the 19th century or even the early 20th century. Our economy does not create entry level jobs the way it used to. Each person who comes into the United States seeking an entry level job either displaces another entry level employee or reduces the wages of all entry level workers, making things that much worse. I believe that our corporate responsibility to the people who are already here is greater than to the people of Guatemala, El Salvador, Costa Rica, Honduras, or Nicaragua.

The second thing is that of his answer the only thing we can actually control is border security. We can’t negotiate a NAFTA-equivalent with Guatemala, El Salvador, etc. solely on our own. Nor can we slow their population growth nor improve their governance.

That’s one of the ways in which I arrive at my conclusion: we have a moral responsibility to control migration into the United States. That will require a number of measures including physical barriers at the U. S.-Mexican border. As I have said before I would also increase the number of H2-B visas we issue, enforce our employment policies with a greatly enhanced eVerify program, and have an information program targeted at the countries of Central America with the message that they cannot improve their lives by entering the United States illegally.