At first glance, it would seem that there is little to connect an immigrant rights march aimed at an Arizona sheriff last weekend and a series of violent clashes between African migrants and residents of a town in southern Italy a few days later. There is. Both illustrate the continuing difficulty that many developed nations have in assimilating immigrants into established society.
The march in Phoenix was directed at Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, whose department has run a series of high-profile immigration and crime sweeps in his community. There’s nothing wrong with enforcing the law, of course, except that in many instances, reformers say, the sheriff’s office employs racial profiling and other dubious means to target the immigrant community. Mr. Arpaio’s effort, if not the specific tactics, has stirred little opposition outside the immigrant community. Indeed, there appears to be strong support for it in many neighborhoods in his jurisdiction.
That appears to be the case, too, in Italy, where African migrants and residents in a town in Calabria engaged in a series of near riots that left 38 injured and many guest workers so fearful for their safety that hundreds immediately left the city without pay due them. It isn’t the first time Italy has been roiled by violence against immigrants, but officials say it is the worst incident they can remember.
Though the events in Arizona and in Italy are quite different, they do share a common foundation. Both the march in Phoenix and the violence in Calabria are an outgrowth of government immigration policies and enforcement of them. In both countries, there is significant and public antagonism against immigrants as a monolithic group, but widespread and quiet acceptance of their presence as individuals who work very cheaply. The latter fill a big niche in the economy.
In both countries, immigrants do much of the work that the bulk of the population refuses to do. They work the fields, pick the crops, do domestic chores, work in commercial kitchens and in factories, and engage in other dirty and dangerous jobs for low pay. In good times, the system is tolerated because it is profitable for business owners and expedient for the general populace. In difficult times like these, the immigrants are unfairly blamed for economic and societal ills. They become easy targets of the same law enforcement officials who once conveniently looked the other way when questions about their presence were raised.
Immigration problems are not confined, of course, to the United States and Italy. Many other nations — France and Germany, most notably in recent years — have struggled to resolve immigration issues and to balance the demand for a willing work force with equitable policy and social justice. That effort continues.
True resolution will come only when political leadership in Washington, in Rome and in other capitals willingly embrace broad and comprehensive immigration reform that includes a viable identity confirmation system and a path to earned citizenship. Until that is done, immigration problems will continue to inflame the public and undermine good governance around the globe.