Interview with Chris Laidlaw on Radio New Zealand

Listen to it here.

EU migration to the UK is working

By Tim Finch of IPPR. Excellent. Read it here.

Interviewed in New Zealand's Dominion Post

Click here to read the article. Sorry for the poor quality of the scan.

In case you're wondering, I'm the one (very jetlagged) in the photo on the right.

Sharp fall in Mexican migration to the US

The New York Times reports that:

about 226,000 fewer people emigrated from Mexico to other countries during the year that ended in August 2008 than during the previous year, a decline of 25 percent. All but a very small fraction of emigration, both legal and illegal, from Mexico is to the United States.

Opponents of immigration tend to assume that people want to move from poor countries to rich ones irrespective of the economic circumstances - perhaps to languish on welfare, for instance.

This is nonsense, of course. Most people who uproot themselves to another country do so in order to better themselves by working hard.

When there are jobs to be filled, they come. When there aren't, they don't.

Immigrants? Not us - we're British

There is an interesting article in The Times about Brits who had been living in Spain returning home because of the economic crisis.

Tellingly, though, they are referred to as "expats" throughout.

It seems that British people abroad aren't migrants, or worse still immigrants.

That's a term we reserve for nasty foreigners.

Little New Zealand has a big strength

I'm in New Zealand for 2 weeks speaking about the economic benefits of diversity at a series of events in Wellington, Auckland and Christchurch.

NZ is small country that will always be geographically remote, but it is intimately connected to the rest of the world through its wonderfully diverse people.

Their diversity is an often undervalued asset, especially in these difficult times.

Yet just as ethnic Chinese networks have long been at the centre of trade in Asia, Chinese New Zealanders can help New Zealand connect with China and the rest of Asia's dynamic markets.

What's more, New Zealand's diverse workforce can boost creativity, innovation and enterprise, and thus boost productivity growth. That makes everyone richer and helps pay for the schools, hospitals and other things we cherish.

To any NZ-based readers on this blog, I look forward to meeting some of you over the next weeks.

Paranoid fantasies about immigration in Europe

Christopher Caldwell is an intelligent and educated man. His columns for the FT are often perceptive and original. But his views on immigration in Europe, presented in his new book, "Reflections on the Revolution in Europe: Immigration, Islam and the West", are paranoid and delusional.

Caldwell's book is a cocktail of projected fears: Europe is in decline, its population ageing and falling, its citizens decadent and weak; immigrants are a threat, Islam an even bigger one, and Muslim immigrants are multiplying like rabbits; ergo, Muslim immigrants are a united force bent on conquering a continent that has lost the will and the means to fight. I simplify, but only a little.

Caldwell's book tells us more about Caldwell himself than it does about immigration in Europe. But sadly, it will get huge play, because it plays to the prejudices of all sorts of people.

Read a full review of Caldwell's book in the FT by Mark Mazower here.

Dozens dead, hundreds missing

Three, perhaps 4, boats laden with migrants people heading from Libya to Italy sink. As many as 300 people could be dead.

Europe's border controls claim more lives. The official response? We need tougher controls.

Kenan Malik on the UK government's multicultural policies

Rather than appealing to Muslims as British citizens, with a variety of views and beliefs, politicians of all hues prefer to see them as people whose primary loyalty is to their faith and who can be engaged only by other Muslims. Should we be surprised then if, as a consequence, many Muslims come to see themselves as semi-detached Britons? Last week the government published Contest 2, its new anti-terrorism strategy. But it has still not understood the extent to which its own multicultural policies have helped fan the flames of Islamic radicalism.

Citizenship has no meaning if different classes of citizens are treated differently, whether through multicultural policies or through racism.

Read the full article in the Sunday Times.

On a march against the US Border Patrol

Our biggest domestic menace never was waiting outside Home Depot, hoping to clean your basement. Unauthorized immigrants are not about to destroy anything, not even when they get angry and loud and march in large groups. On the contrary, they are inspiring. Their ethic of self-reliance and hard work is one that Americans should recognize and celebrate.

Exhibit A: Riverside, Calif., where I went recently to watch immigrant advocates march against the Border Patrol.

Read the full article in the New York Times