Text 3 Immigration Confusion

Europe Struggles to Create a Balanced Immigration Policy. Governments are trying to balance the concerns of their citizens, their country's economic problems, and the humanitarian needs of immigrants. Native-born Europeans are worrying that their cultures and their economies are being harmed by immigrants. Meanwhile, the immigrants keep coming. Some come looking for asylum because of

racial, religious, or political oppression in their native lands. Others are trying to escape grinding poverty or war at home.

With fifteen million people unemployed in die European Union (EU) alone, outsiders are often resented. Some people fear that asylum seekers are too expensive for the EU's social welfare systems. Others are worried that economic migrants may take their jobs. Still others worry about die weakening of traditional local cultures in places where there are large numbers of immigrants.

Right-wing parties in Austria, Denmark, and Belgium have successfully campaigned against immigration, using fears of the loss of national identity. Meanwhile, criminals are making money on the desperation of would-be immigrants. People-smuggling has become a highly organized and profitable business. Because smugglers care little for the people they are transporting, tragedies sometimes result. For example, in 2000, 58 illegal immigrants from China asphyxiated in a locked truck at the English port of Dover.

Even if they survive the trip, illegals are often mistreated in sweatshops, normal wages in terrible conditions. Some of them spend decades paying back the transportation fees. Women and children are sometimes forced into sex slavery and prostitution. To make matters even more confusing, there is another side to immigration. Many European countries have a shortage of skilled workers in areas like information technology, "We need immigration," declared German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder recently. Barbara Roche, the UK's immigration minister, has made it easier for non-British students to stay. "In the past we have thought purely about immigration control," she said. "Now we need to think about immigration management."

High-tech workers are not the only ones who are needed. Some countries are short of cheap manual labor, too. In Spain, whose population is decreasing, North Africans work on the farms, while Poles and Romanians do construction work. Retirement programs need immigrants, too. In most European nations, people are living longer and having fewer children. Governments will not be able to pay retirees without large-scale immigration. Jean-Pierre Chevenement, the former French interior minister, said Europe will need 50 million to 75 million immigrants during the next 50 years. In Italy there were eight workers to every retiree in the 1950s. There are fewer than four today and, without immigration, the figure will drop to 1.5 by 2050. Likewise, Germany will need three million.