The Causes Of Human Immigration

Human migration is not a new phenomenon. For centuries, people have left their homes in search of better lives elsewhere. In the last decade, the process of globalization has caused an unprecedented amount of migration from the least developed countries of Asia, Africa, Latin America and Eastern Europe to Western Europe, Australia and North America (“People smuggling”). Combating the symptoms of this escalating problem seem to be the only recourse to counter this illegal migration; whereas the causes remains present and the growing need for smuggling is a result of those counter measures.

Human smuggling is an individual’s crossing of a state’s international border without that state’s authorization and with the assistance of paid smugglers.

It is also a good example of “supply and demand” in reverse. Where limited supply usually generates higher demand; the demand for smuggling increased so the supply of smugglers increased to meet the demand. As the international borders controls get tighter we see this demand for smugglers increase to improve the odds of a successful border crossing. Prior to 1914, smuggling of people was not that big of a problem. For example: with the exception of socially undesirable citizens, such as “those likely to become public charges,” polygamists, and the diseased (Immigration Act of 1891) and the exception of Chinese laborers and other Asians (excluded through numerous acts and laws from 1882 through the early 20th century), nearly all those who reached the shores of the United States were admitted as citizens. Between 1880 and 1914, only one percent of the 25 million European immigrants who arrived in the U.S. were denied entrance (Ngai, 2004). The majority of the international migration was peaceful, voluntary, and motivated by economic opportunities and family networks. Economics drove the de-migration in the US recession of 1907-08 as the net migration dropped approximately 150% when a large net outflow of migrants returned to Europe to find work. After 1914, politically determined quotas, legal restrictions, and flights from wars and oppression have shaped migration into what it is today (Keeling,