Conference Presentation, Panel
Immigration, Workforce and the New Europe
Milken InstituteSophia, Robert Guest, Elizabeth Collett, Paul Collier, August Hanning, Syed Kamall, Parag Khanna
- Germany faces a crisis of public trust and security integrity due to the 2015–2016 influx of over 1.3 million undocumented migrants and a continued monthly arrival of approximately 15,000 asylum seekers from other European nations, driven by economic pressures from Africa, Central Asia, and Afghanistan, while the lack of a formal immigration policy hinders integration and border control.
- The UK must construct a new immigration bureaucracy from scratch post-Brexit to replace 15 years of management by the EU, a task complicated by the absence of internal registration systems and a public aversion to ID cards, yet restricting migration further risks severe labor shortages that already negatively impact key sectors.
- U.S. immigration sentiment is predicted to shift away from border wall rhetoric toward a more pragmatic majority view, recognizing that the 50 million annual legal crossings with Mexico are mutually beneficial despite the focus on a single barrier.
- A long-term solution to migration pressures requires a global strategy involving climate equality, world peace, and economic development, including specific industrial policies like local production requirements or public incentives to attract foreign investment to high-risk African states where firms currently avoid operating.
- Migration flows are expected to remain complex and difficult to solve externally due to corruption, bad governance in origin countries, and the social destabilization caused by brain drain, while regional economic hubs in Africa could potentially create beneficial internal circulation rather than flows toward Europe.
- Political discourse risks polarization between humanitarian and authoritarian extremes unless distinct processing channels are established near origin points, and Europe risks strategic short-sightedness by assuming its attractiveness will persist for the next 20 years without accounting for changing inter-regional dynamics.
- Brexit creates bureaucratic obstruction and uncertainty for businesses, while the divergence between global business interests and local population concerns necessitates a government focus on national interests, a dynamic that has previously led to sudden policy shifts such as Singapore's 2011 immigration crackdown.
- Future migration policy must account for the negative development impacts on Eastern European origin countries caused by emigration, the inability to implement language or accommodation requirements due to the "not an immigration country" view, and the need to stabilize countries of origin despite the limitations of external actors in resolving internal political issues.