History abounds with stories and images of migration: Moses and the Israelites journey from Egypt to the Promised Land; the Celts leave Central Europe and settle in Gaul; the pilgrims sail from England to the New World; Italians, Irish, and Eastern Europeans travel through Ellis Island in the late 19th century; and East German residents move west when the Berlin Wall falls. While these images differ historically, socially, politically, economically, and geographically, they all illustrate the central role that migration—the act of leaving one’s native land to settle elsewhere—plays in shaping the modern world.

Migration, along with commodity trade and capital mobility, is an integral component of globalization. When people move, they bring with them ideas, knowledge, and skills acquired in their homeland—attributes that influence political, economic, and social life in their host community. But the act of migrating does not mean that those who move leave behind their homelands; far from it. Migration—and migrants—form tight social networks linking home and host countries, facilitating transfers of both human and financial capital.

When people move, they bring with them ideas, knowledge, and skills acquired in their homeland—attributes that influence political, economic, and social life in their host community

While essential to the stability of the global political economy, migration has often been treated as an economic and cultural threat, especially in advanced industrial democracies. Opponents of migration regularly mischaracterize existing evidence in arguing that migrants drive down wages, overconsume public goods, generate social conflict, and resist assimilation.

The consequences of anti-immigrant sentiment, however, is of relevance, as public attitudes and policies influence the attractiveness of different host countries. One of the arguments we advance in this book is that anti-immigrant policies have implications for global economic exchange. Well-regulated migration, we argue, is essential for global flows of capital. Disrupting flows of people through the construction of walls, implementation of anti-migration policies, or the fomenting of anti-immigrant sentiment, disrupts the flow of capital and commodity trade.

Anti-immigrant policies have implications for global economic exchange

Excerpted from The Ties that Bind: Immigration and the Global Political Economy, published by Cambridge University Press and Assessment ©2023