Why are there no wetbacks in Europe?
April 11th, 2007 | 
Author: I recently came across Immigration Orange which covers immigration issues primarily in America but increasingly worldwide.When I thought about the things that they cover, it struck me that there don’t seem to be any Canadian wetbacks nor do there seem to be any in Europe. For those that don’t know “wetback” is the (derogratory) term used to describe illegal immigrants in America, essentially because the border is marked by the Rio Grande and therefore in times past they could be picked out by having wet-backs from crossing the river.
Legal immigrants to America fall broadly into one of four categories:
- Employment-based preference, essentially those who have skills that are in demand;
- Family preference, which allows people to sponsor close relatives;
- Diversity, which aims to increase the numbers of under-represented groups; and
- Refugees
There aren’t any Canadian wetbacks for the simple reason that it’s relatively easy for a Canadian to live and work in America quite legally therefore the number of Canadian illegal immigrants to America is much smaller than it would be otherwise. Aside from that, the Canadian economy is on a par with that in America so there are very few economic migrants whereas this is by far the largest category of immigrants from Mexico.
However, those reasons don’t apply in Europe. With the fall of the Eastern Bloc we have neither the fences nor the border guards so it’s clearly much easier for people to just walk over the borders than it has been in the past. Yet, still we appear to have neither the number of illegals nor the complex about them that exists in America. How come?
It seems to me that it’s largely down to the difference between the economic geography of America compared to Europe.
America borders with two countries. Canada is relatively rich and there seem to be no worries about illegal immigration from Canada. Mexico is relatively poor and the Americans are talking about building a wall to keep out the flood of illegal immigrants.
Europe on the other hand has a group of relatively rich countries in the centre, slightly poorer ones surrounding it and poorer still a little further out. Therefore, by and large, there isn’t the massive jump in relative economic prosperity when you move from one country to its immediate neighbours as there exists between Mexico and America. Move from Romania to Bulgaria and there is little difference. Move from Romania to France and there’s a big difference but then there are several countries between Romania and France whereas Romania and Bulgaria share a border.
Of course there are illegal immigrants in Europe but their numbers are a good deal smaller than they would be were there the sharp difference in prosperity in neighbouring countries as exists between Mexico and America.
Copyright © 2004-2014 by Foreign Perspectives. All rights reserved.
Posted in 
Arnold
First things first. Just a suggestion, you should change the title of your post. You did point out that “wetbacks” is a derogatory term used for illegal immigrants. Since you admit that is the case, why use it? It isn’t any different than calling a black person a “nigger”.
That said, it’s true, the US does have to deal with a lot of illegal immigrants that come over the Mexican border. It’s quite a dilemma because although they are here illegally, our government has seen fit to ignore the problem for too long. I have mixed feelings on this issue myself, because as a human, I can understand that they are doing everything they can to support their families. Living in Mexico with its poverty makes it almost impossible for them to live. When you are staring at the border, knowing that there are jobs to be had in the US, it’s easy to see why they come to the US. I feel very bad for their plight.
Those employers in the US who hire illegal immigrants are to fault for the problem, IMO. If the government cracked down on them, they wouldn’t be able to get away with paying an illegal immigrant below the minimum wage. Eventually, the problem will be solved. Mexico would have no choice but to step up and correct the problems they have with their poverty. Why fix a problem when they have the US to fall back on?
In France, I assume they don’t get as many illegal immigrants because of the job situation there. They aren’t even willing to give those who live in their country a job if they are Muslim or look Muslim. From what I understand, this is why there has been the rioting in the suburbs in France. There was just an article written in a magazine (I’ll look for it later if you like), that spoke of the number of French who are leaving France because running a business there is next to impossible with all the red tape involved, especially if you don’t “look French”.
In fact, look at your friend SuperFrenchie, who is living in the US for over 20 years, and running a business. He could never make the money in France that he is making here. If someone who leaves France to live in the US voluntarily because the job opportunities don’t exist in France, why would an illegal immigrant want to go to France?
Of course, I don’t know the situation as well as you, Arnold, since you have a thriving business there. Am I off base on this assessment? Also, how does France or other European countries determine the number of illegal immigrants that reside there? I don’t think the US even has a true count. It’s not like they are likely to be a part of a census, no? Just curious.
Interesting, post, Arnold!
Well, whilst “wetback”, in America, a derogatory term, I was told by a Mexican friend that it’s also used by the Mexicans themselves.
To be fair, I think that Mexico is working on its problems. The difficulties are around the border areas where there’s a clear distinction between the standard of living in America and that in the area of Mexico just over the border. In some cases, you have a sizeable city on the US side and pretty much a country village on the Mexican side but that kind of situation happens all around the world: generally speaking those living in cities are, on the whole, richer and have more opportunities than those living in the country. The problems happen when the “country” side is in one country and the “city” side is in another.
I think that the problem in France is even greater than you hint at in some ways. It’s not so much that you must look French (and that in itself encompasses a vast range of races) but that you must BE French. So, whereas in the UK you get second and third generation immigrants who largely have kept their original culture (albeit a modified version in most cases), in France that seems not to be acceptable. As an example, people we know have a father who speaks Catalan as a mother tongue, he speaks it as a second language and his children not at all. I gather that this arose because he felt it necessary to “be” French as well as looking French ie he felt it necessary to abandon his own culture.
I often wonder how I would fare in the local employment market. After all, I’ve loads of qualifications and even speak French fairly well. Somehow, I think that the reality would be that I’d not be employed when going up against a French person even with lesser qualifications. I think though that the result would be different depending on the characteristics of the particular area of France that I tried it in. After all, we consistently get “no” for acceptance in schools whereas all but one other person seems to have consistently gotten “yes” as the answer.
I think SF will have quite a culture shock if/when he returns to France. It has changed a LOT over the last 20 years. One of my French teachers found it quite difficult even in holiday time back with her family back in Brittany as she’d been in Northern Ireland something like 6 or 7 years and therefore couldn’t speak about things like the Internet or mobile phones in French as she just didn’t have the vocabulary and, of course, those were just the more noticeable subjects.
It is a bit of a nightmare starting a business here. For instance, friends of ours wanted to run their Internet business totally legally and therefore investigated registering it. He calculated the taxes that would be payable on it assuming EUR 5000 per year income from the business in the first five years. Can’t recall the exact figures but the tax in year one was just under EUR 5000 (yes, just under 100%!), year two similar, three around EUR 3000, and in fact it wasn’t worth bothering ’til the fourth or fifth year. The problem is that he’s not sure that he’d make EUR 5000 in year one but would have to pay almost that in tax regardless which makes you wonder why anyone bothers to start a business here.
Illegals are very difficult to count obviously. The official figures are based on an estimate of what percentage they expect to catch and scaling that up from the number that they actually catch. However, it’s clearly a much worse problem in the US given that you get substantial numbers of companies employing a high proportion of illegals.
Thanks for your reply, Arnold. It’s funny, because after I read your comment that Mexicans also use the term, I was listening to the telly and they are talking about the racial slur that a radio talk show host used against a women’s basketball team. He is under fire for these comments, but now some are defending him saying that blacks use that derogatory term “ho’s” in their rap music, so why can’t he. I also hear blacks using the term “nigger” about themselves, but they get very irate if a white person says it. Strange, no? So, I guess because I was told never to use the term “wetback” because it is an insult, I thought no one should use it. Language can be quite controversial, don’t you think?
Regarding France employment, I will never understand how they will be able to sustain their current method of hiring and firing (or should I say NOT firing) someone who is employed. The blatant discrimination is also curious. I have to wonder if they are about to be in a world of trouble regarding their economy, especially since the wine industry is doing so well in other parts of the world, such as Australia and the United States. I had read an article recently that many Americans stopped buying the French wine with its high prices, because they can find very good wine, at cheaper prices from the US and Australia. This has got to be hurting the French economy somewhat. Of course, I’m not living in France so I can’t take that particular article as more than it is. Perhaps it is only a small part of reality in France.
Personally, I love Australian wine and the wine coming from California is also excellent.
Your posts are very interesting, Arnold and I find your replies to be very polite and informative. Thank you.
Hey Arnold this is cross posted in Immigration Orange
Arnold, a blogger over at Foreign Perspectives, has recently put up a post on immigration that I wanted to comment on. His post is essentially about how there are fewer illegal immigrants in Europe than there are in the U.S.
There is a little bit of a problem with that definition as laws are different from country to country, so what one has to do in one country to be an illegal immigrant is different from what one has to do in another country. That is to say, I can crossover into Honduras without a problem as a Guatemala, all I need is my cedula, but do the same thing in the U.S. and I am labeled an “illegal” for the rest of my life.
That being said I understand what Arnold was trying to say, and he’s correct when he states that there isn’t quite anything like the illegal immigration in the Europe as there is in the U.S. And there are major reasons for that. The vast majority of illegal immigrants arrive from Mexico and while some like to blame that solely on economics it does not account for the millions upon millions that have made it to the U.S. With my time spent on this topic I really believe that it has to do with the history of migrant work between the two countries, programs like the bracero program that gave Mexicans the infrastructure to come to the U.S. I explained this in an earlier post. Furthermore, NAFTA has displaced so many Mexicans from the countryside that going north is their best option.
Regarding European illegal immigrants I think there is a major problem there to as well. When Hezzy Smith was blogging here he wrote this beautiful post on how illegals are detained in Italy, I’ve also commented on it a little bit.
Thanks for the words Arnold and I look forward to further collaboration.
Ah, well, that’s a symtom of the attitude that whilst “we” can call ourselves pig-ignorant brits, “you” can’t. That’s why we no longer get the Englishman, Irishman, Scotsman jokes anymore although if there happened to be a comedian out there who had ancestors from all three countries, he could get away with it.
The wine industry is a little peculiar, at least in this area. Whilst the locals can’t get rid of their wine at around EUR 1 / EUR 2 a bottle, all the English growers who have moved here can’t get enough wine to sell at prices around EUR 20 EUR 30 a bottle. The problem is so bad that they’ve even tried to buy unsold wine from the people who normally sell to the co-op at EUR 1 but their offers have always been turned down. How come this arose? Well, the English (and it’s always English, not British) growers market their wine directly to the UK and US. The French growers always try to sell the wine locally and only try export if by chance someone drops by. The problem with this approach is that the locals won’t pay EUR 20 for a bottle so there’s less money available to upgrade the quality of the wine and to market it.
Where France is likely to run into trouble is with the growth in service industries. They’ve lost the battle to force any service industry selling to France to have a branch in France so it will be increasingly common to have, for example, software production moved outside France. From what I’ve seen, one of the most difficult fields to start a business in within France is software/Internet because of the combination of restrictions on employment, use of English as a company language and the taxes. Yet, that’s one of the major growth industries worldwide.
You all have lost the meaning of the word immigrant. Let me refresh your memory immigrant/grant/ Pronunciation Key – Show Spelled Pronunciation[im-i-gruhnt] Pronunciation Key – Show IPA Pronunciation
noun 1. a person who migrates to another country, usually for permanent residence.
Which is fine as long as they immigrate to become part of the country they immigrated to. This is not about immigrants that follow the law to come to the United States. It is about criminal illegal aliens breaking the laws of the United States of America!
What do you do when your hospitals are closing, drug runners are rampant and citizens are being killed every day from these lovely countries?
Yes, I know that there is a big difference between legal and illegal immigrants. However, America is in the unusual position to border with only two countries with one of those being at a similar economic level (ie Canada) and the other having (at present) a somewhat lower level of economic activity.
Net effect is that immigrants from Canada are, on the whole, classed as legal whereas those from Mexico are, on the whole, classed as illegal. You don’t complain about hospitals being under strain from the Canadians flooding over the borders but I know that many elderly Canadians live in the US during the Winter so there must be substantial costs associated with that.
I do agree with you about the criminal element but one problem is that if you’re an illegal immigrant then it must be quite difficult to keep the rest of your life legal. After all, many will have had first-hand contact with criminals when they were smuggled over the border. This isn’t meant to excuse their actions.
Arnold
“It is a bit of a nightmare starting a business here. For instance, friends of ours wanted to run their Internet business totally legally and therefore investigated registering it. He calculated the taxes that would be payable on it assuming EUR 5000 per year income from the business in the first five years. Can’t recall the exact figures but the tax in year one was just under EUR 5000 (yes, just under 100%!), year two similar, three around EUR 3000, and in fact it wasn’t worth bothering ’til the fourth or fifth year. The problem is that he’s not sure that he’d make EUR 5000 in year one but would have to pay almost that in tax regardless which makes you wonder why anyone bothers to start a business here.”
Be careful Arnold and don’t confuse Social Security taxes with Income taxes. Nor don’t confuse VAT tax either. VAT taxc is not your money anyway, you just collect that for the state. As people deposit it in their account with sales receipts they have a tendancy to think that it is income expecially when it has to be payed. At 5000‚€ of income /year your friend would have no income tax to pay but would have URSSAF/Allocations Familles and other healthcare and retirement charges to pay. Obligatory, even if they had Health coverage elsewhere. As an individual proprietor they would pay about 25% of net income for everything not including income taxes. But at 5K profit they would pay a lump sum ( forfait) and that would definitley come to more than 25% of the 5K. By paying no income tax they would have very little Taxe d’habitation to pay also. Unfortunately the problem in France begins when you start to make upwards of 30K ‚€ per year and then the state considers you to be borderline “aisé” At 5K others would pay for them and at 30K they would pay for others. Not a good system in my opinion but helas that’s France.
They should go ahead with their business but just be aware that they are going to pay and then find legal loopholes, like declaring your principal residence as your place of work and travelling when possible on corporate benefits etc. These can all be deducted in end of year results often through pro rata for corporate and personal use.
The problem is that it is so confusing at the begining and the administration thows these figures in your face before you have even served one customer that many abandon before they begin. The law makers seem to have been unable to understand these elementary rules of business, being that they come from specialized schools of Haute Administration and have never had to meet payroll once in their life with moeny they have had to earn. It is a hot issue. But as in any business, there are start up costs to take into consideration. Just tell(your friends) them to make sure they really want to do this as you then become “in the system” and need to churn out money just to pay your social charges. But there is some money to be made in France so you can supplement income or live fairly comfortably. It just takes a longer time. For those who have the burning (“la rage”) desire to create something on a larger scale, it would probably be a good idea to work in a more tax friendly environment than France.
If you come to the United States of America to live, you have to have the right paperwork. I don’t see Canadian’s trying to reconquista the north except for maybe in Quebec. The whole southern part of the United States is being taken over by radical’s that think Aztlan is the name of California, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas and parts of Colorado. The United States fought a war with Mexico and won. The treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was signed on February 2, 1848 giving the United States of America control of these territories. We didn’t steal these states, we beat their butts fair and square in a war, plus gave the Meskins a lot of money too; $15,000,000 for pretty much empty land with a few Indian’s running around the territory.
I suggest you let homeless people into your home, anyone that comes off the street as a good will gesture. Let them mow your yard, wash your clothes. Park cars in your yard and drink beer. Play their meskin radio’s loud and have then stare you down when you look at them. Have them drive drunk, because that’s what meskins do and run into people and kill them. It’s a machismo thing for them. Then you will be beginning to become a third world country just like the United States of America. BTW it is their right to be anywhere they want to be because they said so!
There is no practical difference between social security charges and income taxes. Both are collected by the government as taxes related to income and family situation. Indeed, they are now all but merged in the UK now. The distinction between the two is very much a historical anomally in most countries.
VAT is different in that it’s a tax on services, usually those classed as being “luxury” or “non-essential” in some way, although that definition can be blurred by successive governments.
The problem that he had was to do with the nature of software/online businesses in that there would have been virtually no costs to deduct which, in France, appeared to be a real problem in terms of the tax/social security situation.
I do accept that the system and philosophy behind it is different in France and that he knew how to go about it in the UK but perhaps not how to do the same thing quite so well in France which naturally would tend to inflate his calculated costs/charges. In some ways, that’s the problem ie that the system in France appears to be quite different than it is elsewhere in the world.
For example, in the UK (and I think also in the US/Canada/Australia) if you want to start a business, you just start. In France, you need to register it first. That in itself creates a barrier to the creation of new businesses which really needs to be gotten rid of. The large number of tiny companies in other countries just doesn’t exist in France, or where it does they tend to be “black economy” companies.