Thank you to the Council and to all of you for inviting me here today I always enjoy your company.

I thought I would set the table by making a brief set of opening remarks, and then offer a little more depth on three areas:

First, on the effects of the economic crisis on migration-related trends

Second, on how we might respond to the rising global competition for skilled workers

Third, and primarily, on the urgent needed to reinforce our immigrant integration efforts

But first I would like to make a brief reference to the Lisbon Treaty. Simply to say that the Treaty itself is not directly relevant to the debate happening here. Although obviously there is a European dimension with or without the Treaty to the development of policies. My observations, therefore, will be more general and will be related to the economic crisis.

We all know, all too well, the extent of the economic crisis—and especially here in Ireland—so I won’t go into many details. But at least two points are worth underscoring at the outset of our discussion:

First, there is an undeniable rise in anti-immigration sentiment.

We see it in public opinion: MORI last week found that 69 percent in the UK consider immigration to be a big or fairly big problem, and 81 percent advocate “strict caps” on immigration. Most worryingly, there was a 20 percent increase since the start of the recession in the number who considered that their job was at risk from immigrants. A Sunday Independent poll last month, meanwhile, found two-thirds of Irish voters in favor of reducing immigration.

We saw it in the European elections, with the rise of the British National Party and of other far right-wing candidates elsewhere in Europe.

We see it in actions taken by Governments: But we see it in legislation in Mr. Brown’s new law in the United Kingdom, for instance, or in Mr. Cameron’s call to reduce immigration by 75 percent (from 200,000 to 50,000).

And we see it on the streets and in the workplace: in Belfast, we had the attack on Romanians this spring. Meanwhile, in May, Economic and Social Research Institute released a groundbreaking report on bias in the workplace that showed that people applying for jobs in Ireland are twice as likely to get an interview if their name is Irish rather than foreign.

Second, while many markets have stabilized in recent months, we still have not reached the bottom in the labor markets. As unemployment continues to rise, so too may the anti-immigrant mood. In many countries, this sentiment will be even more acute as welfare-benefits begin to expire.

The bottom line politically, then, is that those who support integration policies that allow us to attract the workers we need are on their back heels.

Now, all this would be troubling at any time. But contrast this with another interesting fact about the recent crisis: China and India have weathered the storm relatively well. And China and India, among other emerging regions, will be the West’s main competition for talented workers in the coming generation.

Already, the tide is shifting.

A Harvard recently found that among Chinese nationals who emigrated to the U.S. and later returned home, 72% said they thought professional opportunities were better in China. Among Indians who returned home, 56% said the same of their country.

The study also estimated that as many as 200,000 skilled workers from India and China will go home over the next five years, compared with roughly 100,000 over the past 20 years.

These are the kinds of workers who create jobs—entrepreneurs who build businesses, scientists around whose discoveries entire companies are built. But to make this case in these times is politically perilous.

But we must make the case, even against current of public opinion. I can not say I am hopeful that this will have any positive effect in the short term, but it will keep certain ideas alive and complicate the task of purely nativist forces.

There is, however, one area where we can and must make progress: the integration of our immigrants.

Eventually, opinion will come around to support the need for more skilled workers. But you simply cannot attract workers of any kind if you have a society that is fundamentally unfriendly to immigrants.

THE EFFECTS OF THE CRISIS ON IMMIGRATION

The crisis has many implications for migrants and their families—some expected, others less so. Among the expected impacts are:

Immigrants are the most vulnerable actors in the recession and are being hit first and hardest—largely because they are more heavily concentrated in job sectors that are affected significantly and early in an economic downturn, have lower skills and education on average, and have less experience in the host country’s labour market.

Flows of unauthorized migrants, contract and otherwise temporary (but not seasonal) workers, and students are being most directly affected; family and humanitarian flows the least affected.

Informal economies are likely to grow, and consequently so too is the exploitation of immigrants.

And, as I have already pointed out, perceptions of immigrants are becoming sharply more negative as foreigners are seen to take jobs, lower wages, and consume scarce resources, primarily in the form of social housing and other welfare benefits.

But migration flows are not completely predicable.

Let me offer one example: Despite declining new arrivals from Mexico to the US, there has not been a significant degree of return migration from the United States. These trends are notably different from what is occurring in some European countries, such as the UK, Ireland, and Spain, where migrants from Eastern Europe are returning to their countries of origin. Their circumstances are much different from illegal Mexican workers in the United States.

What does the changing economy mean for immigrants in the labour market?

Unemployment data for the native- and foreign-born in both the United States and Europe confirm this trend. Unemployment rates are much higher for immigrants in most countries and, in the United States, the unemployment rate among the foreign born from Mexico and Central America has increased dramatically since the recession began.

Yet while unemployment has risen more dramatically among the foreign born, immigrants (and especially illegal immigrants) may also be able to adjust more quickly to changes in the labour market by moving to where jobs are available.

Traditionally this is a uniquely American phenomenon. In the US people move and immigrants are likely to move more frequently. But recent evidence from Spain suggests that immigrants in Europe may also be open to changing their place of residence despite the limits on their visas and other natural barriers such as language. The Spanish Ministry of Labour and Immigration recently reported that unemployed Moroccans may be moving to France, Belgium, and Switzerland where they have family.

So what does all the data mean for immigrants and immigration? Clearly, as job opportunities become increasingly scarce, new immigration flows will slow although many will continue to migrate through family reunification and to a far lesser extent through humanitarian channels.

Many immigrants will also face growing pressure to return to their countries of origin, but the essential question to ask is: Return to what? The slowdown in advanced industrial economies has quickly spread to many developing economies and job opportunities are likely to be scare at home as well. Nobody knows exactly where the trigger point is—where circumstances in United States and Europe are so bad that the alternative appears more promising.

For migrants who have been out of work for about 15 months already, have already spent all of their savings, have moved in with relatives and friends, and then these relatives and friends all lose their jobs, then there is no other option than returning home (or, perhaps, homelessness). At what point will people ask themselves, “If I am going to be abjectly poor, maybe it is better to do so there than here?” One key variable may be the host society’s attitude—or stated otherwise, the degree to which xenophobia and racism emerge as they seem often to do in the context of hardship.

Further in the future, many countries face slower growth for the near- and medium-term as the globe experiences an anaemic recovery. Some countries may change their system to emphasize greater selectivity. This has been the focus of recent policy discussions in Europe, Canada, and Australia—although not yet in the US. Implicitly, the assumption is that a good engineer, even if unemployed, might be an asset when the economy starts growing again.

Some countries will try to select, even during the downturn. But even this approach is not foolproof. There is a documented phenomenon known as “economic scarring” whereby people who enter a country during periods of a recession—even those with needed skills—will delay 20 or more years before catching up with people with similar skills who entered the country during a period of good economic times. This is based on studies in Canada, Australia, and Sweden during periods of recession.

There will also be indirect impacts—notably remittances are shrinking, with real consequences for poverty in developing countries. Evidence from the 1997-98 East Asian financial crisis suggests that it took almost a decade for the poverty headcount to regain its pre-crisis levels in level in affected countries—and this in the context of an extremely favourable external economic climate with strong export demand. Children in these countries suffered in terms of health and education: Research on Indonesia’s experience during the 1997-98 crisis found that very young children suffered from higher rates of malnutrition during the downturn and that this led to permanent cognitive impairment in many children; in addition, following the crisis the number of children age 7 to 12 who were not enrolled in school doubled in rural areas.

The final, perhaps most disconcerting implication of the current global economic crisis on international migration may be an enduring shift in the demand for the lowest skilled immigrants. In countries with high levels of consumption (of both goods and services), there will be demand for less skilled immigrants who help keep costs down.

But there is always a trade-off when it comes to consumption and investment. And there is a trade-off between continuing with low wages, low skills, and low valuated jobs versus making initially costly investments in human capital with the hope that these will produce dividends in the future. The first approach keeps costs of living low but can lead to inequality and poverty; the second approach implies higher costs and slower growth. In the end, these are difficult political and economic decisions that are intrinsically tied to the levels of immigration that a country needs and ultimately receives.

THE GLOBAL TALENT COMPETITION: HOW TO RESPOND

So, the backdrop to a discussion about labour migration is not especially promising, but as I mentioned, it’s a conversation we must continue.

I mentioned earlier that the pursuit of skilled workers is now a global one, with China, India, Brazil, and other emerging democracies competing with the traditional countries of immigration, as well as with the reluctant countries of immigration—by which I mean Europe, but also Japan.

The flip side to this, for Europe and Japan at least, is the darkening demographic picture—one we all know well (although it has less application to Ireland than elsewhere in the EU).

So, with competition over the next decade inevitably growing, and with labor pools in Europe shrinking, what should policymakers do (and what should we be urging them to do)?

I would argue that our migration systems need to become more flexible and responsive to labor market and economic conditions.

IMMIGRANT INTEGRATION: THE HEART OF THE FUTURE

Eventually, the recession will end, and policymakers will focus again on attracting immigrants. But no selection system, no immigration policy can work if our societies are fundamentally unappealing to immigrants.

So, with or without an economic crisis, the challenge of integrating immigrants should always be at the top of our policy agenda. Interestingly, history tells us that economic downturns, and attendant declines in immigration, can produce an “integration dividend” for immigrants who are already in a country. Following the Great Depression in the United States, immigrants there were able to use a time of crisis and restrictions on new migrant flows to fully establish themselves…

Investments in the integration of immigrants are more essential than ever. And, in making these investments, we must not allow ourselves to be distracted by ideological debates that are essentially red herrings.

Integration is mostly discussed now as a burden that immigrants are meant to bear. They must learn the language, adopt our traditions, respect our laws. There is of course truth to this, but allow me to offer you a different way to think about the issue.

Integration should be about enabling those people who come to our country to become who they want to be—through education, through work, and through participating in our political and social institutions.

This is, after all, the essence of our contemporary liberal democracies—they allow individuals to fully realize their potential. And our openness is also at the heart of our ability to compete in the 21st century; if we are recognized as a liberal society in which people can realize their ambitions, then we will stand apart from most of the world and attract the best and brightest.

If we think about integration in this light, then the burden of responsibility becomes more evenly distributed. Immigrants must make real efforts, as almost all do, to work hard and respect our laws and our essential values. But we, too, must change, as individuals and as a society.

We have to ensure that the playing field is level, that access to our schools, to public services, to employment, and to political representation are fair and equal for all members of our community. This demands of us to rethink our institutions, as well as our own attitudes about what it means to be Irish or British or French or German or Dutch.

Recently, one of the most enlightened American voices on immigration, the Most Rev Nicholas Di Marzio, Archbishop of Brooklyn, shared these wise words: “Immigrants integrate only from a position of strength. When they are affirmed and accepted, when they are welcomed, then they understand their responsibility to become part and parcel of a culture which is open to them.”

In thinking about our future, we need to know what is not attainable. Cultural homogeneity is no longer possible—we should not be tilting at that windmill. This is not because of immigration alone—or even primarily—but because of the revolutions in communications, transportation, and commerce. Nor does it mean that our culture will weaken—in fact, the internet and globalization are tools that can strengthen and spread cultures.

As we go forward, we have to rebalance multiculturalism with vigorous policies that draw all residents of our communities—newcomers and old-timers alike—into society. The parts of multicultural policy that we should protect are those that allow and encourage all citizens to express their cultural and religious identities as equals.

If I were to leave you with only one unifying thought, it would be this: In thinking about our future, we should pour our energy into creating shared experiences: Simply put, we cannot expect people to integrate into our societies if we are all strangers to one another.

We have had a breakdown in the institutions that once brought citizens in the West together—church attendance has plummeted, labour union rolls have dwindled, military conscription is no longer the norm. Our media, meanwhile, have fragmented to the point where we inhabit our own individual media worlds—symbolized by the sight of people walking down streets imprisoned in their iPods. One neighbor watches al-Jazeera, the other Fox—and they develop two very different, often dueling, views of the world. New technologies might unite people globally, but they risk dividing us locally.

The ethnic polarization in schools throughout much Europe, meanwhile, is dramatic. Where once school populations more or less represented the communities around them, now they tend to be polarized. Why should we care? The evidence shows us that greater segregation leads to lower employment, lower earnings, lower education participation. Different schools for different groups also usually leads to different quality—and so those who go to lesser schools have their prospects defined not by their own ambitions or skills, but by their ethnicity. Studies also have shown that when children do not mix at elementary level, it becomes more difficult for them to make friendships across racial divides as they get older. The resulting tribalization is bad for our societies.

So in thinking about creating shared experiences, we must start by looking at our schools—at their make-up, at their quality, and at their curriculum. All of these dimensions must be suited to a diverse society. We have schools in which minorities make up the majority of students—in parts of Berlin, minority representation exceeds 80 percent. Solving this might be the most vexing riddle we face, since it is tied to segregation in housing and to economic inequality, which is widening.

But there are parts of the school experience that we can shape more easily. Let me point to four:

Early schooling: We need to ensure access to schooling for all residents as early as age three. Research around the world is telling us that perhaps the single most important factor in leveling the playing field for the children of newcomers is to provide language tuition at a very early age.

Curriculum That Reflects Diversity: We need to make sure the curriculum, especially in social studies, reflects the diversity of our societies. Unless everyone has the same level of understanding about everyone else’s lives, we will not be able to get along. as As the head of the UK Equality and Human Rights Commission, Trevor Phillips, once memorably noted, merely attending cultural festivals is not multiculturalism—it is domestic tourism.

Civics: We need to rethink how we teach civics and citizenship in our schools. We can no longer approach this task passively. We have to train children not only in how their societies are run, but also in how to think freely. Democrats are made, not born.

Discrimination: Finally, we must eliminate any and all forms of bias in entry to higher education. Throughout much of the West, ethnic minorities are under-represented—and this under-representation is not the result of ability. In France, active recruitment in minority neighborhoods and less culturally biased application procedures have made a remarkable difference in driving up minority enrollment at elite universities.

Meanwhile, shared experiences in education need not only happen in schoolhouses during the school year. We should invest in experiments that bring children together in camps during the summertime. We might go even further by creating new forms of shared experiences amongst youth—obligatory community service for school graduates could be one idea worth exploring.

This is the text of a speech delivered by Peter Sutherland to The Immigrant Council of Ireland