The apartheid system that existed in South Africa from 1948 until the early 1990s was an example of an extreme form of racial segregation. The following paragraph, from the Apartheid Wikipedia entry (accessed 14 October 2021), describes some aspects of life under apartheid.
Black people were not allowed to run businesses or professional practices in areas designated as “white South Africa” unless they had a permit – such being granted only exceptionally. … Black people were excluded from working in white areas, unless they had a pass. … Spouses and children had to be left behind in black homelands. … Being without a valid pass made a person subject to arrest and trial for being an illegal migrant. This was often followed by deportation to the person’s homeland and prosecution of the employer for employing an illegal migrant. Police vans patrolled white areas to round up blacks without passes.
The following paragraph is the same as the paragraph above, but some substitutions have been made.
Mexicans are not allowed to run businesses or professional practices in the US unless they have a permit – such being granted only exceptionally. … Mexicans are excluded from working in the US, unless they have a pass. … Spouses and children (often) have to be left behind in Mexico. Being without a valid pass makes a person subject to arrest and trial for being an illegal migrant. This is often followed by deportation to Mexico and prosecution of the employer for employing an illegal migrant. Police vans patrol the US to round up Mexicans without passes.
Of course instead of Mexicans we could have said Haitians or Nigerians or Bangladeshis etc. etc. Or we could have been more general and said citizens of poor countries. The depressing fact that South African apartheid is an almost exact analogy of immigration restrictions was pointed out by the economist Lant Pritchett in his book Let their people come: Breaking the gridlock on international labor mobility, published in 2006. Pritchett’s book contains the following paragraph, which describes both South African apartheid and today’s world of immigration restrictions:
People are not allowed to live and work where they please. Rather, some are only allowed to live in places where earning opportunities are scarce. Workers often have to travel long distances and often live far from their families to obtain work. The restrictions about who can work where are based on conditions of birth, not on any notion of individual effort or merit.
Pritchett describes not only the similarities between apartheid and our system of immigration restrictions, but also opposition to apartheid in the US:
[T]he international condemnation of South Africa’s apartheid was intense in the United Sates. Protesters in the United States felt that it was morally intolerable that, in this day and age, a system would be maintained that sharply limited the mobility of people, that kept people in disadvantaged regions with no economic opportunities, that destined millions to lives without hope, and that split workers and their families—merely because of the conditions of their birth.
It’s useful to contrast the outrage directed towards apartheid with the lack of outrage directed towards immigration restrictions, despite the fact that the economic consequences of immigration restrictions are much greater than the economic consequences of South African apartheid (see Chapter 2. Trillion-dollar bills on the sidewalk).
Questions
- What are some similarities between South African apartheid and our system of immigration restrictions? What are some differences?
- Should people who oppose apartheid also oppose immigration restrictions?
8. Coronavirus lockdowns versus the worldwide immigration lockdown