THE RECESSION has made investment in the integration of immigrants more essential than ever, former attorney general Peter Sutherland has said.
Mr Sutherland, who is the UN secretary general’s special representative on migration and development, told a seminar hosted by the Immigrant Council in Dublin yesterday that, as unemployment continued to rise, there had been an “undeniable” rise in anti-immigrant sentiment across Europe.
“Those who support integration policies that allow us to attract the workers we need – those people are on their back heels,” he said.
Mr Sutherland pointed out that while perceptions of immigrants were becoming more negative, newcomers were also being particularly badly hit by the downturn.
However, some previous experiences suggested that downturns and attendant declines in immigration could produce an “integration dividend” for those who were already settled in a new 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.”
While integration was often framed as a burden for immigrants, including the responsibility to learn new languages, adopt the host country’s traditions and respect its laws, Mr Sutherland suggested it should also 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.”
The chairman of the Immigrant Council, John Cunningham, told the meeting that the recession must not be used as a wedge to divide “us” and “them”.
We must respond to calls to ‘look after our own’ during this recession by acknowledging that ‘our own’ now includes people from many diverse backgrounds and the reality that diversity is a permanent and positive feature of this country,” he told the gathering of business people, trade unionists, diplomats and others.
Sr Stanislaus Kennedy, the councils founder, said she was disturbed by the increasing amount of media coverage given to the nationalities of those who access social welfare here.
