Tomorrow I’m flying to the remote Italian island of Lampedusa with the students from my Immigration class at the University of Palermo. Lampedusa has long been famous as a tourist destination, perfect for snorkeling. Over the last ten years, however, the Italian government has turned Lampedusa into a massive refugee detention center. Wikipedia explains:
Workers: At what rate are you seeing refugees integrating into society? How would you improve that?
Refugees: How do you understand the resistance to your immigration?
Workers: What kind of societal organization do you see in the refugee camp? Were you expecting this or is it different than in previous locations you've worked? If different what explains this?
On the one hand, I understand your position that your position on immigration ought not be influenced by the squalid conditions of an immigration holding camp. Or that the conditions would make you question your core principles.
OTOH, having knowledge on the ground might be useful input when deciding what policies are practical or not. People in the camps might identify problems you haven't imagined (just to make something up, maybe cell phone service doesn't work well when you migrate and that's an inhibitor for migrants who want to send remittances). It might be useful to consider those practical issues which you wouldn't get from pure theory.
Given that Open Borders addressed many practical issues, I doubt this is a revelation to you.
If we had open borders, what proportion of your friends and family would migrate? where would you go? where would they mostly go?
Obviously correlation between people who choose to migrate and their family and friends, but would surely be interesting none the less.
Migrants:
- What was the life you left behind?
- What is the life you hope to achieve in Italy/Europe?
Workers:
- What single change or update to policy would you enact, if you were able? What problem would that fix?
Questions for the migrants;
"What obligations do you have towards your family, what obligations do you have to your host countries ?"
Compare and contrast.
If you could have your wish, what are the top three countries, in order, that you would most like to move to?
Workers: At what rate are you seeing refugees integrating into society? How would you improve that?
Refugees: How do you understand the resistance to your immigration?
Workers: What kind of societal organization do you see in the refugee camp? Were you expecting this or is it different than in previous locations you've worked? If different what explains this?
On the one hand, I understand your position that your position on immigration ought not be influenced by the squalid conditions of an immigration holding camp. Or that the conditions would make you question your core principles.
OTOH, having knowledge on the ground might be useful input when deciding what policies are practical or not. People in the camps might identify problems you haven't imagined (just to make something up, maybe cell phone service doesn't work well when you migrate and that's an inhibitor for migrants who want to send remittances). It might be useful to consider those practical issues which you wouldn't get from pure theory.
Given that Open Borders addressed many practical issues, I doubt this is a revelation to you.
For the migrants, if you entered the country via illegal traffickers, how much were you asked to pay?