A Review of How Migration Really Works: 22 Things You Need to Know About the Most Divisive Issue in Politics by Hein de Haas, 464 pages, Penguin (August 2024).

Few topics divide Western societies today as sharply as immigration. The optimists, often associated with the Left, view it primarily as enriching, while the pessimists, usually linked to the Right, perceive it as primarily threatening. This longstanding conflict has been threatening to spiral out of control. There is a real need for a book that provides the basis for a substantive and—as far as such a thing is possible—objective and even-handed debate. This is the book migration expert Hein de Haas claims to have written, based on thirty years of research. Unfortunately, he has failed to deliver.

Haas’s central argument is that migration is a “normal process,” which does not warrant panic. The message has struck a chord. The Guardian describes the book as a “powerful debunking of myths” and “a clear and rigorous corrective.” The Times Literary Supplement calls it “a brave venture,” which “resolutely trashes the assumptions both the left and the right use to prop up their belief systems.” The prestigious Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung thinks it a “fascinatingly told work” that “offends both left-liberals and conservatives equally.” In Haas’s native country of the Netherlands, the responses have almost been adulatory. “What was the Eureka moment?,” major Dutch newspaper NRC asked the professor. The book has already gone through many print editions and has been translated into numerous languages.

But the evidence De Haas provides is often weak and far from being an apolitical, purely factual account, the work is an overly simplistic, one-sided narrative that is ideologically aligned with the immigration optimism of the Left.

Immigration and the Social Science Echo Chamber

Surely an organisation like this, which researches and aims to accurately interpret attitudes to immigration, could be relied upon for accuracy?

QuilletteDavid Hansard

The book is not without merit. It is clearly and accessibly written and packed with relevant research findings. De Haas is at his strongest when emphasising that demand for labour often drives migration. People often leave their countries of origin in search of better salaries elsewhere. As De Haas points out, in many such cases, multiple actors benefit economically from this: the migrants; their countries of origin (because they send remittances); their employers; and consumers, who get cheaper services—since, De Haas argues, Western societies cannot pay early retirement pensions, maximise economic growth, and provide cheap services if they drastically limit immigration.

As De Haas points out, this presents a dilemma for the Right. Right-wing parties often present themselves as hardliners on immigration, but in practice, most right-wing parties continue to permit high levels of immigration because of the economic interests involved and the influence of powerful employer lobbies. De Haas maintains that the wealthy reap more of the benefits of immigration, while the poor bear more of the costs. I would argue that this can push disappointed working-class voters, who want a more restrictive policy, towards more radical and far-right parties.

Yet the book’s central theme is that we should not worry unduly about immigration. Immigration, the author reassures us, “is literally of all times” and is not happening at a particularly high level or fast rate today, nor does it pose a threat to social cohesion. Besides, De Haas writes, it is impossible to restrict immigration anyway: “Immigration is not something that can be turned on and off like a tap.” In fact, “border restrictions produce more immigration.” The widespread opposition to immigration should largely be disregarded as the result of either “sensationalist media reporting and political fearmongering” or of politicians using immigrants as scapegoats to divert attention from other economic and social problems.

Anyone who has been following leftist discourse about immigration for any length of time will recognise this narrative. It is an all-too-familiar tale. And it urgently needs a rebuttal.