Come Back to Your S***hole Countries

My liberal conscience, which moves me to write poems for Amnesty Club about Rohingya refugees, forbids me to make a case for closed borders. My tendency to sympathize with the marginalized, being a female student of color at Exeter, makes it hard for me to disagree with the statement that anyone deserves a chance to pursue happiness, freedom, and a better life.

Nonetheless, it stands that from a utilitarian perspective I do not believe economic migration should be promoted, considering that it brings more harm than good for the world in the long run.

Because of these contradictory beliefs, I cannot take a firm stance for or against the tightening of the U.S. government’s immigration policies and wholeheartedly justify the arguments to myself. Neither can I offer an opinion on this country’s laws, and truly, as an international student who will likely never become a part of the voting constituency here, there is no reason why I should. That is not what this article is about. This article is not about whether the U.S. should or should not accept more economic immigrants. This article is about a citizen of a “sh**hole country,” addressing the citizens of other “sh**hole countries” who are dreaming, thinking about and starting the process of—or already finishing up—the final documents to emigrate to “more developed” nations. My take on this is simple. Come back to your sh**hole countries.

Nonetheless, it stands that from a utilitarian perspective I do not believe economic migration should be promoted, considering that it brings more harm than good for the world in the long run.

Your sh**hole country will never be any less of a sh**hole if you run away from it. Your sh**hole country will never be any less of a sh**hole if the ultimate goal for anyone who is educated, has connections, has capital, has physical strength, or has aspirations is to flee to somewhere with better resources and start a comfortable life, a second-rate citizen of the first world.

Despite their portrayal in the Western media, economic migrants are very often not the most destitute citizens of the most poverty-stricken nations. It is true that a greater percentage of immigrants come from the global South; using international migration lingo, one could describe 70 percent of migration trajectories in the world as South-North, for example from Mexico to the US, or South-South, such as from Bangladesh to the UAE. However, in a study of global migration over the last 20 years recently released in Science, a team of researchers concluded that “it’s countries in transition—still poor, but with some education and mobility—that are the highest migratory contributors.” There is a reason why one does not meet many immigrants from Malawi, Laos or Mozambique. Though migrants are oftentimes motivated by economic distress, their relative status in society must be one which grants them just enough economic security to finance a long, hazardous trip and the procurement of appropriate documentation. They are the privileged. It is incomprehensible to me how anyone could be comfortable running away with such a privilege, knowing there are so many less fortunate than them left behind.

We do not live in an ideal world. We can never live in an ideal world. But change has to begin somewhere, and doesn’t one more person choosing to return not expedite this process?

A contention that has oftentimes been brought up to counter this argument is the fact that migrant workers send back remittances to their home countries, which, in large proportions, might help to not only increase the wealth of their immediate family but also boost the economy at large. Last year, workers from the global South funnelled $325 billion into their home countries’ economy while being employed abroad; for places including Lebanon, Lesotho, Nepal and Tajikistan, remittances make up more than 20 percent of the national GDP. There certainly are mechanisms through which a country can take advantage of this influx of capital, such as diaspora bonds and remittance-backed securities, just to name a few. However, whether these mechanisms are employed or not is contingent upon the strength and vitality of domestic institutions; as is very often the case in developing countries, corrupt governments fail to recycle the economic boost. Public hospitals and schools thus remain overcrowded and underfunded in the face of an increase in remittances, only now they don’t even have enough doctors and teachers to serve the patients. Without adequately trained staff members, the quality of services further deteriorates: the rise in South-North medical tourism and study abroad programs, inherently exclusive privilege-based institutions, is concrete proof of this phenomenon.

In an ideal world, no cancer patient would need to travel abroad for a shot at recovery, and no child would need to be separated from their family for decent schooling. We do not live in an ideal world. We can never live in an ideal world. But change has to begin somewhere, and doesn’t one more person choosing to return not expedite this process? Such is the state of the world that I cannot argue against the necessity, the responsibility even, for citizens of the global South to learn from the global North. However, the important part is what they choose to do with that knowledge. The truth stands that no matter what tool they use to fight against discrimination, no matter how hard they try to prove themselves, citizens of sh**hole countries will always feel inadequate when standing alongside a born heir of developed nations. Should they then wrestle for a position in the society of developed countries and whine about inequality? Or come back, so that one day there will be no North-South divide at all?