Economic crises fail to halt labor migration because employers cannot replace migrant workers

Evidence

The Asian Crisis of 1997-98 caused significant changes in migratory patterns. Laborimporting countries tried to reduce dependence on foreign workers through nonrenewal of contracts and expulsion of undocumented workers. In Malaysia, for example, the government announced that up to a million workers would be sent home and there were mass roundups of illegals, who were confined in special camps before being sent back to Indonesia and the Philippines. However, there was great pressure for emigration from countries like Indonesia, where the crisis led to soaring unemployment. In any case, Malaysian plantation owners soon found that they could not manage without foreign workers. Even unemployed Malaysians were not prepared to do this type of work. The plantation owners lobbied for a halt to the expulsion policy. In fact the number of migrant workers deported was quite small, and new recruitment started again fairly rapidly. By 1999 Asian economies were recovering and migration resumed. In the long run the crisis actually exacerbated the income differential between the least developed countries and the better-off economies. — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 3881 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

In this model, ”eternal” is defined based on the relationship of surplus labor reserves to the mechanism of deportation. Used as a form of social control, deportation places immigrants within shifting notions of sovereignty in which they can be discarded during moments of crisis. — Junaid Rana, Terrifying Muslims, 770 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Labor migration is largely governed by informal networks that states cannot regulate; Economic crisis deepened migration because expelled workers resisted and employers demanded them back — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 3881; Deportation functions as social control that discards surplus immigrant labor during crises — Junaid Rana, Terrifying Muslims: Race and Labor in…, 770 (+2 more)

Broader Connections

• Economic crisis deepened migration because expelled workers resisted and employers demanded them back #corroborates (0.95) — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 3881
• Deportation functions as social control that discards surplus immigrant labor during crises #complicates (0.78) — Junaid Rana, Terrifying Muslims, 770