The debate on immigration has become very trendy in recent years. Whether we are in Europe or America, or in my own country, Chile, there is an unruly debate about how many immigrants a state can take in. Sometimes, one even wonders if these recalcitrant exchanges should be called debates at all.

In any case, it is common for all countries experiencing large migratory flows to approach the phenomenon from different angles (security, human rights, national identity, etc.). And whatever the angle, it is common to hear charges of racism or xenophobia. There is a reason for this. In these discussions, not all immigrants are the same. They are perceived differently by locals and treated differently by locals. A Russian immigrant in Italy is unlikely to be referred to and treated in the same way as an African immigrant.

Accusations of racism or xenophobia aside, it is honest to recognize that these differences in treatment are not always intended to harm the immigrant but are a human response when we are confronted with someone who is strange to us (the term 'strange' is common in publications on immigration). This implies that the concept of international migration is animated by perceptions of difference—us/them, familiar/strange, and so on1.

However, perceptions are not usually expressed as dichotomies. It is more useful to think in terms of the perceived foreignness of a foreigner. For example, a Canadian immigrant in America will be "less of a foreigner" than a Filipino immigrant there, even though they are legally the same.

When there is a large immigrant presence in a country and perceived foreignness rises sharply, there is a perceived anomaly that needs to be addressed. In such cases, governments have two options to put an end to this anomaly: to deport the immigrants or to integrate them by making them citizens2. Total deportation is not a very viable alternative for the large number of immigrants. So this makes total deportation more of a populist desire than a real possibility.

The second alternative is then the one that concerns us. There are two ideal types of integration: assimilation and multiculturalism. In the former, immigrants are expected to give up distinctive elements of their culture to become indistinguishable from locals. In the latter, there is no requirement to give up anything. Instead, they are allowed to develop their own communities and to distinguish themselves from the locals in terms of language, culture, and social behavior.

These, I repeat, are ideal types. In practice we don't find any of them so pure. Yet multiculturalism is the dominant model. It is based on the idea that we should assume the equal value of all cultures because they are part of our identity and that we can suffer real harm if someone projects onto us an image that is incompatible with who we are3.

However, there is a dilemma in this inspiring model. Either we recognize that all cultures are of equal value and let them develop naturally without any intervention, or we assume that they do not have the value that multiculturalism ascribes to them, and we can therefore criticize them in the name of some criteria external to the culture—e.g., human rights or any other idea that prioritizes the individual over the collective.

A defender of multiculturalism might reply that this is a straw man of their argument; that there are elements of a culture that can be adapted or removed to meet some minimum standards. But to say this is to deny the very essence of multiculturalism, at least in its most classical version.

If we accept that some elements of a culture must be adapted or removed in order to respect some minimum standards, we deny the equal value of all cultures. In this case, the value of a culture depends on its compatibility with these minimum standards. A culture that does not have to adapt or remove some of its elements will be more valuable than another culture that has to adapt or remove some of its elements.

To sum up, when we talk about the integration of immigrants, multiculturalism warns us of the potential harm of not recognizing the image that immigrants have of themselves. However, we are not prepared to take multiculturalism to the limits of its logical implications. Therefore, a certain amount of assimilation is necessary to reach an integrated society in which some minimum standards are respected. This only shows the obvious: even open, liberal societies cannot get rid of the "conservative" practice of making explicit the core values that nourish them and are not subject to change.

As for the inevitable question of what the balance should be between assimilation and multicultural considerations, there is no a priori answer, only politics. As Miller4 (2018) notes, to achieve proper integration, immigrants must understand and recognize the culture of the society into which they are integrating and accept that there are contexts in which it is permissible to give symbolic priority to that culture. But he also adds that impartiality is essential in this process. Native citizens must not perceive that immigrants have more rights and fewer responsibilities than they do, nor must immigrants feel unfairly discriminated against because they are not native citizens.

References

1 Bartram, D., Poros, M. V., & Monforte, P. (2014). Key concepts in migration. SAGE.
2 Koser, K. (2007). International Migration: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford University Press.
3 Song, S. (2020). Multiculturalism. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
4 Miller, D. (2018). Strangers in Our Midst: The Political Philosophy of Immigration. Harvard University Press.