Looking like you don't belong.

I've been thinking a lot lately about about migration, both forced and voluntary.  Part of that may stem from the fact that there is a Refugee law exam looming on my calendar, but mostly it is from the world that we all live in.

Recently the United States has taken another nosedive into another divisive topic......immigration.  It seems as if the country goes from one polarising problem to another, politicians not gaining consensus but always blaming others for the problems of the world.  Regardless, migration is an issue for every country in the world.  Some suffer from emigration while other are worried about immigration.  Push factors propel people out of regions (war, drought, persecution, famine, natural disaster), while pull factors lead people to seek refuge or asylum in particular areas of the world (family, common language, viable job prospects).  It seems strange to me that while immigration has long been a popular topic when discussing the dynamic fabric of countries, migration has been rarely acknowledged.  However migration is at the very root of immigration.  America is a country almost completely filled with migrants and immigrants.  It is only at present that people are analysing the reality of migration; what it means when protracted refugee situations become intractable, what it means to be an "economic migrant".

In the nation-state model of the world, people fit neatly into boxes.  One person belongs on the left side of the border, another belongs on the right.  But now our world is littered with families on either side of the borders, with traders straddling the borders, with borders gone, with borders razor-wired, with landmines "protecting borders".  Reality is not neat.  Reality does not fit into boxes.

The new Arizona law causing such a stir in America calls for a reasonable suspicion determination when deciding to stop a person to check his/her status in the country.  I have been reminded over that last few days about what people seem to think suspicious means.  I have never seen a white person asked for their ID in Hong Kong, but last week I saw a man in tattered clothes pushing a dolly of goods on the street get stopped.  The police took his ID card and called in the number to check the authenticity.  Did he look like he didn't belong?  My flatmate was on her way to work the other day and she was stopped by the police and her ID details were checked.  Did she, a HK permanent resident, look like she didn't belong?  My flatmate's sister was boarding a plane in America last week to come to Hong Kong and officers at the airport stopped her from getting onto the plane to ask about her travel to Hong Kong, wanting all identification documents,  wanted know why she was going, where she was staying, proof of return ticket, what was her occupation, how much money she had on her person.... Did she, as a dual HK and US resident, not look like she belonged?  Regarding this last anecdote, it reminded me of something I read earlier this year.  Many countries are stationing officers at foreign airports whose job it is to interdict persons who look like they are going to to seek asylum or stay unlawfully in the country they are going to.  It's effectively illegal border patrol because it happens super-extraterritorially.

I understand the purpose of laws; I've spent the last four years gaining an intimate awareness of them.  But to me I cannot understand what we are all afraid of.  For all the talk on TV and in magazines about our "global world" there must be a real nascent fear about this very global world.  How can I, you, a police officer randomly select a person to check their status in HK, in America, in another country....it's clear that there is a you don't belong look.  The only problem with that look is that, as in the three instances that I mentioned, ALL do belong. 

Migration makes people of the same nationality different colors, speakers of different languages, wearers of different styles of clothing, livers of different kinds of lives.  That does not mean anyone belongs any less. And yet there is a pervasive fear of those perceived as not belonging, as infringing on your quality of life, as taking what is rightfully yours.  If they are illegally present then I understand, but if you target them, look at them, fear them because they look like they don't belong...check your premise, because many of the people you think don't belong actually do.