00:01I have a question for you. Whether you're pro-immigration, anti-immigration, or anywhere
00:06in between, is your opinion based on facts? Okay, here's an example. If a country tightens its
00:12borders, will it have fewer immigrants? The more difficult you make it to come, the more migrants
00:17tend to stay. Or another one. If a country, say in North Africa or the Middle East, develops its
00:22economy, will fewer people leave? That is simply a false assumption. Or this one. Will climate
00:28change lead to migration? The link between climate change and massive migration is not backed
00:33up by any evidence whatsoever. This is sociologist Hein de Haas, who says three decades of research
00:40shows that much of what drives migration debates is nothing more than myth, on both the right
00:45and the left. Morocco is one of the countries where de Haas did most of his field work.
00:50In July, over 70,000 Moroccans desperately stormed into the Spanish territory of Ceuta, and around
00:56one hundred of them died in the chaos. The crisis raised questions. Why were so many
01:01Moroccans fleeing their country, when according to economic data, there's never been a better
01:06time to live in Morocco? De Haas says the answer is the migration paradox.
01:11The migration paradox is the phenomenon that if poor countries become richer, migration increases.
01:18And that is totally contradictory what commonsensical ideas about migration tell us, that tell its
01:25poverty, its all sorts of misery in poor countries that leads to migration. Whereas in reality, development
01:33in the form of economic growth, growing education, better infrastructure tends to increase migration.
01:39It's a phenomenon laid out in his 2023 book, How Migration Really Works. And de Haas says Morocco
01:45is a perfect example. According to EU data, Moroccans were issued more EU residence permits than
01:50any other non-EU nationality in 2025, ahead of Ukrainians and Turks. At the same time, the
01:58Moroccan economy is rapidly developing. The per capita GDP has increased fourfold since 1980.
02:04It's a direct contradiction of what many European leaders have been saying, that if a country
02:09develops its economy, people will stop immigrating from there.
02:12So you can really see this literally in Morocco. And the interesting thing in Morocco, for instance,
02:17is that since the 1990s, living standards have doubled in Morocco. And I've been to Morocco ever
02:23since the late 1980s. And the country definitely is way better off than before. Poverty has decreased
02:30rapidly. Birth rates have decreased, but migration is at an all-time high. So it actually illustrates this
02:36migration paradox perfectly. And this explanation is in a way rather simple. Because it is very common
02:44to think that migration is driven by poverty and inequality. But migration is expensive. It is an
02:50investment in a better future, rather than this desperate flight from misery. People invest in their
02:58migrations, which is really expensive. And that means that it's not something that the poorest could do.
03:04And the other dimension is education and access to information. So typically, when people go to
03:10school, they no longer want to do the jobs their parents would still be happy to do. And they're
03:15generally no longer happy with the living conditions their parents may still have contended with. And it
03:21means that people change their aspirations and their ideas about the future. So development,
03:27therefore, increases both people's ambitions and aspirations and also their abilities to migrate.
03:33And that explains the migration paradox. One thing that struck me while talking to Professor
03:37de Haas about the migration paradox is that it seems to imply something cynical. That if Europe wants
03:43to reduce migration from Morocco, it should stop sending development aid. Is that what we should take
03:48away from this? No, I think first of all, aid is too small to have any such significant effect. To
03:55give the
03:55example of Morocco, the money that markets send back is 15 times the amount of development aid. So I think
04:01Europe
04:02should not overestimate what aid does. But I think it is, again, not not a valid argument. The real
04:08pool factor is labor demand, labor shortages. So I sometimes quip that, you know, if the economy does
04:15well, and there's lots of vacancies, lots of migrants will come. If the economy is not doing well,
04:22it's going into recession, unemployment goes up, labor demand goes down, immigration goes down. So from that
04:28perspective, by far the best way to stop migration is to destroy your economy. But that is, of course,
04:35something that nobody wants. And this exactly shows the conundrum in which we are. Because it's one thing to
04:40say I want less immigration. But are people really willing to bear the consequences of that? Because
04:47in a way, it means you'd have to make your country less attractive. Or you have to fundamentally reform
04:51your labor markets and much more take control in terms of government controls of the economy and labor
04:59markets and strengthen unions and all sorts of fundamental reforms will be required to increase
05:05control on immigration. And the irony is that over the last decades, by liberalizing our economy and
05:11labor markets, we have given up controls on immigration. So that is the big paradox. You
05:16cannot have this open, thriving market economy that is heavily liberalized. And at the same time,
05:23you want much less immigration. You can't have your cake and eat it too. Another migration myth that
05:28De Haas has set out to bust is the idea that tightening border controls leads to less migration.
05:33Well, border controls alone cannot stop migration. And I think the example is that 35 years of border
05:40restrictions have not been able to stop migration to Europe. In fact, migration has gone up. Primarily,
05:47this is because Europe has created more and more legal possibilities to immigrate, indeed to fulfill
05:53those labor shortages. And the other thing is, and this is another paradox in a way, it's fully
05:59understandable that European countries try to control immigration and try to limit
06:03immigration. The problem is, is that the more difficult Jamaica to come, the more migrants tend to
06:08stay. And Morocco, again, is the perfect case. Before 1991, Moroccans could move freely to Europe,
06:15and particularly to Spain. Many did so to work, but then returned because there was no visa. In 1991,
06:21the visa was introduced. Before that, permanent settlement was minimal. But as it became more difficult to
06:27come, migrants who would come, migrants who would get in would no longer go back. So in a way,
06:32restrictions push migrants into permanent settlement. Exactly the same happened with
06:36Turkish and other guest workers to Europe earlier on. And when migrants tend to settle,
06:42then they bring their family members over. And this is what I call the migration multiplier.
06:46So those immigration restrictions were misguided, because they didn't understand the real causes of the
06:54phenomenon. And they actually had unintended effects that made them backfire and made them
06:59counterproductive. And this shows that migration policy isn't easy. We need a much more sophisticated
07:05understanding of migration to develop more effective policies. And there's one more belief that the left
07:11harbors that Mr. de Haas calls a myth. So there is a widespread idea, and it's particularly popular
07:17on the left wing that climate change will lead to massive migration. And that one of the reasons that
07:24we should urgently address climate change is that in this way, we can prevent those massive migrations.
07:30Now, I want to start by stating that climate change is one of the biggest, if not the biggest problem
07:35that is facing humanity. So this is not about denying climate change, but it's making the link between
07:41climate change and massive migration is not backed up by any evidence whatsoever. We know from research
07:48that, for instance, in case of droughts, extreme weather events, floods, that most people try everything
07:55to stay. And if they have to move out, they tend to move over short distances and come back as
08:00soon as
08:00possible. In fact, we know that extreme deprivation and impoverishment as a result of environmental
08:07degradation, immobilizes people, prevents people from moving over long distances because it becomes
08:13more difficult because migration is expensive. So the biggest victims of climate change or any other
08:20form of deprivation, whether economic or political oppression, are those who cannot move or getting
08:27stuck in situations of what we call involuntary immobility. And these are the biggest victims. So if we are
08:35really concerned about the negative effect of climate change, we should be concerned about those who are
08:39not able to move. And this is another way in which not only on the right, but also on the
08:45left, a
08:45specter of massive uncontrolled migration is being used for all sorts of ideological and political purposes.
08:52De Haas isn't the only researcher to point out that migration is a natural phenomenon that has been
08:57happening for all of human history. Countries can have some influence over it with their policies.
09:02But first, you'll have to face the facts on how it actually works. I'm Amin Isif.
09:08Thanks for watching.
