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Ghosh, Bimal. 1998. Huddled Masses and Uncertain Shores Insights into Irregular Migration. The Hague. Kluwer Law International. Martinus Nijhoff Publishers. http://www.kluwerlaw.com April.

Bimal Ghosh is an original thinker. His far-ranging experiences in the United Nations system have given him a unique vantage from which to assess current issues that defy easy solution. This five-chapter 200-page book lays out Ghosh's definition of the illegal immigration problem and his recommended solutions.

Illegal, irregular, or unauthorized migration is one such issue. According to Ghosh, about one-third of the annual inflow of foreigners into the US is unauthorized, as is one half of the yearly inflow to Europe (the INS estimated that net unauthorized immigration was 300,000 in FY96, when legal immigration was 916,000). Migrants pay for the privilege of being smuggled into richer or safer countries; Ghosh reports that the smuggling business may total $7 billion a year and is increasingly linked to criminal gangs that are also involved in arms and drugs trade. Foreign aid, by comparison, is about $50 billion a year.

Ghosh paints with a broad brush. He begins by noting that incentives for economically-motivated migration are rising in a world of increased inequality, that information about opportunities and the means to access them are spreading even to remote areas of the globe, and that the industrial democracies that are the destinations of many migrants often have contradictory policies toward them: they want their labor, but do not welcome the migrants into their communities as fellow citizens. If current policies continue, Ghosh expects illegal immigration to increase.

Ghosh argues that the current enforcement policies of industrial democracies toward irregular migrants emphasize controls and punishment. He urges that stricter controls be coupled with new opportunities for legal entry, including providing temporary safe haven, permitting family unification and permitting guest worker employment. The suggestion that avenues for legal entry be opened to reduce illegal migration is not new: the trick is how to substitute legal for illegal migration, and not simply add illegal to now legal movements.

Ghosh calls on the industrial countries to look inside their own back yards as they tackle the "root causes" of unwanted migration. Restricting imports of agricultural commodities and textiles, for example, reduces employment in emigration countries and increases employment for migrant workers in industrial countries. Similarly, tolerating a large sector of the economy operating without regulation provides opportunities for migrants to find jobs and incomes.

While taking steps to reduce demand-pull factors that encourage immigration, Ghosh also calls for efforts to reduce supply-push factors, and cooperation to deal with network factors such as smugglers. Ghosh believes that closer cooperation between sending and receiving countries could reverse the trend toward more illegal migration.