Migration and citizenship in the US and Turkey

The anti-immigrant policies of Trump, who in recent days is in serious trouble in America with his past catching up with him, which began with his election campaign and which he has been implementing since the early days of his presidency, mean, from whichever angle you look at them, abandoning the most fundamental approach that makes America America.

The American continent is a New World discovered at the end of the 15th century. After being discovered, it was filled with people brought by waves of migration, at different times and through different factors, from all over the world, chiefly and predominantly from Europe. The two main waves from Europe carried, on one hand, White Anglo-Saxon Protestants (WASP) weary of their wars and seeking freedom, and on the other, the lower classes of Europe who sought new opportunities and did not shrink from venturing for them.

In 1776 the US was founded, basing its founding philosophy precisely on the lessons drawn from this experience. America was to be a region of freedom and salvation. Moreover, the discovered world was the common discovery of all humanity and had to be open to those who might come from every part of the world.

Of course, however naive the way this philosophy is expressed may seem, it is well known that the first stages of its implementation were carried out through the savage genocide of millions of the continent's natives and, at the same time, the merciless enslavement of millions of blacks from Africa to be placed in the service of the New World.

Probably, since in the cosmological understanding of the WASP element Native Americans and Africans were not seen as human beings, a problem such as their freedom or equality was not even felt. That is why, for a long time, the understanding of freedom and equality in the US was lived and developed afflicted with such a contradiction.

On the other hand, the US continued to be open to participation from the outside world. The American nation took shape as a complete world mixture through the participation of people from every part of the world, and this situation was always regarded as a source of pride in American national discourses. Having been born in the US was regarded as a sufficient reason to be a citizen of the country. This practice is still accepted as a "right of soil" that expresses American identity.

The most important advantage provided by openness to the outside is that America manages to attract the most qualified population from all over the world to its country. Is this not essentially a characteristic of all empires throughout history? Strategies to attract the most qualified people from all over the world to the country are a principle that works like a reflex of empires.

Because all of America's rulers are aware of this, none of them has so far considered making concessions in immigrant policy. Because America has always seen immigrants as a source of its own power.

Despite the differences produced by migrations, America has not neglected to produce a "nation" from this population diversity by smoothing them out with an assimilation policy called the "melting pot". This has had different manifestations, and of course, on the other hand, it has not been independent of the racist tensions of those who follow this process closely and always and in every case regard themselves as "more American".

The segments on which Trump relies or whose spokesman he is have formed the historical base of a xenophobia that would make the US belong to those who are "more American". There is no humane dimension whatsoever in their way of claiming America or in the world of meaning America expresses today, and they have no respect whatsoever for the cultural diversity that built America with its labor and participation. As if it were not enough that they sucked their blood, enslaved them, exploited their labor, they displayed the most merciless racism in history against the black population until recent times, and even now this potential racism can be kept under control to a certain degree only by being suppressed. That is, it can break out again at any moment..

Despite this, America still has a practice that continues with reference to the same founding philosophy. Every year, Green Cards are given by lottery to 55 thousand people from all over the world, and those who hold this card can be taken into citizenship after five years. The US Immigration Bureau expresses the purpose of this practice as "to increase cultural diversity in the country's population". Although increasing cultural diversity is the basis, those who come quickly enter the "melting pot". Of course, in addition to this practice, together with those who obtain citizenship through other ways, especially the way called brain migration, or by investing 1 million dollars, it is known that the US gains nearly one hundred thousand new citizens from outside every year, that is, apart from the way citizens acquire it by birth. This rate corresponds to almost 3-4 per thousand of its population.

Meanwhile, there is a reality that emerges from the sum of this population development in the US. In America's very near future, the population balances are foreseen to change against the base that Trump represents. In particular, the ever-increasing share of the Hispanic population seriously worries the WASP segment, which sees itself as the "real owners of America".

That it worries them is, in one respect, quite natural, because within these population balances, the election that the Republican Party, in which the WASP cluster, won with Trump shows that it is also their last election. That is why it is possible to understand the aggressiveness of Trump and the segments supporting him in power recently..

In fact, America's quality as the empire of our age, as the country that has so far made use of migration in the most rational and most efficient way, has today made it the most powerful and most important country in the world in many respects.

The migrations being experienced in today's world and the differences in the ways countries cope with this problem require dwelling on this subject more. There is a difference between the experiences of countries, between those who see the migrant as a humanitarian situation and assume responsibility for it, and those who see it as a problem to be fought. Turkey's experience in this matter is certainly very original. But beyond seeing this migration as a humanitarian situation, can Turkey turn it into an opportunity?

Of course, our purpose in opening this subject through the US is not only to understand the US better. The side of the matter that concerns Turkey is much greater and requires us to develop serious policies these days. We need to look at how Turkey, which has become the primary refuge of the world's oppressed these days and therefore hosts a great number of migrants-refugees, receives, evaluates and manages this process.