Migration

From exclusion to integration:

Author: Rodrigo Carrillo

Migration to countries in the Global North remains one of the most pressing issues on the international agenda, yet public debate remains trapped in a logic of border control, containment, and externalization of borders. The political conversation often focuses on how to reduce migration flows, tighten controls, and shift responsibilities to third countries, while neglecting a key question: what to do with migrants who are already arriving and, in many cases, staying.

Regarding migration exclusively as a security challenge is an incomplete and increasingly unsustainable perspective. However, the economic and social integration of migrants can become a source of growth, innovation, and resilience for host economies. In other words, the real discussion should not be limited to how to contain human mobility, but rather how to transform it into a shared opportunity.

Recent research on Mexico and Turkey offers particularly useful lessons for the United States and Europe, respectively. For decades, both countries were viewed as transit territories. But the tightening of migration policies in the Global North transformed this reality. Today, both countries have become places of return and permanent residence for thousands of migrants and refugees. To cite a few figures, in Mexico, asylum applications rose from just over 2,000 in 2014 to more than 250,000 in 2024, while Turkey came to host around 3 million people, mostly under temporary protection schemes.

This shift has forced Mexico and Turkey to face challenges familiar to traditional destination countries: pressure on institutional capacities, labor market integration in segmented markets, administrative difficulties in regularization, and the need to build sustainable integration mechanisms. What is significant is that these challenges unfold in economies with high levels of informality and more severe institutional constraints. In Mexico, labor informality stands at approximately 56%, while in Turkey it is around 28%. And yet, the evidence shows that there are real opportunities to turn migration into an economic advantage when minimum conditions for integration are created.

One of the most important findings of the aforementioned study is that early access to employment and entrepreneurship is one of the most decisive factors for sustainable integration. In Mexico and Turkey, many migrants begin by working in the informal sector or under precarious conditions. This is often due to regulatory obstacles, difficulties in obtaining documentation , limited recognition of professional credentials, and restrictions on accessing the financial system.

The difference becomes apparent when basic integration mechanisms are in place. Immigration regularization, work permits, access to financial services, and some institutional support radically alter economic trajectories. When a person can work formally, open a bank account, rent housing with greater certainty, or start a small business, they stop organizing their life around immediate survival and begin to build long-term plans. This makes staying in intermediate countries more attractive and reduces incentives to migrate to the United States or Europe.

Limiting human mobility without strengthening integration does not necessarily reduce, in the long term, the incentives to emigrate. Rather, it leads to greater precariousness, a waste of human capital, and fewer economic benefits for host countries. When migrants remain trapped in the informal sector, the costs are not merely fiscal. Access to social security, formal savings, credit, and real opportunities for social mobility is also limited. In Mexico, it is estimated that only 23.6% of employed refugees report access to public health services through their work, while among asylum seekers, barely 12.7% have access to formal employment.

Conversely, economic integration generates significant multiplier effects. It can help reduce dependence on public assistance, increase tax revenue, strengthen social cohesion, and boost local economies. Migration is thus no longer perceived solely as a strain on public resources but begins to be understood as a potential source of productivity.

These conclusions are particularly relevant for Europe and the United States because they show that migration management cannot be limited to containment policies or border control. The comparative experience of Mexico and Turkey suggests that strengthening integration conditions in countries traditionally considered transit countries can alter migration incentives in a more sustainable way.

Both the European Union and the United States should complement their border management policies with a more robust agenda of regional shared responsibility. It is not enough to outsource migration controls to transit countries; it is also necessary to strengthen their capacities for reception, regularization, and economic integration.

This involves expanding financial and technical cooperation aimed at reducing regularization times, facilitating access to work permits, promoting financial inclusion, and strengthening migrant entrepreneurship programs. Evidence from Mexico and Turkey shows that entrepreneurship is a significant pathway to economic autonomy and integration, particularly when there are barriers to accessing formal employment.

In the European context, Germany occupies a particularly strategic position in this debate. As the region’s leading economy and a central actor in migration policy, it could spearhead a more ambitious agenda for cooperation with intermediate receiving countries. This entails not only supporting migration management schemes but also investing more decisively in productive integration and institutional strengthening in countries such as Turkey.

Such a strategy would allow for the simultaneous addressing of several structural pressures: reducing incentives for irregular secondary mobility, distributing migration responsibilities more evenly, and generating greater regional stability.

The question for Europe and the United States should not be solely how to contain migration, but how to help ensure that the countries where migrants are increasingly settling today can offer real conditions for integration, autonomy, and the rebuilding of their lives.

Even in complex institutional contexts, there are opportunities to transform human mobility into economic and social stability. Investing in integration in transit countries is not simply an extension of migration policy; it is a long-term regional governance strategy.

At its core, the discussion on migrant integration is also a conversation about international shared responsibility. If Europe and the United States seek more sustainable migration systems, they must recognize that strengthening integration capacities in transit countries is not an additional cost, but a strategic investment with shared benefits.