World roundup: a sampling of the reasons why some people move from their homelands to new countries.

Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.

This invitation is chiselled into the base of the Statue of Liberty, and for more than a century migrants have answered its call. The United States is a country built by immigrants. Now, their descendants are saying it's time to close the door to any more newcomers, particularly those who arrive illegally.

The Urban Institute carried out a study of illegal migration in 1994. It put the annual cost to American taxpayers at $2 billion. This is to pay for imprisonment, health care and schooling for illegal In California, it costs state taxpayers $400 million a year to maintain health services for illegal migrants. The children of illegals occupy 308,000 places in the state's schools. Texas, Florida, and New York City, the other main destinations for other illegal migrants, face similar problems. However, pro-immigrant groups counter with equally convincing arguments and figures showing that migrants, even illegal ones, contribute in a big way to local economies.

There's no question, though, that migration is causing some profound changes in California. The state's population is growing at a faster rate than India's; one new classroom must be built every hour to keep pace with the increase. The U.S. Bureau of Census says that by 2005, white, non-Hispanic people will be a minority in the state; in 1980 they made up 76% of the population.

Asians and Hispanics (mostly Mexicans) are settling there in vast numbers, some legally others not. Nearly six million of the state's 32 million people speak Spanish at home. At the same time, white Americans have begun moving out. They are following jobs that have moved, but they are also trying to escape the urban crime and riots of such cities as Los Angeles. Man don't like the direction the ethnic balance of their state is moving in and are distancing themselves from it. Elsewhere, Americans see California as the future, and they don't much like it.

The number of Asians in Minneapolis tripled in the 1980s. Hispanics by the millions have moved into Florida and Texas. Large numbers of Vietnamese have settled in cities in New England. During the 1980s, the white population of the U.S. increased by six percent, the black population by 13%, the Hispanic by 53%, and the Asian by 108%.

The changes taking place in some areas are causing tensions. Whites feel their way of life is threatened by the new arrivals. Blacks see the numbers of Hispanics rising above theirs and seizing their claims to putting right the wrongs of years of discrimination. Among Asians, traditional enmities (Japan-Korea, Vietnam-China, Muslim-Hindu) are crossing the seas with the migrants. Recent surveys have revealed that ethnic minorities hold more negative views of other minorities than do whites.

But, all of this has happened before. A century ago, tens of millions of immigrants arrived in America transforming its cities. They came from southern Europe, Scandinavia, famine-stricken Ireland, industrializing Germany, and the persecutions of eastern Europe. They provided the cheap labour that fuelled the boom of American capitalism. But, there was a reaction to this flood of newcomers. In 1922, the immigration door was slammed shut and it wasn't opened again until 1965.

The mood today is similar to that of 1922. In November 1994, Californians turned against illegal migrants. They voted in favour of a referendum, Proposition 187, that removes social services from illegal immigrants. The Proposition, known locally as the Save Our State initiative, makes illegal aliens ineligible for welfare, food stamps, and non-emergency health care. It also closes all education facilities to the children of illegals. All state and local agencies will be required by law to report all suspected aliens to immigration authorities and the penalties for selling phony documents are much tougher. It's likely the Proposition will be tested in court by those who claim it is unconstitutional.

Estimates of the number of illegals in California start at 1.7 million and go up from there. Time Magazine reported: "[The vote! is a measure of the deep dissatisfaction with the generosity of the welfare state that the public has seized on aliens as the enemy within." In public opinion polls, three quarters of Americans believe the U.S. government is not doing enough to keep out illegal migrants.

However, there are many who worry about the impact of such laws. Half the students at Belmont High School in Los Angeles have no legal documentation. Police and teachers are concerned about what will happen if these more than 2,000 students and others like them are suddenly dumped onto the streets without an education. The principal of Belmont High sums it up: "We have to educate these young people, we have to teach them what we want them to learn here, or they will learn what they think they need to know in the streets."

Many of the illegal migrants enter the United States and other Western countries by hiring the services of people smugglers. For them, business has never been better.

Some experts say that 100,000 Chinese people a year get into the United States illegally; three times the number who immigrate legally. The traffic in humans is said to be a $3 billion-a-year business in an operation that has branches in Hong Kong, San Francisco, Paris, New York, and elsewhere. The enormous profit that can be earned has attracted organized crime and former drug dealers into the trade.

China has become a major source of illegal migrants. There's an economic boom going on in China but there are millions who aren't sharing in it. For them, the chance, however slim, of making a fortune in the United States, Canada, the European Union, or elsewhere is better than the certain poverty they face at home. Some illegal migrants do make it big. Stories of their success, no doubt greatly exaggerated, get back home and encourage others to take their chances. But, for the vast majority the story does not have a happy ending.

The journey starts with a broker in a village. These people are well-known locally, so it's a simple matter to arrange for passage. From his or her village, the migrant travels to a staging point in Fujia province in southeastern China. A group of migrants is then ferried out to a ship waiting off the coast. This is not a luxury cruise with outside cabins. For the ocean crossing, the migrants are likely to be kept in the hold of the vessel, and fed very poor food. Others may be locked, by the dozen, inside a large metal container normally used for shipping cargo, with a large bucket for a toilet.

After 40 to 50 days at sea, the ship arrives off the coast of Mexico. There, small craft ferry the migrants ashore under cover of darkness. The people are then guided overland to the U.S. border to slip across at night. Met on the other side, they are driven by truck to Los Angeles before being sent on to New York. Some migrants are sent around the world from East to West - sometimes overland, sometimes by air. The Chinese community in New York is now getting overcrowded, so many new illegal migrants are moving out to other cities on the Atlantic seaboard, and to the Los Angeles and San Francisco areas.

Sometimes, the trip goes horribly wrong, as it did in June 1993. A coastal freighter, Golden Venture, ran aground off New York City. It was carrying about 300 illegal Chinese immigrants who jumped overboard and tried to swim ashore. At least eight would-be immigrants didn't make it. In another incident, 37 Chinese women on a smuggler's ship were raped by the crew. Others are luckier. In July 1993, the U. S. Coast Guard stopped three ships off Mexico that were crammed with 658 illegal Chinese migrants. All were sent back to China.

For the human cargo, the end of the journey is usually the start of a new nightmare. The going price for smuggling one person into the United States is about $30,000. Of course, no Chinese peasant can put their hands on that kind of money, so a system of payment" has evolved. Once smuggled in, the migrant begins years of toil in a garment sweatshop or restaurant paying off the price of their ticket. Those who don't hand over their pay cheques are beaten and abused in other ways. For most, there is only menial work at $2 an hour at best. And, as new waves of desperate migrants arrive these low wages are being driven lower still. Others fall prey to the shetou, meaning snakehead. These are the gangs from China's underworld who control much of the people-smuggling business. There are thought to be as many as 50 Chinese crime groups now active in America, many of them linked in an underground network. Some illegals are held captive by the gangs, until their relatives can raise a ransom to free them. Some of their clients, unable to pay their debts, end up being forced to work for the gangs as enforcers or drug couriers.

They can't go to the police or immigration officials because that would expose them as illegal migrants. Many wished they'd never left. As one illegal puts it: "They think America will be heaven on Earth. Maybe it's a living hell."

Other illegal migrants come from Latin America and the Caribbean. In April 1994, the RCMP cracked a ring that was bringing illegals from Guyana. The Mounties said the ring was smuggling people at the rate of 30 to 40 a month and making a profit of as much as $3.5 million (U.S.) a year. Using false papers, the illegals entered Canada with documents showing them to be landed immigrants. They were then taken to "holding houses" in Toronto before being smuggled across the border into the U.S.

Another route to the West is through Russia. Officials there estimate that 100,000 people have been smuggled through their country since late in 1990. Those who make up this human traffic come mostly from Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Somalia, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Iran. The smuggling has been made easier by corrupt Russian officials in the Third World who have been selling travel documents for $500 and up. Other Russians have set up 'travel agencies" to organize the transport of groups of illegal migrants. Once in Russia, the migrants are escorted to the Baltic coast and then landed from a boat onto an unguarded section of Swedish or coastline.

Other migrants try to arrange their own hazardous passages. During the spring and summer of 1994, huge numbers of Cubans and Haitians attempted the dangerous crossing from their homes to the Florida coast.

The reasons for the flight of tens of thousands of people are not hard to understand. Both countries are among the poorest in the Western hemisphere, and in both political oppression reached new heights of cruelty. Five hundred kilometres away (less than a hundred in the case of Cuba) is the world's richest nation, the "Land of the Free." For many, who have lost all hope of a secure future in their homeland, the risky sea voyage seems worth it.

They were also encouraged by a change in American policy to make it easier for Haitians to enter the U.S. Previously, Washington had taken the view that Haitians were just trying to escape poverty and so could not expect to be granted asylum. That status was to be given only to people fleeing persecution. Then, the huge numbers taking to the boats caused another American change of policy and the doors was slammed closed again.

In one four-day period in July 1994, the U.S. Coast Guard picked up 10,000 Haitian boat people. In the same month, a boat carrying 200 capsized and half the passengers drowned. Others, probably numbering several thousand, have disappeared at sea in their flimsy craft, swept past Florida and into the Atlantic by strong ocean currents. Some died of sunstroke, dehydration, or exposure. Others were taken by sharks.

U.S. President Bill Clinton dealt with the Haitian problem by invading the country and restoring its democratically elected government. Halting the flow of migrants permanently will take billions of dollars of aid to bring the country's standard of living up to some more reasonable level.

Stemming the flow from Cuba is more difficult. A stopgap measure has been to deny access to the U.S., a reversal of a 35-year policy of accepting Cuban refugees. Invasion is not an option because Cuba is not the military pushover that Haiti was. Sending the migrants - balseros, or rafters, as Cubans call them - back would be seen as heartless. For the time being, they are being housed, all 50,000 of them, in U.S.-run refugee camps. There is an agreement for the U.S. to accept more Cubans and for the Cubans to stem the flood, but Cuba's leader Fidel Castro knows he can harass the U.S. any time he wants to by releasing another wave of balseros.

The U.S. wants to avoid a replay of the Mariel boat lift of 1980. That exodus dumped 125,00 Cubans onto Florida's beaches in five months. At the time, Fidel Castro took the opportunity to empty mental hospitals and prisons and to slip the inmates in amongst the refugees headed for the U.S.

To disadvantaged people all over the world the United States is a symbol of prosperity and freedom. Most probably have a completely unrealistic ideal of what life there is really like. But, those symbols and ideals are powerful magnets drawing them into chancing their luck as a migrant.

SUGGESTED ACTIVITIES:

1. Today, 6.8% of the people living in the U.S. are foreign-born, compared with 8.8% in 1940. However, the perception among many Americans is that the country is being swamped by migrants. Discuss examples of the difference between perception and reality and the role the media plays.

2. Mickey Conroy is a conservative politician in California and author of three anti-immigrant bills in the state legislature. He says: "We are absolutely bankrupt in this state and those people who are here legally are being denied services for lack of money. It's an economic question. Do you take care of someone else's citizens before you take care of your own?" How would you counter Mr. Conroy's arguments? Would you bother trying?

3. Time Magazine recently wrote that: The U. S. long lashed Castro for keeping his people prisoner, now it is urging him to stop them from fleeing - while simultaneously cutting off family remittances and worsening the poverty driving most of the balseros to brave the perils of the Straits of Florida." Assign a team of students to investigate U.S. policy towards Cuba and suggest ways in which it could be changed.

Afghanistan

The Sar Shahi camp sits on a barren plateau of rocks and gravel. There is no natural water source within one hour's walk and no shade from the blistering summer heat. This is home to 118,000 people who have had to leave their homes because of the civil war that still rages in their country. The camp grows by about 30 families a day, most of whom have fled Kabul, the capital. Until January 1994, most of these people would have gone to join the 1. 5 million Afghans already in Pakistan. Now, that border is closed to refugees, who must choose between internal camps such as Sar Shahi or Iran. The worst thing is the heat," says one refugee. That and the scorpions and the snakes. This is not a place to live."

The Maldives

This peaceful group of more than one thousand small islands in the Indian Ocean would be described by most people as paradise. But, it is a paradise that may well disappear. If the environmentalists are correct, global warming will melt water now frozen in the polar ice caps. This will have the effect of raising sea levels around the world.' Bad news for the Maldives which, at just two metres above the current sea level, will disappear under the waves. The nation's 235,000people will then have to find somewhere else on our crowded planet to live.

Peru

They fled from the violence of the Shining Path, a particularly nasty bunch of Maoist terrorists operating in the mountains. Now, some 300 Indian families will have to move again. Four years ago, they settled on a strip of barren land south of the capital, Lima. They built a new community of small brick houses, a makeshift school, and communal kitchens. It seems the Indians settled on an archeological site and the government wants them off. Their plight is typical of many caught in the cross fire between the government and the Shining Path. The government has claimed victory in the war but has yet to do much for the hundreds of thousands displaced by it.

Japan

The Mizumoto family from Sao Paulo, Brazil is part of a new gold rush of immigration into Japan. The snag is that unless you are of Japanese descent you need not apply. Much as Canada erected barriers against Asians in the 1920s, Japan now has an openly racist immigration policy. The idea is to encourage back home some of the one million Japanese and their descendants who left the country earlier in the century. The plan was introduced in 1990 along with harsh penalties against illegal foreign workers.

Israel

The Israeli government has banned all immigrants carrying the virus that leads to AIDS. Foreign workers wanting to stay in the country longer than three months are required to undergo an AIDS virus test. If positive, they are expelled. Israel is not the only country to ban those who carry the AIDS virus, but the plan has hit a raw nerve there. Israel's Law of Return, declares that any Jew from anywhere in the world can settle in the country.

The Philippines

At 55 members, the national volleyball team from the Philippines seemed a little big. Immigration officials in Tokyo suspected something wasn't right when this large contingent, including some competitors who were obviously too old and too short to make the team, showed up for the Asian Games in October 1994. It was all a scam organized by one Jerry Velasco. He charged "team" members $2,000 each and tried to slip them into Japan under cover of the Games to search for work.

Australia

Bruce Ruxton wants to stop certain types of people from immigrating into Australia. The country's best-known bigot says: "What I say, 80 out of 100 Australians think ... This country remains basically European ... The basis of immigration should be from Britain, Ireland, and Europe in that order ... We're not culturally, legally, geologically, geographically, or racially tied with Asia.' Until 1973, the government agreed with Mr. Ruxton and those like him and maintained the White Australia Policy." Now, six of the top eight source countries for new Australians are Asian.

Southeast Asia

In the 1970s, the phrase "Boat People" came into our vocabularies. The first of them were from Vietnam, newly reunified under a communist government after decades of war. Thousands of those who supported the losing side escaped by boat to become scattered around the rim of the South China Sea. By February 1994, 50,000 Vietnamese still remained in refugee camps unable to find a country to take them in permanently. Then, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) decided conditions in Vietnam had improved to the point where the remaining boat people could be sent home. Many have vowed to resist going back, raising for the UNHCR the public relations nightmare of repatriating them at gunpoint and in leg-irons.

Colombia

Huge numbers of people have been forced from their homes by violence among drug traffickers, leftist rebels, right-wing paramilitary groups, and the army in this troubled country. In 1993, the International Council of Voluntary Agencies estimated 300,000 Colombians had been displaced in the previous seven years. Thousands of colombians not only abandon their lands because of regional armed conflict but also become refugees in countries like Ecuador, Peru, Venezuela, and Bolivia." said the report.

Brazil

In October 1993, about 2, 000 families invaded and occupied two private estates in the northwest of Sao Paulo state. The occupation was led by armed members of a group called the Movement of the Landless which campaigns for underused private land to be handed over for use by people who have no land.

Pakistan

The government in Islamabad said in August 1994 that it was going to expel about one million illegal immigrants living in Karachi. The newcomers are being blamed for increasing drug trafficking and violence in Pakistan's largest city. Karachi, with a population of 10 million, is dominated by Muslims who migrated from India when the sub-continent was divided into mostly Hindu India and Muslim Pakistan in 1947.