I remember an interesting experience I had once on a trip to Costa Rica. I was in San Jose, the capital, and was fortunate enough to be having dinner with some well-to-do Costa Ricans. At that time the country was having some trouble with illegal immigration from Nicaragua, their much-poorer neighbour to the North. I asked one of my fellow guests about the problem, and he adeptly related it to a situation with which I had experience.

"The Nicas, they're just like the Mexicans in your country," he explained. "They come to this country and they do all of the dirty work and they put strain on the social services and infrastructure. They commit many crimes, and since we don't have the resources that your country has, it is difficult for our law enforcement agencies to keep up, and we cannot protect our border."

At the first statement I was almost overcome with laughter. It struck me as funny that residents of a third-world nation would have the same problems as a rich nation like the United States. Then I thought about it, and it seemed like a somewhat racist statement. Or at least snobbishly nationalistic.

I had always assumed that all Central Americans were cut from the same cloth (though to be honest, I had never had occasion to think that much about it. I guess you would call it a latent assumption). Then I thought about the situation in my own country. As I thought more about the statement, though, I began to contemplate the international implications of the inherently asymmetrical process of economic development.

Anyway, this memory was stirred because of a conversation I had here in Kuala Lumpur this week. I have been following the amnesty-for-illegal Indonesians saga for a few weeks now, intrigued by the situation. I was discussing it a couple of days ago with a Malaysian friend that had traveled widely in the United States.

"You can probably relate to our problems with the Indonesians. They are like Mexicans." He went on to explain that they were a drain on the social infrastructure, and that they, for the most part, were responsible for the recent rash of snatch thefts. To be fair, though, my friend acknowledged the contribution to the economy the illegal workers made.

Pascal's principle

And so it goes, everyone has their Mexicans, so to speak. And although this statement sounds pejorative, to me it sums up the pejorative nature of the phenomenon. It is a sad by-product of development. I like to liken it to Pascal's principle of hydraulic pressure equalization. For example, one of the most important features of an automobile is the brake system, which is hydraulic in nature.

When you depress the brake pedal, it puts pressure on the master-cylinder, a gadget beneath the hood of your car that operates like a piston. The piston in turn applies pressure to the brake lines, which are filled with brake fluid. That pressure is then transferred throughout the brake lines and is conveyed to the weak points, which are the brakes on the wheels, which are forced to move, thus stopping the car. Pressure on one point in the system exerts an equal pressure on all points of the system.

When a country starts to get rich, it puts pressure on the countries around it. That pressure is greater when there are wealth differentials between the neighbors such as those that exist between the United States and Mexico, Costa Rica and Nicaragua, and Malaysia and Indonesia.

The pressure manifests itself in all sorts of ways, in the form of illegal immigration on the borders, or in the form of social unrest caused by citizens in the poorer countries dissatisfied with their leaders, the dissatisfaction arising in part from the appearance of relative inequalities. For example, Antara reported last month that there are 16 million Indonesians earning less than RM3.80 a day, which falls below the United Nations' benchmark for extreme poverty. No wonder many Indonesians look abroad for opportunities.

It is unfortunate that illegal workers have such a stigma attached to them. In my own country, many see them as a kind of social plague, with the most militant calling for martial policing of our borders. There have been votes in a number of states to deny social services such as health care and education to illegal immigrants and their families.

Without passing judgment on such initiatives it is fair to say that they reflect the prevailing opinion in society about illegals. Yet most experts agree that the economy can not function without them. Another reflection of the phenomenon, one that will always stick out in my mind, is a road sign frequently seen on the highways of California. It is an attention sign that depicts the silhouette of a man, woman, and child, dashing across the road, warning drivers to be wary of families of illegals running across traffic.

3-D jobs

Another by-product of development is that the citizens of rich countries become less willing to perform the most menial and demeaning chores. In Japan there is even a term for these jobs: the "3 K" professions, abbreviating the Japanese words for difficult, dirty, and dangerous.

We might translate these as the "3 D" jobs. So there is pressure to find someone else to do them, and more often than not those recruited for the task are from poorer, less "developed" countries. Thus they do the hardest work for the least reward. They are marginalised, discriminated against, and labeled as criminals, dirty and uneducated.

I have met a number of illegal workers, in this country and others, and without exception they are all working for a family back in their own country, or to make money for education or some other worthy goal. I admit that there are bad seeds, as in any harvest. But I think the overwhelming majority are simply working for their own kind of development.

I greatly respect that sacrifice they make. Often times they are preyed upon by the unscrupulous, and the fact that they are forced to live below the law is degrading and demoralizing. They often fall victim to the sinister schemes of "snakehead" smugglers, and many women, lured by promises of lucrative jobs as domestic servants or in garment factories, are duped into prostitution. I always try to remember the dangerous gauntlet run by the person washing my dishes.

I have been following the issue here, because, as I mentioned before, it is an important feature of development. I have been very impressed and heartened by the recent amnesty offered by the Malaysian authorities for Indonesian immigrants. The Ramadan amnesty shows the compassion of sensitive social policies.

When the government factors a human element into its policies, it filters down through bureaucrats and functionaries, through civil servants, and into society as a whole. For example, one Star article reported that immigration officers were helping some illegal workers collect their last wages before returning home.

Furthermore, the mechanism that is being but in place to register illegal workers if they wish to return to Malaysia is a good idea as well. The government of Malaysia is to be commended for the amnesty.

Illegal migration is a part of development, and should be factored into any kind of Wawasan, because it's not going away. Think of it like diffusion, the inexorable property of nature that causes the wind to blow and the water to flow. Particles moving from an area of greater concentration to one of lesser. The economics of development are a force of nature, too, and their asymmetries cause ebbs and flows.

KEITH BETTINGER is a Fulbright Scholar living in Kuala Lumpur. A frequent contributor to the Asia Times, Keith has written on international politics and development issues. His column appears on Monday and examines economic development, culture, and travel. Keith has degrees in History and Political Science and graduate degrees in Education and International Affairs. Email him with questions, comments, fears, or trepidations at: kisu1492@yahoo.com.