Thursday, December 20, 2012

Emergent Property: Interdependence

What would otherwise be a crippling handicap due to lack of legal status is overcome by overstayers who deftly cultivate, expand and then efficiently utilize their social networks.  Ironically, it is precisely the systematic exclusion produced by the State's suppressant strategies that enables the overstayer's inclusion within his ethnic community, spawning this keen sense of interdependence, consummating, as it were, the four cTm sub-types (recall discussion on cTm as starter, enabler, safety-net and legalizer).

This kind of heightened social symbiosis intrinsic in migrant illegality is distinct from, say, the refuge afforded a fugitive murder convict by relatives, or the solace given to a terminally-ill patient by social workers: in the former case, familial obligation prevails over attributed high risk; in the latter case, the imperative may be fueled by altruism.   In migrant illegality, the interdependence is inherently vested and voluntary: employers secure business flexibility thru exceptionally-compliant overstayer hirees; ethnic pockets who help overstayers get rights to collect future favors, loyalty, reciprocated intimacy, etc.; cooperative local authorities get convenience, a robust, resilient and low-cost small-business sector, possibly even benefits to multiculturalism;  finally, overstayers get continued existence.
