What Social Benefits Mean for Argentine Immigration
by Adam Mendel
September 13th, 2011
Despite the economic crisis that shocked the nation from 1999 to 2002, Argentina has a long history of providing social benefits to its inhabitants. For example, health care is a flexible system consisting of three sections; the tax-funded public sector which covers all hospital visits and sicknesses, employment benefits where companies provide healthcare access to their employees and private insurance which can be purchased to go beyond the scope of the basic care provided by the two aforementioned sectors.
Education is similarly rooted in state support. Public schools are entirely paid for by government-collected taxes all the way from elementary school through graduate programs. Furthermore, unlike the United States university and post-graduate education in Argentina is free to all students who possess the academic standing to enter the program, regardless of economic background. Social programs such as these are quite popular and attract many people from neighboring nations to immigrate to the country.
While many Argentines see their nation as one proudly made up of immigrants and similar to the United States, it is critical to understand the roots of this pride. Article 25 of the Argentine Constitution signed in 1853 states the following:
The Federal Government will encourage European immigration, and it will not restrict, limit or burden with any taxes the entrance into Argentine territory of foreigners who come with the goal of working the land, improving the industries and teach the sciences and the arts.
For the most part, Argentina has made good on that promise. It is a nation with countless immigrants from all over the world, and does very little to restrict immigration into the country. As Article 25 suggests, Argentines are especially proud of their European ancestry. The countless descendants of Spanish and Italian immigrants in Buenos Aires for example, lend the city a distinctly Mediterranean flavor.
What is not as desired however is immigration from other, less wealthy South American nations, particularly Paraguay and Bolivia. At the moment, immigrants from those countries make up a large portion of the nation's incoming population. Seeking a better life in their neighboring country, many Bolivians and Paraguayans face discrimination and contempt upon moving to Argentina. One reason for this is that many Bolivians and Paraguayans lack even minimal means and documentation and therefore pay no taxes while still receiving the nation's numerous public benefits.
Argentine exceptionalism is not a new concept but one that creates biases among the citizenry; many Argentines believe their nation to be the preeminent one of South America, and see the increasing numbers of impoverished South American immigrants as a threat to that standing. In any nation, such a scenario is upsetting, but in Argentina it is potentially destabilizing. This is a nation with a long history of various social uprisings and questionable, to say the least, government responses. Should this influx continue, there is increasing likelihood of significant social protest on both sides of the debate and general societal unrest. This could, at the least, lead to a change in immigration policy.
