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Dilip, the morning after the US presidential election I addressed a conference on African migration in France, attended by many people from the French Immigration Ministry and representatives of several diaspora groups in Paris. A high-level ministry representative reminded us that the US was only following France's lead: here, after all, the president is the son of immigrants, too. But the palpable euphoria and hope in the room seemed to derive from the fact that Obama is a member of the African diaspora, and not only that he is the son of an immigrant. Groggy from having stayed up all night following the returns, my energy was propped up by the steady stream of congratulations and good wishes that came my way merely because I am American. (It's not always like this abroad.)

Will this euphoria and hope translate into new thinking on immigration? The incoming administration has crises on several fronts, and while one hopes that the broken immigration system will be a priority, it is not clear that it will. Even if immigration is addressed early on, policy won't necessarily change in the direction of greater development-friendliness.

The thorniest political issue, I think, has to do with your statement that the "root cause of emigration is economic underdevelopment." That's surely true, but I think it's equally true -- perhaps even more true -- to say that the root cause of emigration is economic development. If rising prosperity increases out-migration, at least in the short and medium term, that will complicate political negotiations on the issue between the US and Mexico.

But I've already gone on far too long for the blog format...