Embed Size (px)
Citation preview
7/29/2019 Mazza, J. and Sohnen, E. - On the Other Side of the Fence_ Changing Dynamics of Migration in the Americas
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/mazza-j-and-sohnen-e-on-the-other-side-of-the-fence-changing-dynamics 1/9
17/03/13 Migration Information Source - On the Other Side of the Fence: Changing Dynamics of Migration in the Americas
www.migrationinformation.org/Feature/display.cfm?ID=784 1/9
About Us | Recent Issues | Articles by Region | Search
The number of immigrants from Latin America hasgrown in Brazil, which recently made it easier for
some of its neighbors' citizens to obtain temporaryresidency.
Curtir 4 pessoas curtiram isso. Seja o primeiro entre
seus amigos.
0
Related Articles:
•Latin American Immigration to Southern Europe
•Causes of South-South Migration and ItsSocioeconomic Effects
•Hidden in Plain Sight: Indigenous Migrants, TheirMovements, and Their Challenges
•World Migration Map: South A merica
•World Migration Map: Central America and theCaribbean
Share | Email | Print
Advertise inthe Source
About MPI
Best FreeReference
We b Site 2007
On the Other Side of the Fence: Changing Dynamics of
Migration in the Americas
By Jacqueline Mazza and Eleanor SohnenInter-American Development Bank
May 2010
The large stock of Mexican migrants in theUnited States — accumulating over the courseof centuries — has continued to overshadowmore recent and more ground-shifting trends of migration within Latin American countries and tonew countries of destination.
While trade dominates yearly national statistics,movements of workers across borders are muchless official and often go uncounted andunrecognized for years.
In Latin America and the Caribbean,policymakers are noting labor movementsinconceivable as little as 10 years ago:
Hondurans and Guatemalans crossing to ElSalvador for agriculture and construction work;Bolivians and Paraguayans working in largenumbers in Argentina; Mexicans from the stateof Chiapas moving to the Yucatan for work, withGuatemalans replacing them at even lowerwages to harvest Chiapan crops; Ecuadoriansand Colombians having moved in large numbersto Spain.
These shifts demonstrate a growingglobalization of Latin American labor marketsboth within and outside the region. Migration tothe United States and Europe appears to haveslowed in the wake of the recent global
financial crisis, and return migration to theregion appears limited.
To date, however, policymakers do not detect aslowdow n in the smaller but emerging flows o f intraregional migration that are coming tocharacterize regional labor markets, crisis ornot.
The data and tracking needed to accurately record these trends is limited in Latin Americancountries. Much better estimates exist of Latin Americans living and working in countriesbelonging to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).
This article examines existing trends, including data on flows to destinations outside LatinAmerica and flows within the region. It then looks at of the education levels of the region's
migrants, as a proxy for skill levels, and the two broad types o f policy responses to these flows.Data on Migration from Latin America
The large and accumulating stock of Mexican migrants in the United States — 11.4 million in 2008according to the US Census Bureau's annual American Community Survey — has been amplydocumented.
7/29/2019 Mazza, J. and Sohnen, E. - On the Other Side of the Fence_ Changing Dynamics of Migration in the Americas
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/mazza-j-and-sohnen-e-on-the-other-side-of-the-fence-changing-dynamics 2/9
17/03/13 Migration Information Source - On the Other Side of the Fence: Changing Dynamics of Migration in the Americas
www.migrationinformation.org/Feature/display.cfm?ID=784 2/9
In recent years, though, steady and increas ing inflows of Mexicans to the United States haveleveled off. Numerous reports have found that immigration flows from Mexico dropped from 1million in 2006 to approximately 600,000 in 2009. This is largely a result of a decrease inunauthorized-migrant flows, which have proven to be sensitive to this and earlier recessions.
Caribbean migrants form the next largest regional bloc, an estimated 3.4 million in 2008.
However, the Central American foreign born (excluding those from Mexico) made up the second-largest group among Latin American immigrants, about 2.8 million in 2008 according to theAmerican Community Survey.
The South American foreign born followed w ith nearly 2.6 million in 2008. Taken together, theLatin American cohort — even excluding the Caribbean — comprised the single largest group of foreign born in the United States and 5.5 percent of the total US population.
New destination countries in the OECD — in particular Spain and Japan, and to a lesser extentItaly — have seen immigration from Latin America increasing at greater rates than the UnitedStates.
Indeed, immigration to Spain from Latin America and the Caribbean has increased nearlyeightfold in the last decade, with most of the flows originating in South America (see Table 1).The largest cohort has come from Colombia and Ecuador starting in 2000, a trend related bothto po litical and economic crises in the origin countries and encouragement from Spain via thesigning of bilateral migration agreements in 2001.
The agreements between Spain and individual Latin American countries regularized large
numbers of unauthorized migrants, established temporary work programs and programs torecruit workers in their countries of origin, included provisions for family reunification, andprovided mechanisms for voluntary return. The vast majority of Latin American workers werelower skilled.
Since Ecuadorians did not need visas to travel to Spain as tourists, this facilitated much greaterflows, so much so that Spain in 2003 started requiring Ecuadorians to obtain visas.
Migrant stocks from Colombia and Ecuador leveled off from 2005 to 2007 — and even, in thecase of Ecuador, appear to have decreased. But growth in stocks from Bolivia, Peru, Venezuela,and Paraguay picked up. As with Ecuador, Spain began requiring visas for Bolivians in 2007.
In the wake of the global recession, these flows to Spain in particular have shifted. Highunemployment rates motivated the Spanish authorities to create a voluntary incentive program,allowing migrants to receive their accumulated unemployment insurance benefits if they returned
home.Only 8,724 migrants participated in the first year of the program, which began in November2008, despite even higher unemployment rates among migrants than in the general workforce(in April 2010, 25 percent among Co lombians with work visas, for example). Observers arguethat the condition of renouncing the right to return to Spain is the biggest factor keepingmigrants from signing up for benefits (see the Migration Information Source article on pay-to-goprograms).
As of April 2010, however, Spain's National Institute of Statistics (INE) reported that many LatinAmerican nationals did return home in 2009, most of them independently of the unemploymentinsurance program, including 27,000 Ecuadorians, 20,000 Bolivians, and 12,000 Argentineans. Incontrast, the number of Dominicans and Paraguayans in Spain actually increased 2.4 percentand 4 percent, respectively, over the course of 2009.
Table 1. Spain: Stock of Foreign-Born Population by Select Country of Birth, 1998 to 2008 Latin American migration to Japan, which increased as w ell during the las t decade, has dynamicslinked more to Japanese ancestry. In 1990, Japan established mechanisms for foreigners of Japanese descent (known as "nikkeijin") and their families to live and work in Japan.
With these incentives, migration from Brazil and Peru increased sharply, with many of thesemigrants working in low-skilled jobs. During the recent economic crisis, unemployment rates of Latin American immigrants, who number an estimated 350,000, reached 40 percent. Japanenacted its own "pay-to-go" program that had attracted over 13,000 applications, most fromBrazil, by late 2009.
Canada is also an important destination for Latin American and especially Caribbean migrants.The largest group from the region overall are the Jamaican born (123,000 in 2006), 68 percent o f whom entered before 1991.
While their populations are less than half the size of the Jamaican born, one-third of Mexicanimmigrants and nearly two-thirds of Colombians entered Canada between 2001 and2006, andboth populations appear to be growing.
Data on Migration within Latin America
Intrare ional mi ration a ears to have increased in a similar time frame as mi ration to S ain
7/29/2019 Mazza, J. and Sohnen, E. - On the Other Side of the Fence_ Changing Dynamics of Migration in the Americas
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/mazza-j-and-sohnen-e-on-the-other-side-of-the-fence-changing-dynamics 3/9
17/03/13 Migration Information Source - On the Other Side of the Fence: Changing Dynamics of Migration in the Americas
www.migrationinformation.org/Feature/display.cfm?ID=784 3/9
and Japan, but official statistics are thought to highly underestimate the flows, which may rangefrom 13 to 30 percent of all migration originating in the region. As with migration out of theregion, intraregional migration appears to follow global trends in which an increasing proportionof migrants are female.
In 1970, three out o f four immigrants in Latin America came from outside the region, largely fromEurope. By 2000, intraregional migrants (officially recorded) had become the majority, accountingfor more than 60 percent of flows to most individual countries in Latin America and theCaribbean, according to geographer Jorge Martínez Pizarro.
Mexico and Brazil were two notable exceptions. According to Mexico's 2000 census, immigrants
accounted for just 0.5 percent of the country's population, with nearly 70 percent of them bornin the United States . Immigrants from elsewhere in Latin America accounted for another 17percent of the to tal, the largest group hailing from Guatemala; another 10 percent of immigrantswere European, the majority Spanish.
Mexico is also host to a large number of unauthorized migrants from Central America, whom thecensus may not capture, particularly the large number of migrants who cross daily, weekly, andseasonally in addition to many migrants in transit (known as transmigrants) from the region andincreasingly from Africa and Asia. Transmigrants use Mexico to get to the United States orCanada.
Brazil hosts a slightly larger percentage of intraregional migrants. According to the country's2000 census, 56 percent of the foreign born were from Europe, 21 percent from Central or SouthAmerica; and 18 percent from Asia. The top countries o f origin were Portugal (31 percent of thetotal), Japan (10 percent), Italy (8 percent), Paraguay (4 percent), and Argentina (4 percent).
However, immigrants, including high-skilled temporary workers, are increasingly coming fromwithin the region and from new source countries, such as the United States and China. In 2000,47 percent of officially recorded recent immigrants to Brazil — defined as those who entered from1990 to 2000 — came from elsewhere in Latin America: 12 percent from Paraguay, 9 percentfrom Argentina, and 7 percent from Bolivia. Only 23 percent came from Europe (5 percent fromPortugal); while 16 percent were from Asia (6 percent from Japan).
Data from national censuses show that from 1990 to 2000, the accumulating stock of immigrantsfrom within the region grew faster than the number from outside Latin America; among thegrowth countries were Belize, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Costa Rica, and Venezuela (see Table 2).
The relative change in stocks was due principally to a drop-off in OECD immigration to the region.Major corridors w ithin Latin America, some established for many decades , include Guatemala toMexico, Haiti to the Dominican Republic, Nicaragua to Costa Rica, Bolivia and Paraguay to
Argentina, Colombia to Venezuela, and Colombia to Ecuador. Emerging corridors include Peru toChile, and Honduras and Guatemala to El Salvador.
Table 2. Evolution of Migrant Stocks in Selected Latin American Countries, 1990 and 2000
Intraregional migrants in Latin America now exceed 3.5 million, according to the University of Sussex's Global Migrant Origin Database, which is constructed from data from the 2000-2001round of censuses. The top five originating countries were Colombia (713,000 individuals, or 43percent o f emigrants), Paraguay (362,000, 10 percent), Bolivia (275,000, 8 percent), Chile(271,000, 8 percent), and Nicaragua (256,000, 7 percent).
The destination countries with the highest numbers of intraregional migrants during that timeperiod were Argentina (1,043,000), Venezuela (762,000), Costa Rica (280,000), Paraguay(156,000), and Chile (134,000). Altogether, roughly two-thirds of all intraregional migrants inLatin America resided in one of these five countries in 2000, with fully-one half living in either
Argentina or Venezuela. Undercounting of unauthorized migrants is likely to be particularly highin places like Venezuela.
By qualitative indications from government sources, it is be lieved that intraregional migration hasincreased dramatically over the last 10 years. The 2010 round of censuses will be useful inupdating the bilateral migration data and confirming general tendencies, but more precisefigures will likely remain elusive as a majority of statistical agencies in the region lack thecapacity, resources, and instruments to accurately measure migrant stocks and flows.
Latin American Destinations: Different Contexts
Intraregional migration, highly heterogeneous, is driven principally by the search for work, bothpermanent and seasonal. Flows motivated by political strife still characterize outmigration fromColombia to Venezuela and Ecuador. But in contrast to the 1980s, when civil wars in CentralAmerica caused mass migration to destinations within and outs ide the region, refugee flows
have become uncommon.
In some sectors, such as agriculture, circular migration is the norm, while in others, such asdomestic service, flows are more permanent. Tourism and construction, the emerging sectors forintraregional migration, display both temporary and permanent migration features. Here wedescribe some of the distinct subregional flows in Latin America.
Costa Rica
7/29/2019 Mazza, J. and Sohnen, E. - On the Other Side of the Fence_ Changing Dynamics of Migration in the Americas
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/mazza-j-and-sohnen-e-on-the-other-side-of-the-fence-changing-dynamics 4/9
17/03/13 Migration Information Source - On the Other Side of the Fence: Changing Dynamics of Migration in the Americas
www.migrationinformation.org/Feature/display.cfm?ID=784 4/9
In Central America, intraregional migration has a highly seasonal character. Nicaraguans go toCosta Rica for the harvesting of melons, coffee, and other crops. Researchers includingsociologists Catherine Marquette and Eduardo Baumeister have estimated that at peak harvesttimes, there may be as many as 100,000 seasonal migrants from Nicaragua in the country.
However, these flows over the past decades have translated into a core permanent populationof perhaps 300,000. These Nicaraguans have become increasingly urbanized and feminized overthe last three decades. Overall, half of the Nicaraguan-born population is female, and a greaterproportion o f female Nicaraguans live in the capital, presumably for domestic work.
According to Costa Rica's 2007 national household survey, 34 percent of Nicaraguan-bornwomen worked as domestic servants, and another 20 percent in hotels and restaurants.Agriculture is dominated more by male labor: 35 percent o f Nicaraguan men worked inagriculture, compared to 15 percent of women.
Although Costa Rica continues to be an important destination for Nicaraguan migrants, largeinflows appear to have peaked in the 1990s, when Nicaragua experienced relatively negativemacroeconomic conditions. Today the figures indicate continued seasonal flows, with a corepopulation that stabilized around 2005.
Argentina and Chile
In South America, where subregional migration patterns vary with the distinct levels of development, countries such as Argentina and Chile — which are more developed, offer more jobopportunities, and have higher wages than their neighbors — tend to draw migrants from
bordering and nearby countries (Bolivia, Paraguay, and Peru).
According to Argentina's 2001 census, a majority of the country's stock of 1.5 million immigrantswas born in a neighboring country, predominantly Bolivia and Paraguay. Female migrants areheavily concentrated in domestic service, while male migrants tend to work in construction.
Over the past eight years, as national policies have opened up the country further to legalimmigration, inflows appear to have increased dramatically. Figures from the country's nationa lmigration institute and the consulates of Bolivia, Paraguay, and Peru estimate that in 2009,approximately one in 10 residents of Argentina was born in one of those three countries.
In Chile, a majority of immigrants are from neighboring South American countries, predominantlyArgentina (48,000) and Peru (38,000) according to the country's 2002 census. The censusindicated as well that Peruvians were highly concentrated in domestic service — 72 percent of Peruvian women worked in this sector. Argentines, with higher education levels, had more
diversified occupations; 22 percent worked in wholesale and retail trade.
Peruvian women employed as domestic workers in Chile tended to be younger and had a muchhigher level of education than Chilean-born female domestic workers: 74 percent of them hadmore than 10 years o f schooling, compared to 33 percent of Chilean women in the sameoccupation.
Venezuela
Venezuela has become the principal destination for Colombians migrating to escape theirnation's violence and for economic opportunities; it hosts the largest Colombian migrantpopulation in the region.
In 2000, the country was home to an estimated 608,000 Colombians, many of whom arrived inthe 1970s, drawn by the oil boom. However, the Colombian national statistical office places the
numbers much higher, at more than twice the official Venezue lan count. Male Colombian workersin Venezuela are concentrated in agriculture and retail and wholesale trade, whereas womentend to be concentrated in domestic service and trade.
There are a lso more than 30,000 Cubans in Venezuela providing technical assistance in thehealth, sports, tourism, transportation, and sugar industries, under a 2000 agreement betweenthe two countries.
Transborder Migrants
Intraregional migrants include "trans-border migrants," meaning those who commute back andforth across borders either on a da ily, periodic, or seasonal basis.
The US-Mexico border is perhaps the most well known, but many more diverse cross-borderlabor patterns mark the region. The historic cohort of transborder migrants are often indigenous
peoples or Afro-descendents, such as indigenous Guatemalans crossing the Mexican border,Colombian indigenous groups crossing to Panama for the harvest season, and Haitians go ing tothe Dominican Republic.
The triborder region of Brazil, Paraguay, and Argentina has proved the most problematicinternally in the region to manage. This is principally due to the lack of effective governmentcontrol by Paraguay along a very difficult to monitor border. The situation has given rise to a
7/29/2019 Mazza, J. and Sohnen, E. - On the Other Side of the Fence_ Changing Dynamics of Migration in the Americas
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/mazza-j-and-sohnen-e-on-the-other-side-of-the-fence-changing-dynamics 5/9
17/03/13 Migration Information Source - On the Other Side of the Fence: Changing Dynamics of Migration in the Americas
www.migrationinformation.org/Feature/display.cfm?ID=784 5/9
.
Education and Skill Levels of Latin American Migrants
Given the costs, distance, difficulty of gaining legal entry, and danger o f migrating illegally todestinations like the United States, most of those who migrate within Latin America, withexceptions, appear to be poorer and less educated on average than those migrating to OECDcountries. This is on a relative scale, as on average, Latin American — and predominantlyMexican — migrants to the United States are less well educated than other internationalmigrants.
The 2008 American Community Survey found that nearly 60 percent of adults 25 years or older
born in Mexico or Central America living in the United States had less than a high schooleducation, compared to 33 percent among all foreign born and 12 percent for native-born UScitizens.
Even for those with university or professiona l training, Latin American immigrants to the UnitedStates are proportionately less likely than the native born to be working in jobs at theireducation level.
The United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean reports that in theUnited States, 64 percent of native-born citizens w ith bachelor's degrees were employed atlevels equivalent to their education in 2005. This was true for only 40 percent of CentralAmerican immigrants and 35 percent of Mexican immigrants; college graduates born in theCaribbean or South America fared slightly better (45 percent).
A Migration Policy Institute report, Uneven Progress: The Employment Pathways of Skilled
Immigrants in the United States analyzed 2005-2006 American Community Survey data andcame to a similar conclusion. For Latin Americans in the United States who had been educated intheir countries o f origin, 44 percent of recent immigrants and 35 percent o f long-term immigrantswere employed in unskilled occupations. In contrast, just 18 percent of native-born college-educated US citizens were in unskilled occupations.
Systematically capturing data on intraregional migrants' education levels is more difficult, butsome recent national surveys confirm the proportionally low education and skill levels of intraregional migrants.
Costa Rica's 2007 national household survey found that 30 percent o f Nicaraguans in thecountry had less than a primary-school education and an additional 13 percent had noeducation. Adding these populations to the 45 percent who have completed primary school butnot high school reveals that more than 88 percent of Nicaraguans in Costa Rica had less than ahigh school education, making them far less educated than the Mexican and Central American
populations in the United States.
The picture is s imilar for Haitian migrants. Traditionally, Haitian elites, profess ionals, andintellectuals have emigrated to France or Canada. In addition, according to the 2008 ACS,approximately 535,000 Haitians resided in the United States, 45 percent of whom had at leastsome college education.
The vast majority of lower-skilled Haitian migrants are in the Dominican Republic, where theyhave been traditionally employed on sugar plantations but are increasingly working inconstruction and tourism.
According to a 2002 International Organization of Migration (IOM) survey of Haitians in theDominican Republic, 70 percent could not read or write Spanish, and 42 percent could not reador write Creole. About 42 percent had no t been to school, a figure that was s ignificantly higheramong women (51 percent) than men (39 percent). Of those who had been to school, 56
percent had an eighth-grade education or less, and 85 percent reported that their work did notrelate to the education they'd received.
Concerns about losing higher-skilled labor to developed countries, commonly known as "braindrain," receives much attention from national governments in the region. However, key studiesby economists Çaǧlar Özden, Frédéric Docquier, and Abdeslam Marfouk on the "brain drain"using data from the 1990 and 2000 rounds o f censuses show that the region is highlyheterogeneous in this regard. Overall, Latin America has smaller outflows of those withbachelor's degrees than other developing regions, though the Caribbean and Central Americahave higher rates of skilled emigration.
For policymakers within Latin America and the Caribbean, however, the lower skill profile of intraregional migrants raises important concerns about whether these migrants and theirchildren have access to education, health, training, and other services to increase human capital.Without legal and rights protections, migrants' short-term income gains might convert over time
to chronic poverty and exclusion, holding back development throughout the region.
Latin America: Two Differing Approaches to Immigration Policy
Broadly speaking, there is no one regional policy approach in Latin America and the Caribbean:regional migrants face very different national environments regarding free labor movement andlabor rights.
7/29/2019 Mazza, J. and Sohnen, E. - On the Other Side of the Fence_ Changing Dynamics of Migration in the Americas
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/mazza-j-and-sohnen-e-on-the-other-side-of-the-fence-changing-dynamics 6/9
17/03/13 Migration Information Source - On the Other Side of the Fence: Changing Dynamics of Migration in the Americas
www.migrationinformation.org/Feature/display.cfm?ID=784 6/9
The Caribbean is widely moving toward free internal movement, and countries within theSouthern Cone are lessening restrictions for migrants from nations belonging to Mercosur, whichstarted as a free-trade zone. The region, as a whole, however, does not resemble the moreuniformly free movement of labor that characterizes the European Union, which allows citizens of one EU state to live and work in other EU countries on similar conditions.
Rather, what we can observe are subregions in different stages o f progress toward moreregionalized labor markets, particularly in terms of protections for regional migrants and accessto services. Here we examine two subregions with different contexts for legal movement of migrant labor.
Central America-Mexico
In this part of the Americas, much intraregional migration is irregular, in the strict sense thatmany workers do not have legal permission to work for more than short periods. Bilateralagreements govern visas for specific groups of workers: Guatemalans under a specialagreement within 100 kilometers (62 miles) of the border with Mexico; employer-based visas forNicaraguans to work in Costa Rica.
In both Mexico and Costa Rica, the numbers of workers entering exceed these bilateralagreements. A survey of Guatemalan migrants returning to the ir country from Mexico showedthat in 2006, 29 percent did not have legal documents to enter Mexico; this proportion hadincreased from 21 percent during a survey period in 2004.
Border control is relatively difficult in the region, with so much temporary, family, and commercialtravel. Mexico's enforcement is targeted more to preventing migration from flowing into the
interior of the country and into the United States, with comparatively lax enforcement of itssouthern border.
Between Nicaragua and Costa Rica, most Nicaraguans cross legally, either through an explicitwork visa or on a 30-day visitor visa. Many cross back on a regular basis to get new 30-dayvisas; others overstay the visa period, as is common in the United States.
While rights to services are not explicitly protected, Nicaraguans do gain access to Costa Ricanhospitals on an emergency basis, and Nicaraguan children are allowed to enroll in schools.
Southern Cone
Compared to the rest of the Latin American region, Mercosur countries have made considerablygreater advances in providing citizens of Member States with the legal right to work and accessto services. Mercosur began as a free-trade zone in 1991 w ith full members Argentina, Brazil,
Paraguay, and Uruguay; Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru are associate members,while Venezuela's full membership is pending ratification.
Although the Mercosur members have signed a region-wide accord to provide equal treatmentand access in terms of residency, countries are in different stages of amending their nationallaws to align with the agreement. Specific nationa l governments, in particular Brazil andArgentina, have advanced in granting citizens of other Mercosur countries legal permission towork or eas ier access.
Argentina, which receives predominantly Bolivian and Paraguayan migrants, permits nationals of Mercosur countries to obtain Argentine temporary national identity cards and national identitydocuments a year thereafter. With an Argentine national identity card, Bolivians andParaguayans have equal access to health, employment and education services, and judicialprotections.
In 2006, Argentina began a regularization program for Mercosur citizens called "Patria Grande."As of June 2009, 1 million people had s igned up for the program.
Some Argentine localities permit Mercosur legal residents to vote at the municipal level,prompting those cities to respond better to the needs of migrant residents.
Under Brazil's temporary residency program, implemented in October 2009, citizens of Mercosurcountries plus Bolivia and Chile gain from a simplified application process that they can completeonce in Brazil. If accepted, they and their legal dependents of any nationality receive two-yeartemporary residency status and are eligible to work for any employer in Brazil. After two years,they are e ligible for permanent residency.
Recent Shocks
In early 2010, two major earthquakes hit the region, first Haiti and then Chile. The catastrophic
January 12 earthquake in Haiti killed approximately 230,000 people, but its impact on migrationflows is still unclear.
IOM estimates that after the earthquake, tens of thousands o f Haitians — including 20,000injured people and their family members — crossed into the Dominican Republic, seeking medicalattention; some have returned home, but many others presumably have not. Hundreds of unauthorized Haitians have also arrived by boat in Jamaica and the Bahamas, and officials signal
7/29/2019 Mazza, J. and Sohnen, E. - On the Other Side of the Fence_ Changing Dynamics of Migration in the Americas
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/mazza-j-and-sohnen-e-on-the-other-side-of-the-fence-changing-dynamics 7/9
17/03/13 Migration Information Source - On the Other Side of the Fence: Changing Dynamics of Migration in the Americas
www.migrationinformation.org/Feature/display.cfm?ID=784 7/9
.
In reaction to the earthquake, the US government halted the deportation of 30,000 Haitians andoffered temporary protected status for 18 months to Haitians who were in the United Stateswhen the quake struck; more than 48,000 had applied by early May according to US Citizenshipand Immigration Services.
The United States, however, has not agreed to take in new migrants fleeing the devastation.The US Coast Guard reports that it has not seen a noticeable change in migration trends todate; as of the end of April 2010, the service had intercepted 444 migrants at sea, a numberthat is not significantly above histo rical levels.
The Chilean quake of February 27 had a greater impact on infrastructure and economicproduction than on lives. According to press reports and national migration agencies, smallnumbers of affected Ecuadorian and Peruvian migrants have returned home, but to date, therehas not been an appreciable impact on migration patterns in Chile.
Looking Forward
In fits and starts, Latin American and Caribbean institutions are adapting to new trends inintraregional migration and destination countries. The Caribbean region is clearly the moreadvanced in free movement of labor, with the higher-income countries of the Southern Conemaking important progress . The establishment of the Union of South American Nations(UNASUR), which aims to integrate Mercosur and the Andean Community, demonstrates newpromise for a w ider scope of regional approaches.
In the near future, however, workers crossing borders more frequently, particularly for work in
agriculture, construction, tourism, and domestic service, will continue to be the driving forcecompelling national governments to the table to negotiate more orderly flows and workerprotections. Within the next decade, one is likely to see more defined regional blocs permittingmuch freer labor movement.
The prospects for policy change outside of the region, however, appear more limited althoughthey potentially affect greater numbers. Policy change is less likely throughout the OECD witheconomic recession and cuts in national services.
The prospect of comprehensive immigration reform in the United States remains somewhatdistant, but reform could affect conditions for those who have already migrated and unskilledflows, particularly if it were to include provisions to regularize those currently living in the UnitedStates and permit legal inflows of unskilled laborers.
While the large stocks of migrants already in the United States, Spain, and Japan will continue to
dominate headlines and statistics in the developed countries, intraregional labor flows arereshaping how key sectors in Latin America and the Caribbean now operate and how policy iscompelled to change on the other side of the fence.
The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official position of the Inter-American Development Bank. Eleanor Sohnen can be reached at eleanors [at] iadb [dot] org.
Sources
Amaral, Ernesto Friedrich and Wilson Fusco. 2005. "Shaping Brazil: The Role of InternationalMigration." Migration Information Source, June.
Batalova, Jeanne and Michael Fix. 2008. Uneven Progress: The Employment Pathways of SkilledImmigrants in the United States. Washington, DC: Migration Policy Institute. Available Online.
Baumeister, Eduardo. 2006. "Migración internacional y desarrollo en Nicaragua." Latin Americanand Caribbean Demography Center, Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean,United Nations. Population and Development Series, No. 67. Santiago, Chile: United Nations.Available online.
Berubé, Myriam. 2005. "Colombia: In the Crossfire." Migration Information Source, November.
Brazilian Institute of Statistics and Geography (IBGE). Available online.
Castro Valverde, Carlos and Abelardo Morales Gamboa. 2006. "Migración Nicaragüense en CostaRica: Población, Empleo y Necesidades Básicas." In Migración, Empleo y Pobreza. San José ,Costa Rica: FLACSO. Available online.
Cerutti, Marcela. 2009. Gender and Intra-Regiona l Migration in South America. Human
Development Reports Research Paper 2009/12. United Nations Development Programme.Available online.
Consejo Nacional de Población (CONAPO), Instituto Nacional de Migración (INM), Secretaria deTrabajo y Prevención Social (STPS) and El Colegio de la Frontera Norte (COLEF). 2006. Encuestasobre Migración en la Frontera Guatemala - México 2004 y 2006. (Migration Survey on theGuatemala - Mexico Border 2004 and 2006). Mexico City.
7/29/2019 Mazza, J. and Sohnen, E. - On the Other Side of the Fence_ Changing Dynamics of Migration in the Americas
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/mazza-j-and-sohnen-e-on-the-other-side-of-the-fence-changing-dynamics 8/9
17/03/13 Migration Information Source - On the Other Side of the Fence: Changing Dynamics of Migration in the Americas
www.migrationinformation.org/Feature/display.cfm?ID=784 8/9
Development Research Centre on Migration, Globalisation and Poverty. Global Migrant OriginDatabase, version 4. Available online.
Docquier, Frédéric and Abdeslam Marfouk. 2006. "International Migration by EducationAttainment, 1990–2000". In International Migration, Remittances & the Brain Drain, edited byÇaglar Özden and Maurice Schiff. 151-199. Washington, DC: World Bank.
Fix, Michael, Demetrios G. Papademetriou, Jeanne Batalova, Aaron Terrazas, Serena Yi-Ying Lin,and Michelle Mittelstadt. 2009. Migration and the Global Recession. Washington, DC: MigrationPolicy Institute. Available Online.
Internationa l Organization for Migration. 2008. Perfil Migratorio de la Argentina. Buenos Aires:IOM. Available online.
International Organization for Migration. 2004. Encuesta sobre Inmigrantes Haitianos enRepública Dominicana. Santo Domingo: FLACSO/IOM.
Jokisch, Brad. 2007. "Ecuador: Diversity in Migration." Migration Information Source, February.
Larimer, Sarah. 2010. "Coast Guard: Haitian migration not rising from quake". Associated Press.April 28. Available online
Marquette, Catherine M. 2006. "Nicaraguan Migrants in Costa Rica." Población y Salud enMesoamérica 4(1), 1–30. Available online.
Martínez Pizarro, Jorge, ed. 2008. América Latina y el Caribe: Migración Internacional, Derechos
Humanos y Desarrollo. Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC),United Nations. Book No. 97. Santiago, Chile: UN. Available online.
National Institute of Statistics (INE), Chile.
National Institute of Statistics (INE), Spain.
National Institute of Statistics and Censuses (INDEC), Argentina.
National Institute of Statistics and Censuses (INEC), Costa Rica. 2008. "Inmigración y emigraciónen Costa Rica. Principales características sociodemográficas de las personas migrantes, loshogares y el envío y recepción de remesas." 2007 Multipurpose Household Survey, basictabulations of migration module. San José, Costa Rica: INEC.
National Institute of Statistics, Geography and Information (INEGI), Mexico. 2007. "Los
Extranjeros en México." Available online.
Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. 2009. "Latin American EconomicOutlook 2010." Paris: OECD Development Center.
Özden, Çaglar. 2006. "Brain Drain in Latin America." Expert Group Meeting on InternationalMigration and Development in Latin America and the Caribbean. Population Division, Departmentof Economic and Social Affairs, United Nations Secretariat. Mexico City, 30 November – 2December 2005. UN/POP/EGM-MIG/2005/10, February 5. Available online.
El Pais, Spain. 2010. "Los latinoamericanos inician el camino de vuelta a casa." April 30.Available online.
Robles, Frances. 2010. "Haiti's neighbors pull back welcome mat." May 12. Miami Herald .Available online.
Theis, Reyes. 2010. "Cubanos copan áreas de desarrollo en Venezuela." February 4.El Universal , Venezuela. Available online.
Ylarri, Pedro. 2009. "El 10% de los habitantes nació en Bolivia, Paraguay o Perú." June 19.PERFIL. Available online.
Back to the top
If you have questions or comments about this article, contact us at [email protected]
Contact the Source
Have a question orcomment? Let usknow!
Press Room
Need an interview?Go straight to theSource.
Source Library
Missed a story? Findit here.
Links
External resourcesand data sites.
Site Map
Find you r wayaround the Source.
Copyright @ 2002-2013 Migration Policy Institute. All rights reserved.Migration Information Source, ISSN 1946-4037
MPI · 1400 16th St. NW, Suite 300 · Washington, DC 20036- - · - -
7/29/2019 Mazza, J. and Sohnen, E. - On the Other Side of the Fence_ Changing Dynamics of Migration in the Americas
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/mazza-j-and-sohnen-e-on-the-other-side-of-the-fence-changing-dynamics 9/9
17/03/13 Migration Information Source - On the Other Side of the Fence: Changing Dynamics of Migration in the Americas
www migrationinformation org/Feature/displaycfm?ID=784 9/9
