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Takeaways from the North American Leaders Summit and Biden’s Visit to Canada

Editorial

By Ernesto Castañeda*

North American leaders, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, Justin Trudeau and Joe Biden, met in Mexico for the 10th North American Leaders’ Summit /Eneas De Troya /Flickr/ Creative Commons License

President Joe Biden conducted his first trip to Mexico in the context of the North American Leaders’ Summit on January 10, 2023. These summits started with George W. Bush in 2005 and did not take place at all while Trump was President. The 2021 and 2023 meetings signal a return to thinking of and valuing the North American region as such. The discussions were best when they decoupled local political considerations, common challenges, and regional opportunities. Three points toward integration are described here.

  1. President Joe Biden, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, and Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) discussed the advantages of further integrating supply chains within the region. Labor costs in China have gone up, and the pandemic showed that relying on long-distance shipping can delay things during crises, epidemics, and international disputes. There was a push for nearshoring, meaning having an increasing proportion of essential and high-value products manufactured in Canada, Mexico, and Central America rather than Asia. Concrete efforts were mentioned to increase manufacturing in the region within the context of the regional trade agreement USMCA, which includes regulations, respects local preferences, and supports specific sectors and products. Thus, during the summit, Biden and Trudeau were able to look past Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s protection of PEMEX, Mexico’s oil company, and specific controversies about car manufacturing. Furthermore, Biden, Trudeau, and López Obrador discussed the desire for further integration beyond trade. The Mexican President mentioned in his closing speech that Mexico will be represented in planned regional integration meetings by Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard, Finance Minister of Mexico Rogelio Ramírez de la O, Secretary of Economy Raquel Buenrostro Sánchez, and independent businessman who represents the business community, Alfonso Romo Garza. During the meetings, Prime Minister Trudeau was accompanied by his wife, Sophie Gregoire Trudeau, Minister of Foreign Affairs Melanie Joly, Minister of International Trade Mary Ng, and the Minister of Public Safety Marco Mendicino. President Biden was accompanied by the First Lady Dr. Jill Biden, Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, U.S. Ambassador to Mexico Ken Salazar, U.S. Ambassador to Canada David Cohen, Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas, Special Presidential Advisor for the Americas Chris Dodd, Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo, and National Security Council Senior Director for the Western Hemisphere Juan Gonzalez. The size and high profile of the entourage show the seriousness of these talks and the intentions to communicate further and coordinate around shared challenges and regional integration.
  2. The three leaders emphasized that migration is a regional process requiring a regional approach. Biden and Trudeau recognized their history and reality as countries of immigration. Canada emphasized its desire to welcome new people to keep growing its population and economy. Biden recognized the history of the United States as a country built largely by immigrants. The Mexican President missed an opportunity to acknowledge that in the last hundred years, a substantial number of people moved to Mexico from places like Spain, Chile, Argentina, Cuba, Lebanon, Guatemala, and the United States. There were mentions about the need for Mexico to become the place where some of the people from the hemisphere should receive asylum and be allowed to settle legally long-term. The three heads of government also stressed a safe, humane, and legal entry for migrants through more legal pathways and shared responsibility as advocated for in the Los Angeles Declaration. Additionally, Biden announced the monthly legal entry of 30,000 migrants from Cuba, Nicaragua, Haiti, and Venezuela with appropriate sponsors, background checks, and airplane flights. Generally, they recognized that the people who emigrate do it as an option of last resort. They expressed the humanitarian need to help create ways to migrate more safely than is currently possible for many.
  3. Prime Minister Trudeau and Presidents López Obrador and Biden committed to collaborating on climate change and promoting racial equity, diversity, and inclusion, including collaborating with marginalized populations to fight violence against Native women and girls and expand the protection of LGBTQI+ people. Regarding climate change, the three nations promised to reduce methane emissions by 15% by the end of 2030, develop a plan to cut food loss and waste in half by 2030, and create trilateral infrastructure for EV chargers. The three leaders also spoke about their support for democratic practice and condemned the events on January 8 in Brazil. Biden and Trudeau spoke about how a feature and strength of their democracies is their diversity. Overall, most of the meetings were about strengthening ties and facing shared challenges pragmatically and collectively. The demeanor was friendly, forward-looking, and about partnership. As Justin Trudeau said, “We are stronger together.”

Where are we two and a half months later, when Biden visited Canada?

Biden spoke about the interconnectedness of the U.S. and Canadian economies, sports leagues, and people. Saying that “the U.S. and Canada share one heart.” Both spoke about green jobs and more regional manufacturing with unionized jobs.

Nevertheless, the attention was focused on asylum seekers. President Biden referred to the Los Angeles Declaration and the importance of helping migrants as a region. Canada announced the orderly welcoming of 15,000 immigrants from the Western Hemisphere. However, the discussion about the official announcement underlines “irregular migration” while mainly talking about people seeking prompt and secure asylum. Cable media commentary often referred to an agreement to address “illegal arrivals” to Canada by people asking for asylum. Nonetheless, asking for asylum is a right that people have under U.S., Canadian, and international law. The issue is that some have arrived away from official ports of entry and then approached authorities to announce themselves and exercise their right to ask for asylum proactively. Under the new agreement, Canada can send migrants back to the United States if they have not applied for asylum in-country first and vice versa. This agreement further weakens the right to asylum in North America and criminalizes those seeking it. The often-mentioned record numbers are probably inaccurate regarding legal and undocumented migrants as a proportion of the population. Still, an increasing number of asylum seekers from Ukraine, Afghanistan, Haiti, Cuba, and the Americas are arriving at land borders. The announcement of this agreement with so much fanfare constitutes a narrowing of asylum avenues and conceding to the Canadian opposition’s framing of immigrants and asylum seekers as “burdens.” It contradicts the speeches of Biden and Trudeau at the North American Leaders Summit in Mexico City on January 10 and Biden’s speech at the Canadian parliament, which recognized the many contributions immigrants make and have made to both countries.

President Biden noted the continued interest of the U.S. and Canada in supporting democracy in the Western Hemisphere.

In the meantime, the Mexican President did not appreciate messages of alarm from the north about the proposed changes to the independent Mexican electoral agency (INE) and other signs of de-democratization. In turn, AMLO spoke about the possible criminal charges against Trump being politically motivated. He also wrongly stated that Mexico is safer than the U.S. after the killing and disappearances of U.S. citizens and legal permanent residents in Mexico.

Therefore, a few months after the North American Leaders Summit, we see how some leaders are more concerned with national politics, popularity polls, and elections than working with other countries to face common problems. At the same time, working meetings about regional cooperation also serve as a reminder that despite nationalistic and isolationist presidents (like Trump was), civil servants continue working with their counterparts to make sure that regional trade, tourism, migration, consular relations, and educational and cultural exchanges continue.

March 28, 2023

*Ernesto Castañeda is the Director of the Center for Latin American and Latino Studies, Immigration Lab, and the MA in Sociology Research & Practice.

Fact-checking and editing by Karen Perez-Torres. Copy-editing by Mackenzie Cox.

CC BY-ND: This license allows reusers to copy and distribute the material in any medium or format in unadapted form only, and only so long as attribution is given to the creator. The license allows for commercial use by news sites. 

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by clalsstaff on March 28, 2023  •  Permalink
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Posted by clalsstaff on March 28, 2023

https://aulablog.net/2023/03/28/editorial-takeaways-from-the-north-american-leaders-summit-and-bidens-visit-to-canada/

United States: DACA Challenges Continue to Threaten Vulnerable Migrants

By Andréia Fressatti Cardoso*

Rally by the Supreme Court as the DACA cases are heard inside on November 12, 2019 / https://www.flickr.com/photos/vpickering/49057840887
Rally by the Supreme Court as the DACA cases are heard inside on November 12, 2019 / Victoria Pickering / Flickr / Creative Commons License

A looming U.S. Supreme Court decision on the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program threatens to strip over 830,000 undocumented migrants of protection from arrest and deportation as well as any sense of belonging in the country where they have lived for most of their lives. The court is poised to throw these individuals, who have long lived in legal limbo, into the excruciating dilemma of whether to be forcibly or voluntarily “returned” to countries where they were born but have no roots, few job prospects, and often limited ability to speak the language.

  • The Obama Administration’s executive order establishing DACA in 2012 made undocumented non-citizens who entered the United States as children and met certain criteria eligible for a liminal (or temporary) legalization of their status. The benefits included being able to have a social security number, a work permit, and, depending on the state, even a driver’s license and pay in-state tuition.
  • DACA enabled these youths to come out of the shadows and pursue some of the activities of adult life. It also defined the terms of their social belonging, as access to public education cannot be denied based on immigration status since Plyler v. Doe (1982). As a place of socialization, school is usually where children start understanding the terms of their participation in society, at an age that they do not need documents for many of their pursuits.

The Obama Administration did not intend DACA to be a permanent solution for undocumented youths, but several challenges – including one led by Texas with the support of eight other states – have sought to declare Obama’s action a violation of U.S. law. In response to State of Texas v. United States (2015), the Biden Administration last August issued a final rule that used rulemaking procedures that, in its view, protected DACA from further legal challenges. But Texas objected, and the U.S. Court of Appeals agreed – leaving the Administration no recourse but to ask the Supreme Court to reverse the decision. The legal maneuvering highlights the temporary aspect of DACA for its beneficiaries.

DACA was an administration’s effort to compensate for the lack of congressional action. A decade later, this fix – a resource of paramount importance to many of the undocumented population – remains fragile and limited. DACA opponents’ legal challenges have been relentless, underscoring how easily DACA can be taken away.

  • The unraveling of DACA in the absence of legislation would be devastating for its over 830,000 beneficiaries. The status of liminal legality under DACA provides access to benefits rather than rights; legal presence rather than membership. While they were children, very few know that they do not have documents; they hardly need them for everyday activities, and some parents try to hide their status from them. As they get older and need documents for daily living, such as having a driver’s license, they face a potential shock of having no ties to the only country they have known. They discover that they can’t have the same life as their peers. The feeling of belonging shrinks and disappears.
  • Many DACA recipients would face even greater stress than the other 10 million undocumented migrants in the United States. The federal government has complete data on their identities, whereabouts, schools, and employers, making targeting them for potential detention and deportation easy. Many of their friends and family are likely to be targeted too.

The Supreme Court in 2020 blocked an effort by the Trump Administration to cancel DACA in September 2017, but the legal decision was based on procedural rather than substantive arguments – i.e., that the Trump action was “arbitrary and capricious,” not on determination that the policy behind it was unconstitutional.

  • The current U.S. Congress appears loath to institutionalize DACA. Moreover, the Administration appears reluctant to try again to use executive authority to ensure both the potential and limitations of the policy – much less a solution for membership of a population that has been present and socially and culturally belongs in the United States. If nothing is done, we could see mass detentions, family separation, and deportations – as well as resistance and protests from people who no longer want to live in the shadows and have claims to belonging.

March 9, 2023

* Andréia Fressatti Cardoso is a research fellow at the Center for Latin American and Latino Studies and Ph.D. student in Political Science at the University of São Paulo.

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by clalsstaff on March 9, 2023  •  Permalink
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Posted by clalsstaff on March 9, 2023

https://aulablog.net/2023/03/09/united-states-daca-challenges-continue-to-threaten-vulnerable-migrants/

U.S. Immigration Debate Skewed by Bad Statistics

By Ernesto Castañeda*

Sign demarcating US and Mexico territory on the southern US border in El Paso, Texas / Ernesto Castañeda / Creative Commons License

Immigration figures have long driven heated political debate in U.S. politics – even worse in recent years – but the data often exaggerate the problem because the responsible government agencies are double-counting and media reports are analyzing the numbers incorrectly. Opponents of President Joe Biden claim that over 2 million undocumented immigrants have entered the United States each year since he became President. The numbers reported by relevant agencies should not drive headlines or be interpreted as stock tickers about whether immigration is up and down, but the data become political footballs serving generally anti-immigration political interests.

Border encounters involving people without immigration papers are just a small subset of all immigrants, emigrants, visitors, and border crossing commercial and tourist activity – almost 300 million over the past 12 months. Analysis of the numbers about border crossers reported by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security requires clarification of what it considers “encounters.”

  • Because many people enter multiple times, the figures also reflect double-counting of many of the same individuals – sometimes more than five times each. Those of certain nationalities can be quickly removed and returned to Mexico for various reasons without adequate recording of their names and other details, making it impossible to know how many people are counted multiple times. Even those repatriated after a judge determines they do not qualify for asylum, humanitarian parole, or other special visa often try again and count as another “encounter.”
  • “Encounters” do not equal unique individuals but rather interactions between asylum-seekers or migrants and DHS personnel anywhere along the border. The U.S. Government reports, for example, that 1 million-1.3 million migrants were removed from the United States under Title 42 provisions intended to protect U.S. health in the context of the COVID pandemic – almost half of the total reported “encounters.” So “encounters” do not equal individuals entering the U.S. either.
  • The numbers include individuals whom the United States normally welcomes, including 140,000 unaccompanied minors looking to reunite with family members in the country, and over 20,000 Ukrainians. Russians and Afghans are in a similar situation. Cubans no longer are fast-tracked for permanent residency under the Cuban Adjustment Act, but the U.S. government cannot deport them because neither Mexico nor Cuba will take them back. Hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans, Haitians, and others are fleeing situations that most U.S. observers consider intolerable.
  • Comparing year-on-year figures is also deceptive. During 2020, the acceptance of asylum-seekers came almost to a halt. The pandemic, Title 42, and the “Remain in Mexico” program (under which individuals who pass a “credible fear” screening are forced to stay in Mexico while awaiting a hearing) created a backlog and bottleneck for the normal mobility that had occurred in previous years. Shifts in DHS accounting between years have also exaggerated the impression of a surge.

Other observers have confirmed migration specialists’ concerns about the over-counting. Syracuse University’s Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC), which monitors the staffing, spending, and enforcement activities of the federal government, reported in September that detention data released by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) “is, once again, riddled with errors.” TRAC found “egregious” mistakes in several data categories that led the agency to seriously misrepresent conditions in its public statements.

While the U.S. government’s bad information makes precise calculations of migrant flows impossible, what is sure is that the total number of distinct individuals entering the United States without documentation is much less than 2 million a year. More credible estimates are that –after accounting for thousands of deportations – probably less than half a million people have been allowed in.

  • Among them, some were granted asylum – a right under U.S. and international law. Many others are welcome refugees and asylum-seekers like those from Ukraine and Afghanistan. Many others are waiting their turn in immigration court. Therefore, most of those included in this estimated half-million are in the United States legally, and the government knows who they are and where they live. By definition, they are not “illegal” or hiding. Allegations by a Texas senator and others that “4.2 million illegal immigrants have streamed across the border” since Biden took office are simply not true.

* Ernesto Castañeda teaches in the Department of Sociology in the College of Arts and Sciences.

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by clalsstaff on November 3, 2022  •  Permalink
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Posted by clalsstaff on November 3, 2022

https://aulablog.net/2022/11/03/u-s-immigration-debate-skewed-by-bad-statistics/

Latin America: Is There a Constructive Side to U.S. Policy?

By Fulton Armstrong

President Joe Biden, National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan and NSC Senior Director for the Western Hemisphere Juan Gonzalez gathered at the President's desk in the Oval Office.
President Joe Biden, joined by National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan and NSC Senior Director for the Western Hemisphere Juan Gonzalez, talks on the phone with Jeff Zients on Wednesday, April 21, 2021, in the Oval Office of the White House / Adam Schultz / The White House / Flickr / Creative Commons License.

While many of the Biden Administration’s policies in Latin America – particularly toward Cuba, Venezuela, and China’s activities – remain largely the same as during the Trump era, some of its actions and statements suggest more nuanced approaches on other regional issues. 

  • National Security Council senior director for the Western Hemisphere, Juan Gonzalez, has been the point person for maintaining the hard line on Venezuela and Cuba. In early March, he met in Caracas with President Nicolás Maduro, who later said, “we’ve agreed to work on an agenda going forward,” but the Administration vehemently denied this and has continued to maintain that opposition leader Juan Guaidó is President of Venezuela. In Cuba, according to various sources, Gonzalez last year vetoed a promised plan for reversing a Trump halt to the flow of remittances to the island. He recently stated that new U.S. sanctions against Russia were also intended “by design” to put pressure on Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua.

At Congressional hearings in February and March, other senior officials have laid out various Administration priorities.

  • Commander of the U.S. Southern Command, General Laura Richardson, testified that the hemisphere is “under assault from a host of cross-cutting, transboundary challenges that directly threaten our own homeland.” In addition to helping the region with COVID-19 and the “climate crisis,” she said U.S. policy is to counter China’s “relentless march” to expand its influence in the region and its “challenges [to] U.S. influence.” She also pledged to combat transnational criminal organizations, which “operate nearly uncontested and blaze a trail of corruption and violence that create conditions that allow the PRC and Russia to exploit, threaten citizen security, and undermine public confidence in government institutions.” She said her command is “putting integrated deterrence into action.” 
  • In testimony in February, Assistant Secretary of State for the Western Hemisphere, Brian Nichols, praised President Biden’s recent “Summit for Democracy” and acknowledged that “too many ordinary citizens have seen their governments fail to meet their aspirations for a better future.” He also said the Administration’s “Build Back Better World” initiative, including investments that respond to partners’ infrastructure needs, will counter China’s “Belt and Road Initiative” and “will help demonstrate that democracies can deliver for their people.” His counterpart in the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, Todd Robinson, stressed rule of law programs under the “Root Causes Strategy,” although he noted that “in some cases,” governments lack the political will to tackle the corruption that is a root cause of their nation’s problems.
  • USAID Assistant Administrator responsible for Latin America, Marcela Escobari, testified that her priority is mitigating the harm caused by COVID-19 and climate change. While criticizing the state of democracy and human rights in “extreme cases” like Venezuela, Cuba, and Nicaragua, she expressed concern about “democratic backsliding” elsewhere, noting that “even in more established democracies, authoritarian tendencies have emerged.” 

The Administration has not articulated how some of its steps diverge from the aggressive and transactional approaches that characterized the Trump Administration’s engagement with the region. The White House pressed the International Monetary Fund (IMF) hard to reach an accommodation with Argentina, whose government Trump kept at arm’s length, and helped it avoid default on its 2018 stand-by loan. Vice President Harris has given strong support to Honduran President Xiomara Castro since her inauguration in January – and probably contributed to Washington’s decision to request the extradition on drug charges of her predecessor, Trump ally Juan Orlando Hernández. In their Congressional testimony, current officials have repeatedly made nuanced remarks about the perceptions and reality of homegrown challenges in Latin America. Their emphasis on corruption and lack of will to address those scourges suggests awareness that not all is well, even in those countries that Washington embraces as democracies. After a slow initial response, the Administration has been generous in providing support for vaccine availability and for the capacity of public health systems to effectively respond to the COVID‑19 pandemic.

  • These factors suggest that while tired regime-change policies on Cuba and Venezuela and “integrated deterrence” against China and drug cartels may remain central to Washington’s approach to hemispheric affairs, there is awareness as well of how deeper cooperation with the region could simultaneously promote both U.S. and Latin American interests. The upcoming Summit of the Americas in Los Angeles may be the Administration’s best chance to seek meaningful common ground around the imperative of strengthening democratic governance, a challenge which Washington’s leadership now perceives as one that it shares with virtually all of its Latin American counterparts. 

March 31, 2022

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by clalsstaff on March 31, 2022  •  Permalink
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Posted by clalsstaff on March 31, 2022

https://aulablog.net/2022/03/31/latin-america-is-there-a-constructive-side-to-u-s-policy/

U.S. Foreign Assistance Portals are Inadequate to Assess Reform on Locally Led Development

By Katerina Parsons*

USAID Administrator Samantha Power / Flickr / Creative Commons License

USAID has committed to increase direct assistance to local partners around the world – rather than directing aid through governments, international NGOs, or for-profit contractors – but civil society groups will have difficulty holding the agency accountable without significant changes to existing transparency portals.

  • In a recent speech, Administrator Samantha Power announced that USAID would increase assistance to local partners to 25 percent of total funding – short of earlier commitments but more than the current 5.8 percent. By the end of the decade, she added, 50 percent of USAID programming would “place local communities in the lead,” allowing them to co-design projects, set priorities, drive implementation, or evaluate programs’ impact. The NGO community has long called for these goals.

The U.S. government’s searchable foreign assistance trackers are still inadequate to assess progress, however.

  • ForeignAssistance.gov was relaunched in October, combining the State Department tracker of the same name with USAID’s Foreign Aid Explorer, which will no longer be updated. Aid organizations applauded the change for streamlining data, but the new site still does not include key data, such as the percentage of foreign assistance that is locally led, or even which implementing partners are based in the countries where they work. Many awards list no supporting documents detailing participants or outcomes; those that do include this information as a PDF file that is not searchable and cannot be easily compared across awards.
  • Some additional information can be found on other U.S. government sites. USASpending.gov, the open data source for all government spending, includes sub-award data for USAID, listing the percentage of the total amount that is sub-awarded and recipient names and sub-award amounts. Because most small, non-U.S. organizations that receive U.S. funds do so indirectly through sub-grants; this information is crucial for transparency.

An example – a Honduran organization for which I worked for several years – illustrates the challenge of tracking aid. According to USASpending.gov, as a USAID sub-grantee on a governance and citizen participation project, it received $787,000 over an eight-year period (FY2011-18) – enough to fund a small office of Honduran auditors, researchers, and legal experts who created a national corruption complaint mechanism, conducted social audits of government agencies, and led consultancies to strengthen the country’s higher courts. While substantial, this funding represented less than 4 percent of the $19.8 million total granted to the U.S. NGO managing the project. The U.S. NGO provided 36 percent of the total grant to Honduran implementing partners. Neither USASpending.gov nor ForeignAssistance.gov account for the remaining 64 percent of award funds.

  • This gap between amount awarded and amount delivered to community-based partners is not atypical. A $34.2 million violence-reduction award (FY2016-23) granted to a major U.S. contractor has given out just 13.1 percent of its funding in sub-contracts – and those only to U.S. and Honduran businesses, not Honduran NGOs. A $4.1 million “civil society and media activity” grant (FY2018-20) awarded just $80,000 to Honduran civil society organizations.
  • USASpending.gov does not code this as “international” or “local” spending; first-hand knowledge or web searches are required to determine the recipients. ForeignAssistance.gov provides even less detail.

USAID’s promises of millions of dollars to empower local organizations so far have not been complemented by a commitment to make public data on localization more transparent. One straightforward fix would be to add a search query to ForeignAssistance.gov for “recipient type” such as “local,” similar to USASpending.gov, where one can filter by contract recipients owned by women, minorities, or veterans.

  • Information on sub-grantees or sub-contractors (local, U.S., international) is also lacking. Additional clarity on the term “local” is also merited; USAID does not distinguish between “local entities” and “locally established partners,” which may be national chapters of international organizations. Particularly in larger multicultural countries, “local” leadership may still not be proximate to communities being served.
  • Fulfillment of Administrator Power’s pledge “to interrogate the traditional power dynamics of donor-driven development and look for ways to amplify the local voices of those who too often have been left out of the conversation” will depend on making public data on localized development transparent enough to make proximate leadership in foreign assistance – or the lack of it – more visible.

December 16, 2021

* Katerina Parsons is a master’s student in Development Management in the School of International Service. This article is based on research done for the Accountability Research Center, where she is a research assistant.

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by clalsstaff on December 16, 2021  •  Permalink
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Posted by clalsstaff on December 16, 2021

https://aulablog.net/2021/12/16/u-s-foreign-assistance-portals-are-inadequate-to-assess-reform-on-locally-led-development/

Chile: Astronomy Investments Help but Face Some Criticism

By Noah Rosen*

La Silla Observatory in Chile’s Atacama Desert/ European Southern Observatory/ Flickr/ Creative Commons License

Exceptional atmospheric conditions in northern Chile, an image of political stability, favorable tax policies, and diplomatic credentials for researchers have made the country a leader in international astronomy, but some Chileans want to see more benefits from the cooperation. 

  • Experts estimate that, by the end of this decade, over 70 percent of the world’s astronomical viewing capacity will be concentrated in Chile. The United States – including the National Science Foundation (NSF), universities, and private foundations – and Europe and other global players have invested billions of dollars in observatories, creating significant opportunities for Chilean astronomy as well as its high-tech engineering and computing sectors. 
  • Chilean researchers are guaranteed 10 percent of the observation time on all international telescopes established in Chile, a policy Chilean scientists won in the 1990s. According to Wolfgang Gieren, astronomy professor at Chile’s Universidad de Concepción, “the 10 percent has been the most important factor to boost development of astronomy in Chile.” International observatory projects often include significant funding and scholarship activities, including a multi-million-dollar contribution from the NSF to CONICYT, the Chilean science agency, and an annual scientific scholarship managed by the Agencia Nacional de Investigación y Desarrollo de Chile (ANID). 

The diverse range of support has helped Chile rapidly expand its astronomy capabilities. 

  • Four universities have opened new astronomy departments, bringing the total to eight, and PhD students have increased from five in the early 1990s to 40 by 2005. Joint work and technical exchanges have increased also. The Millimeter Wave Laboratory of the Universidad de Chile works with CalTech to develop advanced millimeter-wave receivers and other high-tech equipment. The Astro-Engineering Center at the Pontificia Universidad Católica works with the multinational Gemini Observatory to develop adaptive optics and vibration mitigation instruments, in partnership with Harvard and other U.S. universities. 
  • Chile’s domestic high-tech engineering and computing sectors are benefiting as well. The government estimates that 15 Chilean companies have provided advanced engineering and technology services to the observatories. A local firm, AXYS Technologies, installed fiber optics at an Atacama-area observatory that, experts say, was groundbreaking in understanding how fiber optics operate at high altitude (5,000 meters). A Dutch-Chilean engineering company conducted geological studies and construction consulting for the Rubin Observatory and for another observatory in Cerro Tolar. 
  • The huge data processing and storage capacities required by the observatories is positioning Chile as a big data player. Microsoft, Google, and Amazon are developing astro-data projects in Chile. The U.S. NSF is funding a data science summer school at Universidad de La Serena to build connections with the future generation of Chilean data scientists. 

Despite these advantages, Chilean scientists and civil society actors continue to question the relative balance of benefits they get for the globally unique natural attributes in their northern deserts, which make cutting-edge astronomy research possible. 

  • Chilean scientists are demanding more guaranteed observation time, in line with what hosts in Hawaii (15 percent) and Spain (20 percent) receive. They argue that current arrangements still make them too dependent on technologies and expertise from the Global North, which largely controls the research agenda. The Chilean government estimates that only 10-20 percent of the international dollars invested in the observatories enter the Chilean economy, the vast majority of which are channeled to goods and services – construction of roads, buildings, electricity, water and gas supply, hospitality, etc. – rather than building Chile’s scientific capabilities. Chilean scientists and engineers argue for new policies that more systematically involve Chileans in telescope construction and maintenance. 
  • Broader questions of justice also persist: in some places, the observatories consume significant amounts of water and electricity while nearby villages go without regular access. Labor strikes at the Atacama observatory some years back raised questions of fair working conditions, especially given that the favorable diplomatic status accorded to observatories limits oversight. 

* Noah Rosen is a PhD candidate in the School of International Service, specializing in grassroots peace movements in Colombia. This article is adapted from CLALS research on U.S. engagement in Chile and Uruguay, supported by the Institute for War & Peace Reporting with funding from the U.S. Department of State. 

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by clalsstaff on December 1, 2021  •  Permalink
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Posted by clalsstaff on December 1, 2021

https://aulablog.net/2021/12/01/chile-astronomy-investments-help-but-face-some-criticism/

Pandemic Relief for Latino-Owned Businesses: Lessons from the Washington DC Metropolitan Area

By Robert Albro and Eric Hershberg*

Latina microenterprise in Washington DC/ Credit: Liz Albro

While the impacts of the pandemic and public health measures to contain it have been widespread across all demographic groups in the United States, minority-owned businesses have been disproportionately affected, with Latino-owned enterprises hit the hardest. A newly released CLALS study describes steps taken by local jurisdictions to ameliorate these impacts, identifies challenges experienced by Latino business owners in accessing pandemic relief, and offers recommendations to better support minority enterprises in anticipation of future crises.

  • By June of 2020, a Stanford Latino Entrepreneurship Initiative pulse survey reported that 83 percent of Latino businesses had experienced a negative impact from COVID‑19, and the National Bureau of Economic Research reported that the number of Latino business owners nationwide had declined 32 percent.
  • In the Washington Metropolitan Area, Latino business owners surveyed by CLALS during the same time period reported catastrophic losses of customers and sales, pressures on liquidity, employee layoffs, and dramatic disruptions of their day-to-day business operations.
  • In many cases the industries in which Latino businesses are concentrated made them more vulnerable. The onset of the pandemic had an immediate negative impact on Latino front-line workers in essential industries and on restaurants and retail establishments that rely heavily on foot traffic, forcing widespread closures. An estimated 25 percent of Latino businesses nationwide are either permanently shuttered or remain temporarily closed.

Nearly all Latino business owners CLALS surveyed in mid-2020 – 94 percent – ranked as most important the need for greater access to financial assistance to survive the crisis. However, the pandemic has exacerbated long-standing disparities between Latino-owned and other businesses, with Latinos among those receiving the least support to help weather the economic catastrophe.

  • According to a 2021 Federal Reserve report, Latino businesses were less than half as likely as White-owned firms to be approved for a loan during the COVID‑19 emergency. And the U.S. Small Business Administration reported only 7 percent of Latino businesses that applied received Paycheck Protection Program funding in 2020, compared to 83 percent for White-owned enterprises.
  • Latino small business owners experienced multiple barriers to access, including in many cases not having a relationship with a bank or professional financial service provider, lack of access to timely Spanish-language information about programs, immigration status, and inadequate accounting that left them ineligible for government relief.

CLALS’s study documents all federal, state, and local pandemic relief programs in the DC-metro region, and concludes that outreach by assistance providers did not always reach Latino business owners because local governments did not necessarily seek to engage them through preferred channels and familiar institutional counterparts. It further concludes that cities and counties striving to improve support for businesses in historically underserved communities in advance of the next crisis can be more inclusive and effective by discussing challenges and sharing best practices among each other,  targeting aid sooner to specific industries and business types, coordinating at the outset with trusted community ambassadors with strong local knowledge, and improving their awareness of how and where to best engage minority and Latino business owners, both in-person and through the right channels of communication.  

Nationwide Latinos are the most likely to start a business of any group, and they are also the fastest growing population in the Washington Metropolitan Area. Our region’s economic prosperity is increasingly connected to the success of its Latino entrepreneurs. How well its business ecosystem supports new Latino start-ups, business growth and stability, during normal economic periods but also the next inevitable crisis, will be a big part of sustaining any such prosperity. But this, in turn, will depend upon applying key lessons learned from the present pandemic crisis, including further institutionalizing the advantages of inter-jurisdictional collaboration and information-sharing, and the need to better support non-governmental and community-based institutions other than banks – which effectively channeled information, financial and technical assistance to Latino and minority enterprises throughout the crisis – as mediators between local jurisdictions and often hard-to-reach Latino business owners.

September 21, 2021

* Robert Albro is a Research Associate Professor in American University’s Center for Latin American and Latino Studies. Eric Hershberg is the Center’s Director and a Professor in American University’s School of Public Affairs. This report is part of an ongoing Center research program examining Latino Entrepreneurship.

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Latin America: Enduring Less Drastic Declines in Remittances than Predicted

By Gabriel Cabañas*

Ria Money Transfer/ Adam Fagen/ Flickr/ Creative Commons License

The decline in remittances during the COVID-19 pandemic has been less severe than predicted for Latin American and Caribbean countries because many migrants are in essential jobs and industries benefitting from generous U.S. income-protection measures, and a good U.S. recovery suggests positive trends will continue.

  • In April 2020, a month after the World Health Organization declared the pandemic, the World Bank estimated the resulting economic shock would cause remittances globally to drop by around 20 percent over the year – the greatest single year drop ever recorded. The Bank said the decline hinged on the fall of wages and employment of migrant workers. Other factors loomed large, such as China’s announcement that its economy had contracted 6.8 percent in the first quarter of 2020, and Europe, especially Italy, faced growing cases of the coronavirus.

More recent data tell a different story. The pandemic reduced global economic growth to -4.5 percent to -6 percent, which, while devastating, was cushioned by good performance in numerous sectors and industries. Contrary to the prediction of a 20 percent decline in 2020, remittances experienced only a 7 percent drop. Some remittance-receiving countries, including Mexico, actually reported growth in remittances from 2019 to 2020.

  • Generous stimulus programs, which the World Bank could not have predicted, preserved an income flow for companies in “essential” industries employing migrant workers, and those losing jobs received generous unemployment benefits.
  • A shift to digital remittances also made it easier and less costly for migrant workers to send money to their families. Western Union, which is the largest single remittance handler (with 10 to 20 percent of the market), reported that revenues increased 16 to 20 percent in 2020. Other channels appear to be growing even faster. The impact of remittances from migrant workers in the United States was further increased by currency devaluations in emerging economies hit hard by COVID.

Policymakers and academics have traditionally viewed remittances as having marginal positive impact on the economies of recipient countries – judging that foreign direct investment (FDI) has a much deeper impact – but that assessment is changing. A report published last year examined 538 estimates of the impact and found that 40 percent showed a positive correlation, 20 percent showed a negative correlation, and the remaining 40 percent were neutral. Observers increasingly think that remittances used by recipient families for consumption are often their optimal use. During periods of income shock, such as environmental catastrophe, increases in remittances replace roughly 60 percent of lost income, according to some estimates. During the Great Recession (2008-09) FDI dropped 39.7 percent, but remittances only dropped 5.2 percent. For a select group of remittance-receiving countries, including El Salvador, remittances have grown to provide more than 20 percent of GDP.

  • In 1970 remittances worldwide totaled less than $50 billion (in 2018 dollars), and in 2018 they exceeded $600 billion – surpassing all overseas development assistance and, in 2019, all FDI (except Chinese investment). Some experts claim much of this growth is a function of measurement error – caused by how banks track remittances – but the fact that remittances have been steadily growing since the 1970s is no illusion.
  • The hemisphere’s continuing challenges emerging from the pandemic raises questions about the future, but – as long as generous stimulus plans, essential work protection, and a strong dollar continue – remittances to Latin America and the Caribbean appear likely to allow recipient countries some continued reprieve from the economic devastation caused by COVID-19 and help them achieve an earlier economic recovery.

September 3, 2021

* Gabriel Cabañas is studying international relations and economics in the School of International Service.

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El Salvador: Exploiting Superpower Competition

By Jeffrey Hallock and Christopher Kambhu*

Government of El Salvador / Creative Commons License

Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele is taking advantage of superpower competition between the United States and China to get vaccines for his country and boost his domestic image as a strong, independent national leader. Hours after the United States announced a donation of 1.5 million Moderna doses to El Salvador in early July, China announced its own 1.5 million dose donation – and Bukele touted his successes on Twitter. In securing and administering vaccines for millions of Salvadorans, Bukele has achieved a domestic political victory; 44 percent of adults have received one vaccine dose as of last month, well above the regional average.

  • China’s relations with El Salvador center on its longstanding policy goal to weaken international support for Taiwan. China has expanded its influence in El Salvador since the country switched diplomatic recognition from Taiwan in 2018. During the COVID-19 pandemic, moreover, Beijing has donated a wide variety of medical supplies to El Salvador, and sold it 2 million doses of Sinovac vaccine last spring. For Beijing, vaccine diplomacy is a short-term soft-power and public relations victory that lays the groundwork for future economic deals.
  • Policymakers in Washington primarily view El Salvador through the lens of domestic migration politics. Fleeing gang violence and seeking better economic opportunities, Salvadorans form part of successive waves of migration to the United States from the Northern Triangle (which also includes Guatemala and Honduras). President Joe Biden seeks to address the root causes of migration through anticorruption and good governance initiatives, including denying visas to several senior officials in the Bukele government accused of corruption. This focus has increased tensions with Bukele.

Bukele’s superpower manipulation coincides with increasingly authoritarian tendencies at home since his inauguration in June 2019. With an approval rating well over 80 percent, he is among the most popular leaders in the world. His Nuevas Ideas party and its allies secured a legislative supermajority in February’s elections. Recently, Bukele and his legislative allies have acted aggressively to consolidate power, replacing the Attorney General and all five Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Court magistrates with loyalists and preventing oversight of pandemic spending. Bukele also shuttered the OAS-backed anticorruption commission CICIES, which his campaign had supported. Numerous observers believe Bukele’s iron grip on the three branches of government will undermine El Salvador’s democratic institutions.

When Biden first took office, Bukele appeared likely to mimic the delicate dance choreographed by other Northern Triangle presidents: pledge to reduce migration flows to the United States in exchange for leeway on domestic affairs. However, the Biden Administration has not looked the other way as Bukele has violated democratic norms and lashed out at critics, including a Twitter spat with U.S. Congresswoman Norma Torres of California. When the Biden Administration recently released a list of corrupt politicians that included several Bukele allies, he strongly criticized the list while publicly praising additional Chinese aid and vaccines.

  • The recent U.S. vaccine donation reflects Washington’s concern about China’s regional influence and acknowledges that the lofty goals of good governance can be overshadowed by other geopolitical considerations. The U.S. retains strong economic leverage over El Salvador through remittances from Salvadoran migrants (some 200,000 of whom are dependent on continued U.S. Temporary Protected Status), but the Biden administration is wary of pushing El Salvador too close to China.
  • While Bukele’s maneuvering has provided him a domestic political victory, diplomatic challenges remain. China’s foreign policy is transactional in nature, and Beijing will likely ask something of Bukele in exchange for its pandemic diplomacy. It is difficult to see what El Salvador can offer China since it already dropped recognition of Taiwan. Perhaps Bukele is betting he can avoid the difficult concessions which plague other nations’ Chinese relations. El Salvador’s strong economic and cultural ties with the U.S. will endure, but for the moment, Bukele is reaping the benefits of instigating great power rivalry.

*Jeffrey Hallock is a doctoral student at American University’s School of International Service. Christopher Kambhu is a Program Coordinator at CLALS.

August 5, 2021

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Temporary Protected Status: Prospects Under the Biden Administration

By Hannah Bossert and Jayesh Rathod*

National TPS Alliance holding a press conference and vigil in Washington, DC/ uusc4all/ Flickr/ Creative Commons License

In the swell of immigration reform discussions in Washington, Temporary Protected Status (TPS), one form of humanitarian protection, has received significant attention from policymakers and advocates, but the Administration of U.S. President Joe Biden has yet to signal its intended action for significant TPS decisions arising later this year and next.

  • Codified in U.S. immigration law, TPS provides relief from removal and work authorization for nationals of designated countries affected by ongoing armed conflict, natural disaster, or other extraordinary and temporary conditions. The Secretary of Homeland Security makes TPS designations for anywhere from six to 18 months, with no legal limit to the number of renewals. When conditions allow for a safe return, the federal government may choose to terminate the designations.
  • As part of its agenda set on restricting immigration, the Trump Administration attempted to end TPS for six countries (including four in Latin America), prompting litigation that has extended the designations while courts review the legality of the terminations.

The Biden Administration has only begun to formulate its policies regarding TPS, which will have a major political and economic impact on immigrant communities in the United States and on the region as a whole. Twelve countries worldwide have been TPS-designated, protecting approximately 320,000 individuals, for a number of years. In March, the Administration extended protection to an estimated 323,000 eligible Venezuelans, and designated Burma in May. But pending decisions include the following:

  • Today nearly 200,000 nationals of El Salvador are protected by a designation made in 2001. Designations in 1999 for Honduras and Nicaragua currently protect around 60,350 and 3,200 persons, respectively. Thanks to federal court injunctions, these work permits and protections from removal remain valid through October 4. The Biden Administration recently agreed to participate in settlement discussions to resolve the pending litigation. The White House might find a way to extend work authorization for the existing beneficiaries; alternatively, it might re-designate these countries for TPS, which would offer protection to tens of thousands who arrived after the initial designation dates. Given the roadblocks that many Central American migrants face in advancing asylum claims, re-designation could be the more attractive option as it would alleviate immigration court backlogs and would not require Congressional authorization.
  • Re-designation was the Biden Administration’s preferred course of action for Haiti, which was also subject to a Trump-era termination effort. On May 22, DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas re-designated Haiti for 18 months, expanding coverage to 100,000-150,000 new arrivals and providing an opportunity for those nearly 41,000 Haitians deriving status from the earlier designation to re-apply. The devastating effects of COVID‑19 and the instability surrounding the recent assassination of President Moïse both complicate return for Haitian nationals.
  • Members of Congress recently penned a bicameral letter urging the Administration to consider TPS designations or redesignation for 17 countries, including El Salvador, Honduras, and Nicaragua, as well as the Bahamas and Guatemala. A Guatemala designation, recently re-requested by the country’s government in the wake of severe hurricane damage, would change its decades-long outlier status when compared to its Central American neighbors.

Despite its name, TPS has enabled decades-long residency for hundreds of thousands of migrants, allowing them to build lives and families in the United States. TPS beneficiaries from El Salvador, Haiti, and Honduras alone contribute roughly $4.5 billion to the U.S. economy, including an average yearly contribution of over $691 million to Medicare and Social Security. Despite past stagnation in considering longer-term relief for TPS holders, the reality of TPS has prompted new advocacy in Congress aimed at creating pathways to citizenship for beneficiaries via proposed legislation such as the American Dream and Promise Act of 2021 and U.S. Citizenship Act, as well as calls to enshrine these efforts within the budgetary process, as in Senator Bernie Sanders’s Budget Reconciliation Bill.

  • Congressional action has become even more critical given the Supreme Court’s recent unanimous decision in Sanchez v. Mayorkas, which cut off the primary pathway to lawful permanent residence for TPS holders who had entered the United States without permission. This decision, absent  Congressional action, leaves hundreds of thousands in a prolonged and uncertain status. Given the current political climate in Washington, the path forward remains unclear.

July 21, 2021

* Hannah Bossert is  a second-year law student at the Washington College of Law and Dean’s Fellow for the Immigrant Justice Clinic, and Jayesh Rathod is Professor of Law and Director of the Immigrant Justice Clinic at the Washington College of Law.

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