All posts tagged Immigration (U.S.)

What does the New Year hold for Latin America?

We’ve invited AULABLOG’s contributors to share with us a prediction or two for the new year in their areas of expertise.  Here are their predictions.

Photo credit: titoalfredo / Foter.com / CC BY-NC-SA

Photo credit: titoalfredo / Foter.com / CC BY-NC-SA

U.S.-Latin America relations will deteriorate further as there will be little movement in Washington on immigration reform, the pace of deportations, narcotics policy, weapons flows, or relations with Cuba.  Steady progress toward consolidating the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), however, will catalyze a shared economic agenda with market-oriented governments in Chile, Mexico, Peru and possibly Colombia, depending on how election-year politics affects that country’s trade stance.

– Eric Hershberg

The energy sector will be at the core of the economic and political crises many countries in the Americas will confront in 2014.  Argentina kicked off the New Year with massive blackouts and riots.  Bolivia, the PetroCaribe nations, and potentially even poster child Chile are next.

– Thomas Andrew O’Keefe

Unprecedented success of Mexico’s Peña Nieto passing structural reforms requiring constitutional amendments that eluded three previous administrations spanning 18 years, are encouraging for the country’s prospects of faster growth.  Key for 2014: quality and expediency of secondary implementing legislation and effectiveness in execution of the reforms.

– Manuel Suarez-Mier

Mexico may be leading the way, at least in the short term, with exciting energy sector reforms, which if fully executed, could help bring Mexico’s oil industry into the 21st Century, even if this means discarding, at least partly, some of the rhetorical nationalism which made Mexico’s inefficient and romanticized parastatal oil company – Petróleos Mexicanos (PEMEX) – a symbol of Mexican national pride.  Let’s see if some of the proceeds from the reforms and resulting production boosts can fortify ideals of the Mexican Revolution by generating more social programs to diminish inequality, and getting rid of the bloat and corruption at PEMEX.

– Todd Eisenstadt

Brazil is without a doubt “the country of soccer,” as Brazilians like to say.  If Brazil wins the world cup in June, Dilma will also have an easy win in the presidential elections.  But if it loses, Dilma will have to deal with new protests and accusations of big spending to build soccer fields rather than improving education and health.

– Luciano Melo

Brazilian foreign policy is unlikely to undergo deep changes, although emphasis could shift in some areas.  Brazil will insist on multilateral solutions – accepting, for example, the invitation to participate at a “five-plus-one” meeting on Syria.  The WTO Doha Round will remain a priority.  Foreign policy does not appear likely to be a core issue in the October general elections.  If economic difficulties do not grow, Brazil will continue to upgrade its international role.

– Tullo Vigevani

In U.S.-Cuba relations, expect agreements on Coast Guard search and rescue, direct postal service, oil spill prevention, and – maybe – counternarcotics.  Warming relations could set the stage for releasing Alan Gross (and others?) in exchange for the remaining Cuban Five (soon to be three).  But normalizing relations is not in the cards until Washington exchanges its regime change policy for one of real coexistence.  A handshake does not make for a détente.

– William M. LeoGrande

A decline in the flow of Venezuelan resources to Cuba will impact the island’s economy, but the blow will be cushioned by continued expansion of Brazilian investment and trade and deepened economic ties with countries outside the Americas.

– Eric Hershberg

In a non-election year in Venezuela, President Maduro will begin to incrementally increase the cost of gasoline at the pump, currently the world’s lowest, and devalue the currency – but neither will solve deep economic troubles.  Dialogue with the opposition, a new trend, will endure but experience fits and starts.  The country will not experience a social explosion, and new faces will join Capriles to round out a more diverse opposition leadership.  Barring a crisis requiring cooperation, tensions with the United States will remain high but commerce will be unaffected.

– Michael McCarthy

Colombia’s negotiations with the FARC won’t be resolved by the May 2014 elections, which President Santos will win easily – most likely in the first round.  There will be more interesting things going on in the legislative races.  Former President Uribe will win a seat in the Senate.  Other candidates in his party will win as well – probably not as many as he would like but enough for him to continue being a big headache for the Santos administration.  Colombia’s economy will continue to improve, and the national football team will put up a good fight in the World Cup.

– Elyssa Pachico

Awareness of violence against women will keep increasing.  Unfortunately, the criminalization of abortion or, in other words, forcing pregnancy on women, will still be treated by many policy makers and judges as an issue unrelated to gender violence.

– Macarena Saez

In the North American partnership, NAFTA’s anniversary offers a chance to reflect on the trilateral relationship – leaving behind the campaign rhetoric and looking forward. The leaders will hold a long-delayed summit and offer some small, but positive, measures on education and infrastructure. North America will be at the center of global trade negotiations.

– Tom Long

The debate over immigration reform in Washington will take on the component parts of the Senate’s comprehensive bill. Both parties could pat themselves on the back heading into the mid-term elections by working out a deal, most likely trading enhanced security measures for a more reasonable but still-imposing pathway to citizenship.

– Aaron Bell

The new government in Honduras will try to deepen neoliberal policies, but new political parties, such as LIBRE and PAC, will make the new Congress more deliberative. Low economic growth and deterioration in social conditions will present challenges to governability.

– Hugo Noé Pino

In the northern tier of Central America, despite new incoming presidents in El Salvador and Honduras, impunity and corruption will remain unaddressed.  Guatemala’s timid reform will be the tiny window of hope in the region.  The United States will still appear clueless about the region’s growing governance crisis.

– Héctor Silva

Increased tension will continue in the Dominican Republic in the aftermath of the Constitutional Tribunal’s decision to retroactively strip Dominicans of Haitian descent of citizenship.  The implementation of the ruling in 2014 through repatriation will be met with international pressure for the Dominican government to reverse the ruling.

— Maribel Vásquez

In counternarcotics policy, eyes will turn to Uruguay to see how the experiment with marijuana plays out. Unfortunately, it is too small an experiment to tell us anything. Instead, the focus will become the growing problem of drug consumption in the region.

– Steven Dudley

Eyeing a late-year general election and possible third term, Bolivian President Evo Morales will be in campaign mode throughout 2014.  With no real challengers, Morales will win, but not in a landslide, as he fights with dissenting indigenous groups and trade unionists, a more divisive congress, the U.S., and Brazil.

– Robert Albro

In Ecuador, with stable economic numbers throughout 2014, President Rafael Correa will be on the offensive with his “citizen revolution,” looking to solidify his political movement in local elections, continuing his war on the press, while promoting big new investments in hydroelectric power.

– Robert Albro

Determined to expand Peru’s investment in extractive industries and maintain strong economic growth, President Ollanta Humalla will apply new pressure on opponents of proposed concessions, leading to fits and starts of violent conflict throughout 2014, with the president mostly getting his way.

– Robert Albro

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by clalsstaff on January 7, 2014  •  Permalink
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Posted by clalsstaff on January 7, 2014

https://aulablog.net/2014/01/07/what-does-the-new-year-hold-for-latin-america/

The 50 States and U.S.-Latin America Relations

By Aaron Bell

48outlineObservers seeking to fully understand U.S. relations with Latin America often focus on the federal level, but much is occurring in the majority of U.S. states as well.  Over 40 state governments have engaged with issues related to Latin America, most commonly confronting the legal aspects of immigration (particularly rights for undocumented workers who are overwhelmingly Latin American in origin), and organizing trade missions for local businesses.  Arizona, frustrated with federal policies to counter illegal immigration, enacted its own package of restrictive measures under SB 1070 in 2010, which was followed by similar legislative efforts in Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, and South Carolina.  On the trade front, after abandoning pursuit of a hemisphere-wide free trade area and then focusing on bilateral trade deals, the federal government has shifted focus toward development of a Pacific Alliance. States meanwhile have pursued commercial opportunities themselves, sending at least 17 trade delegations to Latin America over the past three years, primarily to Brazil, Mexico, and Chile.  Trade initiatives have infrequently clashed with federal policy, but a 2012 law in Florida — blocking the state government from contracting with companies with direct or subsidiary business ties to Cuba and Syria – was a rebuke of what some Floridians perceive as a weak approach by Washington. The Brazilian company Odebrecht, which has projects in Cuba that do not violate the U.S. Embargo, successfully sued the state for overstepping federal jurisdiction.  The bill’s sponsors say they intend to pursue new legal means and rally local political opposition to discourage state contracts with “sponsors of terrorism.”

Coordination initiatives by Arizona and Colorado stand out as unique models for other U.S. states.  The Arizona-Mexico Commission and its counterpart, La Comisión Sonora-Arizona, were founded in 1959 by the governors of Arizona and Sonora to coordinate local support for improvements to infrastructure, education, and security in order to benefit economic development in both states. In Colorado, the Biennial of the Americas was first organized in 2010 to highlight Denver’s role as a site of Pan-American cultural exchange.  The second Biennial, held this summer, hosted art exhibitions and roundtable discussions of social issues facing the region.

The trade and immigration focus of most of the state-level initiatives usually does not clash with Washington’s priorities and indeed are complementary of them.  When the states’ initiatives do challenge the federal government, however, the courts usually come down on the side of the latter.  Yet when states have ultimately lost out to federal power, their actions have at times brought U.S.-Latin American relations to the forefront of national debate, such as when Arizona passed tough immigration laws in 2010.  Bold initiatives from the states are rare, but there are alternatives to the standard trade-and-immigration fare.  The binational approaches of Arizona and Colorado aren’t perfect – critics of the Biennial of the Americas note that corporations use it as a platform for their own interests —but the connections they build are valuable and promote progress by connecting actors with shared interests and developing economic and cultural organizations around those ties.

 

Aaron Bell is a PhD candidate in the Department of History at American University.

 

 

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by clalsstaff on September 30, 2013  •  Permalink
Posted in United States
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Posted by clalsstaff on September 30, 2013

https://aulablog.net/2013/09/30/the-50-states-and-u-s-latin-america-relations/

Righting a Wrong: Family Reunification and Immigration Reform

Photo credit: mdfriendofhillary / Foter.com / CC BY-SA

Photo credit: mdfriendofhillary / Foter.com / CC BY-SA

As debate around the immigration reform bill is expected to heat up on the Senate floor, a contested provision allowing for some non-criminal deportees to return to the United States remains intact. For how long, no one is quite sure. The controversial measure, outlined in Section 2101 of the current bill, would permit deported immigrants with children, parents, or spouses who are currently U.S. citizens or legal permanent residents to petition for a waiver to return to the U.S. and apply for Registered Provisional Immigrant (RPI) status. While reprieves have been granted to undocumented immigrants residing in the U.S. in the past—under the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 and President Obama’s DACA memorandum last July—never before has a Congressional or Executive effort to overhaul immigration policy contemplated the return of deportees.

The “right to return” provision survives even as the rate of deportations continues to soar. Since 2009, the Obama administration has removed 1.5 million unauthorized immigrants and is on track to surpass 2 million by the end of fiscal year 2013. According to recent federal data unearthed through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, 205,000 undocumented immigrants with at least one U.S. citizen child were deported between July 2010 and September 2012, representing an average of 90,000 per year. The contentious deportee measure stems from acknowledgement on the part of the bill’s authors of the destructive effects that these enforcement policies have had on American families, particularly U.S. citizen children. A spokesman for Senator Marco Rubio, one of the bill’s most conservative drafters, noted that the Senator had “personally concluded that giving parents a chance to reunite with their children was the right thing to do.” The toll that family separation takes on the mental and physical health of children has only recently attracted serious attention, with studies suggesting links between parental deportation and depression, separation anxiety disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, and poor cardiovascular health.

Central to the compromise reached by the bill’s sponsors – known as the Gang of Eight – is the question of how to prioritize family reunification without shattering the bill’s prospects. The argument from the right has been that in promoting family-based immigration, the 1986 reform prompted the larger waves of immigration seen since then. In response to these concerns over “chain migration,” however exaggerated they may be, the proposed legislation calls for a gradual move away from the family-based immigration model, eliminating some 90,000 annual visas given to the siblings and married adult children of legal immigrants and granting up to 110,000 visas to immigrants skilled in science and math. Democrats have viewed this shift toward a more comprehensive “merit-based” system as a necessary compromise, but have built into the bill measures such as the “right to return” as well as an expedited path to citizenship for DREAMers (the children of unauthorized immigrants) and a clearing of family-based immigration backlogs – all of which vindicate the importance of the nuclear family. It is time for Senators from the right to follow the lead of Republican drafters and make some concessions of their own, including the Gang of Eight’s compromise to allow for the reunification of families torn apart by a decade of immigration enforcement policies run amok. Immigration reform must have as its foundation a concern for family unity and a respect for what families contribute to our society. It should also take into account the welfare of 4.5 million U.S. citizen children in mixed-status homes who will be better equipped to contribute to our society if they have the opportunity to grow up in the presence of their parents.

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by clalsstaff on June 13, 2013  •  Permalink
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Posted by clalsstaff on June 13, 2013

https://aulablog.net/2013/06/13/righting-a-wrong-family-reunification-and-immigration-reform/

Immigration Reform Legislation: Better than Nothing, But Still Flawed

Immigration reform rally / Photo credit: quixoticlife / Foter.com / CC BY-NC-SA

Immigration reform rally / Photo credit: quixoticlife / Foter.com / CC BY-NC-SA

The comprehensive immigration reform proposal that the bipartisan group of U.S. Senators dubbed the “Gang of Eight” released on April 17 is an important step forward but probably dooms us to repeat history.  The plan includes mechanisms for documenting the roughly 11 million inhabitants of the U.S. who are now living in the shadows and opening a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants who have been in the country since December 2011.  The process to gain citizenship would be long – taking typically 13 years – arduous, and expensive, requiring payment of substantial fees and fines.  The Senate Judiciary Committee began its review of the bill on May 9, covering 30 of 300 proposed amendments.  Prospects for the legislation remain uncertain, as the fragile alliance among these eight senators may not be sufficient to sway skeptics on both the left and right of the political spectrum.  If passed, the measures would take effect after the U.S. government certified that heightened border security measures have been implemented.

Supporters of comprehensive immigration reform from both sides of the aisle have long called for a “once-and-for-all” solution to the country’s broken immigration system.  Nevertheless, the original 867-page proposal – like the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 that regulated the status of just under three million undocumented immigrants – is by no means a permanent fix.  In an important sense it cannot be: it reflects a static conception of immigration, whereas historical analysis of migration patterns shows that they are inevitably dynamic processes, responding to unpredictable fluctuations in labor supply and demand in sending and receiving economies alike.

However imperfect it may be, the Senate bill represents the most promising step yet to address this ongoing challenge.  Proposed amendments introduced thus far have not addressed the dynamic nature of the problem, focusing instead on the digression of border security, as if fences or bloodhounds were capable of controlling cross-border population flows.  Institutional frameworks that acknowledge the dynamic factors that shape human migration and offer avenues for managing the movement of peoples intelligently are on the back burner.  As AU history Professor Alan Kraut has suggested, one way that legislators could achieve this would be through establishment of a commission on foreign and domestic economies and labor markets that would conduct periodic reviews of the conditions associated with optimum migration flows.  Absent the deeper understanding of migration that such reviews would provide, the U.S. legislation – albeit better than nothing – will probably yet again repeat the error of proclaiming an unattainable once-and-for-all resolution of immigration policy.

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by clalsstaff on May 13, 2013  •  Permalink
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Posted by clalsstaff on May 13, 2013

https://aulablog.net/2013/05/13/immigration-reform-legislation-better-than-nothing-but-still-flawed/

The Overlooked Dimension of U.S. Immigration Reform

By Eric Hershberg

Immigration reform rally | by Anuska Sampedro | Flickr | Creative Commons

Immigration reform rally | by Anuska Sampedro | Flickr | Creative Commons

The 2012 U.S. presidential elections brought national attention to the Latino vote and, with it, immigration reform.  Embarking on his second term, President Obama immediately labeled the matter a priority, and some but not all of the Republican leadership is eager to reach a deal.  Beyond electoral calculations, there are many good reasons for Washington to finally resolve the status of roughly 11 million people living in the United States without legal documentation.  The border with Mexico has become increasingly impermeable, stripping critics of reform of one of their principal talking points.  Virtually all credible studies demonstrate that immigrants contribute more to the tax base than they receive from public expenditures, and they are a crucial source of community revitalization in some of the nation’s depressed cities and towns.  Meanwhile, a generation of youth brought to the country as young children – the “Dreamers” – languishes without recognition of their de facto status as Americans.  There are also humanitarian issues: families and neighborhoods are torn apart by the more than 400,000 deportations in each of the past several years.

Immigration reform matters to Latin America as well.  With millions of Latin Americans residing in the United States, several of the region’s economies are highly dependent on a steady flow of remittances, which are destined to increase if undocumented workers come out of the shadows.  In 2012, Mexico and Central America received more than $35 billion from migrants in the U.S.  Particularly striking is the case of El Salvador, a U.S. ally.  Nearly a third of its population lives in the U.S., and remittances surpass all other sources of revenue – now 16 percent of GDP.  For several Central American governments the welfare of migrants working in the U.S. is not only a humanitarian concern: these citizens are a crucial foundation for economic viability – and thus nothing less than a national security priority.

Yet remarkably absent from the U.S. immigration debate are the implications of a comprehensive reform for the eroded credibility of the U.S. in Latin America.  Virtually alone among senior officials, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton acknowledged soon before leaving her post that creating a pathway to citizenship “will be a huge benefit to us in the region, not just in Mexico, but further south.”  The point merits emphasis.  The failure to enact comprehensive immigration reform, the result of domestic policy shortcomings, has serious consequences for U.S. standing in the region – as serious as other policy failures such as Washington’s continued inability to normalize relations with Cuba, to stop illicit gun exports, or to stem the demand for illicit drugs that is fueling violence and corruption across the region.  If the new administration wishes to avoid a replay of the open rebellion by Latin American governments against U.S. policy that emerged at last year’s Summit of the Americas in Cartagena, it would do well to show the region that it is willing and able to enact comprehensive immigration reform.

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by clalsstaff on March 4, 2013  •  Permalink
Posted in United States
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Posted by clalsstaff on March 4, 2013

https://aulablog.net/2013/03/04/the-overlooked-dimension-of-u-s-immigration-reform/

Mexico: Expecting More of the Same

This is the first of a series of entries examining how the U.S. presidential campaign is being viewed in different Latin American countries.

Photo: Zocalo, Mexico City | Luis Lobo Borobia (“Cromo”) | Flickr | Creative Commons

A survey of Mexican media indicates that, despite the considerable attention the U.S. presidential campaign is getting, few Mexicans expect the November election to result in significant shifts in bilateral relations.  Unlike in U.S. coverage of Mexico’s recent presidential contest, the Mexican press has not focused on bilateral drug cooperation.  Some commentators have stated general preferences.  “For the economy, demography, and proximity, a second term for Barack Obama would be good for Mexico,” wrote Enriqueta Cabrera in El Universal.  But most opinionmakers appear focused on particular issues.

There is a broad recognition in Mexico that the campaign is primarily about the U.S. economy, and the potential impact of continued stagnation has driven wide coverage.  The Mexican media are also tracking the candidates’ immigration policies.  President Obama’s executive order to halt deportation of young people who would be eligible for legal status under the long-stalled DREAM Act helped his image in the Mexican press.  The coverage of Republicans has been harsher, with El Universal saying that immigration has been “the taboo topic” for the GOP and that Governor Romney had “forgotten” about Hispanics.  The role of Latinos in the campaigns has drawn attention, mostly positively for the Democrats.

The Mexican media’s treatment of the campaign – and assumption that relations will not change much – reflects the fact that neither American candidate has brought new ideas to the table in one of the United States’ most important bilateral relationships.  On drug policy, bloody continuity seems far likelier than change, regardless of who wins in November.  Although Romney has tipped his hat – as Obama has – to the need to reduce U.S. consumption of narcotics, his main message is “to help Mexico as we did Colombia, with intelligence and surveillance.”  The greater variable is on the Mexican side, where new President Enrique Peña Nieto’s promise to refocus the drug fight on citizen security – instead of cartel interdiction – has drawn criticism from some in the United States.  Allegations that the “old PRI,” tolerant of the drug trade, is back are not far behind and could poison the relationship.

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by clalsstaff on September 20, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in Mexico, United States
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Posted by clalsstaff on September 20, 2012

https://aulablog.net/2012/09/20/mexico-expecting-more-of-the-same/

The Consequences of Deferring “Deferred Action”

Photo by Larry Engel

The Obama administration’s recent announcement of a sweeping initiative designed to remove the shadow of deportation from the lives of nearly 800,000 undocumented immigrants residing in the U.S. is the latest twist in the dual saga of immigration policy reform and enforcement. According to government sources, including the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Janet Napolitano, the carefully worded policy of “deferred action” is not an attempt on the part of the administration to sidestep a deadlocked Congress, an example of executive overreach, nor a strategic campaign maneuver during an election year in which the Hispanic vote could be decisive. It is simply the “right thing to do.”

The disparity between this morally grounded, high-level rhetoric and actual immigration law enforcement practices—which last year resulted in a record 400,000 deportations—has sent mixed signals about the current administration’s sincerity. It seems that the rising rate of deportations, touted last year as a “step in the right direction,” is beginning to be viewed within the administration as an unfortunate miss-step. Nonetheless, to many advocacy groups who lobbied in support of the DREAM Act and against blind enforcement of immigration laws, this Friday’s announcement by the Department of Homeland Security provoked a case of déjà vu. Only a year ago, in June 2011, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Director John Morton enthusiastically revived the policy of “prosecutorial discretion,” promising to scale back the removals of young students, military service members, and others. However, as of May 29 of this year, only 4,363 cases —a mere two percent of the 232,000 backlogged cases under review—had been administratively closed or dismissed.

Beyond questions of electoral politics and policy implementation, one thing is certain: for many undocumented immigrants and their U.S.-based families, deferred action has come too late. A recent report from DHS cited that during the first six months of 2011 alone, over 46,000 parents of U.S. citizen children were forcibly removed—a statistic that raises serious concerns about the health and social impacts of deportation on U.S. Latino communities. As the current administration seeks to hammer out a consensus regarding a long-term solution to the country’s broken immigration system, it is crucial that such a consensus be informed about the consequences of political miss-steps.

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by clalsstaff on July 19, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in United States
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Posted by clalsstaff on July 19, 2012

https://aulablog.net/2012/07/19/the-consequences-of-deferring-deferred-action/

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