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101. The Effects of Immigration Enforcement on Faith-Based Organizations: An Analysis of the FEER Survey

Author:
Donald Kerwin and Mike Nicholson
Publication Date:
06-2019
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal on Migration and Human Security
Institution:
Center for Migration Studies of New York
Abstract:
The effects of US immigration enforcement policies on immigrants, US families, and communities have been well-documented. However, less attention has been paid to their impact on faith-based organizations (FBOs). Faith communities provide a spiritual home, and extensive legal, resettlement, social service, health, and educational services for refugees and immigrants. This report presents the findings of the FEER (Federal Enforcement Effect Research) Survey, which explored the effects of US immigration enforcement policies on immigrant-serving Catholic institutions.[1] Many of these institutions arose in response to the needs of previous generations of immigrants and their children (Kerwin and George 2014, 14, 74-75). Most strongly identify with immigrants and have long served as crucial intermediaries between immigrant communities and the broader society (Campos 2014, 149-51).[2] Over its first two years, the Trump administration has consistently characterized immigrants as criminals, security risks, and an economic burden. Among its policy initiatives, the administration has supported major cuts in family-based immigration, attempted to terminate the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, reduced refugee admissions to historic lows, instituted admission bars on Muslim-majority countries, attempted to strip Temporary Protection Status (TPS) from all but a fraction of its beneficiaries, erected major new barriers to asylum, and proposed new rules regarding the public charge grounds of inadmissibility that would make it more difficult for poor and working class persons to obtain permanent residence. US immigration enforcement policies have separated children from their parents, criminally prosecuted asylum-seekers, expanded detention, increased arrests of non-citizens without criminal records, and militarized the US-Mexico border. These policies have failed to stem the flow of migrants and asylum-seekers: instead these flows have increased dramatically in recent months. These policies have succeeded, however, in devastating children, instilling fear in immigrant communities, blocking access to the US asylum system, and undermining immigrant integration (Kerwin 2018).[3] The FEER survey points to a paradox. On one hand, US enforcement policies have increased the demand for services such as legal screening, representation, naturalization, assistance to unaccompanied minors, and support to the US families of detainees and deportees. Many Catholic institutions have expanded their services to accommodate the increased demand for their services. On the other hand, their work with immigrants has been impeded by federal immigration policies that effectively prevent immigrants from driving, attending gatherings, applying for benefits, and accessing services for fear that these activities might lead to their deportation or the deportation of a family member. Among other top-line findings, 59 percent of 133 FEER respondents reported that “fear of apprehension or deportation” negatively affected immigrants’ access to their services, and 57 percent of 127 respondents reported that immigrant enforcement very negatively or negatively affected the participation of immigrants in their programs and ministries.
Topic:
Migration, Religion, Border Control, Immigrants, and Catholic Church
Political Geography:
United States, Central America, and North America

102. Paradoxes of Protection: Compassionate Repression at the Mexico–Guatemala Border

Author:
Rebecca Galemba, Katie Dingeman, Kaelyn DeVries, and Yvette Servin
Publication Date:
07-2019
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal on Migration and Human Security
Institution:
Center for Migration Studies of New York
Abstract:
Anti-immigrant rhetoric and constricting avenues for asylum in the United States, amid continuing high rates of poverty, environmental crisis, and violence in Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador, have led many migrants from these countries to remain in Mexico. Yet despite opportunities for humanitarian relief in Mexico, since the early 2000s the Mexican government, under growing pressure from the United States, has pursued enforcement-first initiatives to stem northward migration from Central America. In July 2014, Mexico introduced the Southern Border Program (SBP) with support from the United States. The SBP dramatically expanded Mexico’s immigration enforcement efforts, especially in its southern border states, leading to rising deportations. Far from reducing migration or migrant smuggling, these policies have trapped migrants for longer in Mexico, made them increasingly susceptible to crimes by a wide range of state and nonstate actors, and exacerbated risk along the entire migrant trail. In recognition of rising crimes against migrants and heeding calls from civil society to protect migrant rights, Mexico’s 2011 revision to its Migration Law expanded legal avenues for granting humanitarian protection to migrants who are victims of crimes in Mexico, including the provision of a one-year humanitarian visa so that migrants can collaborate with the prosecutor’s office in the investigation of crimes committed against them. The new humanitarian visa laws were a significant achievement and represent a victory by civil society keen on protecting migrants as they travel through Mexico. The wider atmosphere of impunity, however, alongside the Mexican government’s prioritization of detaining and deporting migrants, facilitates abuses, obscures transparent accounting of crimes, and limits access to justice. In practice, the laws are not achieving their intended outcomes. They also fail to recognize how Mexico’s securitized migration policies subject migrants to risk throughout their journeys, including at border checkpoints between Guatemala and Honduras, along critical transit corridors in Guatemala, and on the Guatemalan side of Mexico’s southern border. In this article, we examine a novel set of data from migrant shelters — 16 qualitative interviews with migrants and nine with staff and advocates in the Mexico–Guatemala border region, as well as 118 complaints of abuses committed along migrants’ journeys — informally filed by migrants at a shelter on the Guatemalan side of the border, and an additional eight complaints filed at a shelter on the Mexican side of the border. We document and analyze the nature, location, and perpetrators of these alleged abuses, using a framework of “compassionate repression” (Fassin 2012) to examine the obstacles that migrants encounter in denouncing abuses and seeking protection. We contend that while humanitarian visas can provide necessary protection for abuses committed in Mexico, they are limited by their temporary nature, by being nested within a migration system that prioritizes migrant removal, and because they recognize only crimes that occur in Mexico. The paradox between humanitarian concerns and repressive migration governance in a context of high impunity shapes institutional and practical obstacles to reporting crimes, receiving visas, and accessing justice. In this context, a variety of actors recognize that they can exploit and profit from migrants’ lack of mobility, legal vulnerability, and uncertain access to protection, leading to a commodification of access to humanitarian protection along the route.
Topic:
Migration, Immigration, Border Control, Violence, and Humanitarian Crisis
Political Geography:
United States, Central America, North America, Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador

103. Venezuelan Migration and the Border Health Crisis in Colombia and Brazil

Author:
Shannon Doocy, Kathleen Page, Fernando de la Hoz, Paul Spiegel, and Chris Beyer
Publication Date:
08-2019
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal on Migration and Human Security
Institution:
Center for Migration Studies of New York
Abstract:
Venezuela’s economic crisis has triggered mass migration; more than 3.4 million Venezuelans have fled to other countries in the region and beyond. An assessment mission to Cúcuta, in the Colombian border state of North Santander, was undertaken from July 26 to August 1, 2018, and to Bôa Vista and Pacaraima, in the state of Roraima, Brazil, between August 24 and 28, 2018. Interviews were conducted with key informants, including health providers and organizations engaged in the humanitarian response. Secondary analysis of gray literature and data shared by key informants was also undertaken. Surveillance data demonstrate increases in infectious diseases, as well as adverse maternal and neonatal health outcomes, among Venezuelans in North Santander and Roraima. Summary of Findings for North Santander Reportable public health surveillance events among Venezuelans increased from 182 in 2015 to 865 in the first half of 2018. In 2018, the most common reported events included gender-based and intrafamiliar violence (17 percent), malaria (15 percent), and acute malnutrition in children <5 years (9 percent). There were 14 measles cases reported between January and June 2018 (compared to none in the previous years), the majority associated with migration from Venezuela. Thirty-six cases of maternal morbidity and two cases of maternal mortality among Venezuelans were observed in the first half of 2018 (compared to three cases of maternal morbidity and no maternal deaths in 2015). Low-birth-weight Venezuelan births rose from three in 2015 to 34 in 2017. Between January 2017 and June 2018, emergency medical attention was provided to 19,108 Venezuelans in government health facilities. Summary of Findings for Roraima In 2018, there were 355 cases of measles in Roraima (compared to none in previous years) — all cases had the genotype lineage originating in the 2017 Venezuelan measles outbreak. Children younger than one year old (812.1/100,000) had the highest measles incident rate in Roraima, followed by children 1–4 years old (245.7/100,000). Malaria cases among Venezuelans increased 3.5-fold from 2015 to 2018 (1,260 vs. 4,402 cases). As of August 2018, 171 HIV-infected Venezuelans were receiving HIV care at the Coronel Motta Clinic in Bôa Vista, Roraima. In 2018, 1,603 Venezuelan women gave birth at the Hospital Materno-Infantil in Bôa Vista, and by mid-2018, 10,040 Venezuelans had received outpatient care and 666 had been hospitalized at the Hospital General Roraima. In Colombia, primary healthcare is not available to Venezuelans, and provision of emergency care is perceived as unsustainable given current funding mechanisms. In Brazil, primary care is available to Venezuelans, but the healthcare system is under severe strain to meet the increased demand for care and is facing unprecedented shortages in medications and supplies. There is an urgent need to expand the humanitarian health response in Colombia and Brazil, both to ensure health among Venezuelans and to protect public health in border areas.
Topic:
Health, Migration, Financial Crisis, Border Control, and Humanitarian Crisis
Political Geography:
Brazil, South America, Central America, Venezuela, and North America

104. Inflation Targets in Latin America

Author:
José De Gregorio
Publication Date:
11-2019
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Peterson Institute for International Economics (PIIE)
Abstract:
Many emerging-market economies have adopted inflation targeting regimes since they were introduced by New Zealand in 1990. Latin America has not been the exception. Currently eight Latin American countries conduct monetary policy through inflation targeting regimes: Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Guatemala, Mexico, Paraguay, Peru, and Uruguay. This paper reviews the history of chronic inflation in Latin America and describes these countries’ experience with inflation targets and their performance during the global financial crisis.
Topic:
Markets, Developing World, Economies, and Inflation
Political Geography:
Brazil, Colombia, Uruguay, Latin America, Central America, Mexico, Chile, Peru, Guatemala, and Paraguay

105. Construction of an Extended Environmental and Economic Social Accounting Matrix from a Practitioner’s Perspective

Author:
Onil Banerjee, Martin Cicowiez, Renato Vargas, and Mark Horridge
Publication Date:
10-2019
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Distributive, Labor and Social Studies (CEDLAS)
Abstract:
In 2014, the United Nations published the first International Standard for environmental economic statistics, known as the System of Environmental-Economic Accounting (SEEA).. As more countries adopt and implement the SEEA, the availability of consistent environmental and economic information increases the need for analytical tools that can use this data to respond to policy relevant questions. In this paper, we present a workflow to develop an environmentally extended social accounting matrix, which can serve as the basic database for the development of environmentally-extended computable general equilibrium models. To illustrate, and given its comprehensive implementation of the SEEA, we apply this workflow to the Guatemalan case and the Integrated Economic-Environmental Modeling (IEEM) Platform.
Topic:
Economics, United Nations, Basic Data, Accountability, Economic Policy, and Statistics
Political Geography:
South America, Latin America, Central America, Guatemala, and Global Focus

106. The Real Solution: Regional Response Rather than Border Closures, Mass Incarceration, and Refugee Returns Share

Author:
Eleanor Acer
Publication Date:
04-2019
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Human Rights First
Abstract:
The Trump Administration has purposefully mismanaged the refugee and humanitarian challenges pushing people to flee political repression, human rights abuses, economic deprivation, and climate displacement in Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador. Trump Administration policies have actually made things worse, cutting programs countering displacement, turning a blind eye to human rights abuses, encouraging crossings between official ports of entry, and punishing people seeking U.S. protection through punitive and traumatizing family separations and detention. These harmful policies have aggravated humanitarian challenges—deliberately provoking disorder, chaos, and confusion. Congress must take swift action to push real solutions, and over the longer term the next administration will need to ensure these solutions are enduring. Congress should champion a new initiative to strengthen protection across the region. This initiative must truly tackle the rights abuses and deprivations pushing people to flee, greatly enhance the capacity of Mexico and other countries to provide asylum and host refugees, and set a strong example at home by upholding America’s own refugee protection commitments. Upholding human rights commitments is not only the right thing to do, it is also in the U.S. national interest. These commitments have saved millions of lives and encourage countries around the world—including front-line countries that host the vast majority of the world’s refugees—to continue hosting refugees. The heroic work of many Americans—working and volunteering with faith-based shelters, community groups, legal representation, and other organizations—should be supported. They are, and always have been, an essential part of the solution. The measures outlined below would restore order to the region and the U.S. border while upholding the United States’ legal and humanitarian commitments. Key steps include: 1. Address the actual causes of displacement in Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador. The United States should increase support for effective programs that counter violence, strengthen justice systems, spur economic opportunities, and safeguard communities from climate displacement, so that people do not need to flee in search of safety or survival. In addition, U.S. diplomats must press the leaders of these countries to safeguard rights, support anti-corruption efforts, and address abuses from security forces. 2. Strongly support increased asylum and refugee-hosting capacity in Mexico and other Latin American countries, so that these countries—which are already hosting growing numbers—have the ability to continue accepting refugees. Asylum filings in Mexico, for example, have increased by over 700 percent since 2014. The United States should sharply increase support for the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) to increase regional capacity, to develop strong asylum and refugee protection systems, and to better integrate refugees in Mexico and the region. U.S. diplomacy, law enforcement cooperation, and rule of law assistance should be leveraged to reduce violence against refugees and migrants in Mexico. In addition, the United States should launch a regional resettlement effort, providing some refugees with routes to safety in the United States as well as other countries, and relaunch the Central American Minors (CAM) program to allow some children with family in the United States to come to our country safely. 3. Combat smuggling in the region while safeguarding access to protection. U.S. agencies must ensure anti-smuggling and anti-trafficking efforts do not block escape from dangerous countries and include measures to safeguard human rights and access to asylum. By strengthening asylum, resettlement, and work visas in the region, more refugees and migrants will have alternate routes to protection. 4. Manage U.S. asylum arrivals effectively through a genuine humanitarian response that upholds U.S. law and provides order, including: Restore timely and orderly asylum processing at ports of entry and ensure humane conditions at all Department of Homeland Security (DHS) facilities; End the Remain in Mexico scheme and “metering” policies that push people to cross between ports of entry and put the lives of asylum seekers at risk as they wait in danger in Mexico; Support and fund NGOs and shelters in the United States—including faith-based groups that have been effectively partnering with DHS in U.S. cities along the border—to address humanitarian needs, a typical and necessary move in managing refugee arrivals; and Launch a community-based case management program that supports appearance, as recommended by ICE’s own advisory group, rather than jailing asylum seekers for even longer. 5. Restore order through measures providing timely, fair, and effective U.S. adjudications, including: Increase, rather than “get rid of,” immigration judges and interpreters. In order to understand what is being said in their courtrooms and ensure due process, judges must be supported by interpreters. And, since a judge set on furthering a politicized agenda is worse than no judge at all, safeguards against politicized court hiring must be immediately restored. Additional measures to support judges include: increased recruitment of interpreters who speak indigenous dialects to assure accurate hearings and prevent continued adjournments, ensuring the time necessary to gather evidence to prove cases, and rejecting absurd schemes that would entrust protection determinations to border agents or rush cases through adjudications; Support a major legal representation initiative to ensure eligible refugees receive protection at the earliest stages of the process and institute universal legal orientation presentations (LOPs)—including for families released from DHS/Customs and Border Protection (CBP) custody—to explain appearance obligations, the legal system, and how to secure counsel; Enable more cases to be granted efficiently at the USCIS asylum office by providing initial decision-making authority to the asylum office in all asylum cases, changing policies and practices that have prompted asylum officers to refer, rather than grant, cases that meet the asylum criteria— unnecessarily adding them to the immigration court caseload—and assure the availability of an application process for “cancellation of removal” relief so these cases do not clog the asylum system; Make the immigration courts independent, as the American Bar Association recommends, to secure due process and judicial independence, ensuring that political appointees can no longer attempt to improperly influence the courts’ decisions in asylum and other cases; and Reverse Trump Administration efforts to prevent refugees from receiving asylum in the United States—including former Attorney General Sessions’ ruling attempting to deny protection to women who have fled domestic violence and families escaping from deadly gangs. The measures outlined above would restore order and bring about real and enduring solutions. As the president and top Trump Administration officials are doubling down on punitive policies and political rhetoric that fail to solve these challenges, Congress must demand effective strategies that are consistent with America’s ideals.
Topic:
Human Rights, Prisons/Penal Systems, and Border Control
Political Geography:
United States, Central America, North America, Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador

107. Protecting Refugees and Restoring Order: Real Solutions to the Humanitarian Crisis

Author:
Eleanor Acer
Publication Date:
06-2019
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Human Rights First
Abstract:
Families and children from Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador—fleeing human rights abuses, deadly violence, climate displacement and economic deprivations—continue to seek refuge in the United States and other countries. This is a regional humanitarian crisis—a manageable one that should be addressed using proven strategies, as are humanitarian challenges around the world. Yet instead of taking the steps necessary to address the crisis, the Trump Administration is making things worse, threatening cuts to effective programs that could reduce the problems forcing people to flee, sending refugees back to danger, canceling rather than expanding case management, and cutting orderly processing at ports of entry, increasing crossings between ports of entry. The Trump Administration’s actions appear designed to generate chaos. The regional crisis requires real solutions in several key areas: tackling the rights abuses and deprivations pushing people to flee, enhancing the capacity of Mexico and other countries to provide asylum and host refugees, and managing U.S. refugee protection requests in fair, effective and orderly ways—ways that uphold America’s refugee laws and treaty commitments. Most immediately, the United States must end the dysfunction at the border by launching a public-private humanitarian initiative and a long overdue case management system, which would keep asylum seekers informed and ensure they appear for their hearings. At the same time, the U.S. government should fix the asylum and immigration court adjudication systems to provide fair, non-politicized, and timely decisions. To effectively manage border and adjudication systems, the United States must upgrade to manage new realities, instead of pushing mass detention and other outdated, inadequate and ineffective responses that are also costly, cruel, and inhumane. As part of this strategy, the United States should launch a major initiative, with other countries, to expand regional protection so that Mexico and others, which are already hosting growing numbers, have the ability to continue accepting refugees. Critically, the United States and other donors should increase support for efforts to build the capacity of these countries to provide asylum, host, protect, and integrate refugees. In addition, the United States should work with other resettlement countries to launch a robust regional initiative that provides orderly routes to protection in the United States and other third countries. The United States must also advance a targeted strategy—leveraging both diplomacy and aid - to address the actual root causes of migration and displacement in the Northern Triangle. This should focus on programs that reduce violence, combat corruption, strengthen rule of law, decrease femicide and other gender-based harms, address gang violence, protect vulnerable populations, and promote sustainable economic development. By helping to build real protections for women, children, LGBTQ, indigenous, and other at-risk people in Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador, while expanding protection of refugees in Mexico and other countries, this strategy will ultimately reduce the numbers fleeing to the United States. The measures outlined below would restore order to the region and the U.S. border while upholding U.S. legal and humanitarian commitments. Congress—and over the longer term, the next administration—must push real solutions.
Topic:
Humanitarian Aid, Prisons/Penal Systems, Border Control, and Refugees
Political Geography:
United States, Central America, North America, Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador

108. Darkening Horizons: Global Violent Deaths Scenarios, 2018–30

Author:
Gergely Hideg and Anna Alvazzi del Frate
Publication Date:
05-2019
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Small Arms Survey
Abstract:
The year 2017 saw the second highest annual rate of global violent deaths in the period 2004–17, according to this Briefing Paper from the Small Arms Survey. In 2017, 589,000 people—including 96,000 women and girls—lost their lives due to lethal violence. This corresponds to a rate of 7.80 violent deaths per 100,000 population, the second highest since 2004. The same figure for 2016 was 560,000 people, or 7.56 deaths per 100,000 population. The data for 2017 compared to 2016 was also the third-largest annual change during the period 2004–17. Overall, the proportion of female victims of lethal violence remained stable at 16%. This increase in the number of global violent deaths is primarily due to a rise in homicides, ie: non-conflict deaths. ‘In 2017, some 403,000 people were victims of intentional homicides, compared to 106,000 who were killed as a result of war or other conflicts,’ noted Gergely Hideg, co-author of the Small Arms Survey Briefing Paper Darkening Horizons: Global Violent Deaths Scenarios, 2018—30.
Topic:
Weapons, Sustainable Development Goals, Violence, and Death
Political Geography:
South America, Central America, and Global Focus

109. Fragile States Index 2019

Author:
Fund for Peace
Publication Date:
04-2019
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
The Fund for Peace
Abstract:
The Fragile States Index, produced by The Fund for Peace, is a critical tool in highlighting not only the normal pressures that all states experience, but also in identifying when those pressures are pushing a state towards the brink of failure. By highlighting pertinent issues in weak and failing states, The Fragile States Index — and the social science framework and software application upon which it is built — makes political risk assessment and early warning of conflict accessible to policy-makers and the public at large.
Topic:
Authoritarianism, Democracy, Fragile States, Political stability, Arab Spring, Peace, and Risk Assessment
Political Geography:
Africa, Caucasus, Middle East, Brazil, Yemen, South America, Central America, Nicaragua, Venezuela, Ethiopia, Somalia, Mauritius, and Global Focus

110. Gang Violence as Organized Violence: Implications for the WPS Index

Author:
Mariana Viollaz and Jeni Klugman
Publication Date:
02-2019
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace and Security (GIWPS)
Abstract:
In this note, we experiment with potential improvements on the measurement of violence in the Women, Peace, and Security (WPS) Index to better reflect the reality on the ground in countries experiencing high levels of gang violence. First, we propose an extension to the measure of conflict from the Uppsala Conflict Data Program—currently the most comprehensive measure of organized violence—by including a more accurate number of deaths associated with gang violence alongside “battle deaths.” We show what difference this would make to WPS Index rankings for a set of four Central American countries and Mexico.
Topic:
Security, Women, Violence, Peace, and Gangs
Political Geography:
Central America and Mexico