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101. Children's Migration to the United States from Mexico and Central America: Evidence from the Mexican and Latin American Migration Projects

Author:
Katharine M. Donato and Blake Sisk
Publication Date:
03-2015
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal on Migration and Human Security
Institution:
Center for Migration Studies of New York
Abstract:
In light of rising numbers of unaccompanied minors at the Mexico- US border in 2014, this article examines child migration from Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, Costa Rica, and Nicaragua. Using data from the Mexican and Latin American Migration Projects that permit us to go beyond simple descriptive analysis about children apprehended at the border, we investigate the extent to which children from these countries: 1) enter without legal authorization to do so; 2) are more likely to cross the border now than in the past; and 3) are tied to their parents' migration. In theory, if immigration and refugee protections worked well for children and offered them legal pathways to reunify with their families, then we would expect low levels of unauthorized entry and no dramatic shifts over time. However, our examination of child migration shows that it is strongly linked to unauthorized entry, period of entry, and parents' US experience.The findings show that the migration of children is closely linked to their parents' migration history. Although the overall likelihood of a Mexican child making a first US trip is quite low, it is practically non-existent for children whose parents have no US experience. Thus, the increase in child migration from Central America, and the continued high levels of child migration from Mexico result from widespread migration networks and the United States' long-standing reliance on the children's parents as immigrant workers. The findings suggest that these children need protection in the form of family reunification and permanent legal status.
Topic:
Migration
Political Geography:
United States, Central America, and Mexico

102. Problems Faced by Mexican Asylum Seekers in the United States

Author:
J.Anna Cabot
Publication Date:
03-2015
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal on Migration and Human Security
Institution:
Center for Migration Studies of New York
Abstract:
Violence in Mexico rose sharply in response to President Felipe Calderón's military campaign against drug cartels which began in late 2006. As a consequence, the number of Mexicans who have sought asylum in the United States has grown significantly. In 2013, Mexicans made up the second largest group of defensive asylum seekers (those in removal proceedings) in the United States, behind only China (EOIR 2014b). Yet between 2008 and 2013, the grant rate for Mexican asylum seekers in immigration court fell from 23 percent to nine percent (EOIR 2013, 2014b). This paper examines—from the perspective of an attorney who represented Mexican asylum seekers on the US-Mexico border in El Paso, Texas—the reasons for low asylum approval rates for Mexicans despite high levels of violence in and flight from Mexico from 2008 to 2013. It details the obstacles faced by Mexican asylum seekers along the US-Mexico border, including placement in removal proceedings, detention, evidentiary issues, narrow legal standards, and (effectively) judicial notice of country conditions in Mexico. The paper recommends that asylum seekers at the border be placed in affirmative proceedings (before immigration officials), making them eligible for bond. It also proposes increased oversight of immigration judges.
Topic:
Immigration
Political Geography:
United States, China, and Mexico

103. There and Back Again: On the Diffusion of Immigration Detention

Author:
Michael T. Flynn
Publication Date:
02-2015
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal on Migration and Human Security
Institution:
Center for Migration Studies of New York
Abstract:
From Mexico to the Bahamas, Mauritania to Lebanon, Turkey to Saudi Arabia, South Africa to Indonesia, Malaysia to Thailand, immigration-related detention has become an established policy apparatus that counts on dedicated facilities and burgeoning institutional bureaucracies. Until relatively recently, however, detention appears to have been largely an ad hoc tool, employed mainly by wealthy states in exigent circumstances. This paper uses concepts from diffusion theory to detail the history of key policy events in several important immigration destination countries that led to the spreading of detention practices during the last 30 years and assesses some of the motives that appear to have encouraged this phenomenon. The paper also endeavors to place the United States at the center of this story because its policy decisions appear to have played an important role in encouraging the process of policy innovation, imitation, and imposition that has helped give rise to today's global immigration detention phenomenon. Nevertheless, many US offshore practices have not received nearly the same attention as those of other important destination countries. More broadly, in telling this story, this paper seeks to flesh out some of the larger policy implications of the externalization of immigration control regimes. Just as offshore interdiction and detention schemes raise important questions about custody, accountability, and sovereignty, they should also spur questions over where responsibility for the wellbeing of migrants begins and ends.
Topic:
Sovereignty
Political Geography:
United States, Indonesia, Turkey, South Africa, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Mexico, and Mauritania

104. "Enemy Territory": Immigration Enforcement in the US-Mexico Borderlands

Author:
Walter A. Ewing
Publication Date:
02-2015
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal on Migration and Human Security
Institution:
Center for Migration Studies of New York
Abstract:
For the last two decades, the guiding strategy of immigration enforcement along the US-Mexico border has been “prevention through deterrence,” or stopping unauthorized immigrants from entering the country rather than apprehending those who have already crossed the border. “Prevention through deterrence” has entailed a massive concentration of enforcement personnel and resources along the border and at ports of entry. It has also led to the detention and removal of increasing numbers of unauthorized immigrants and far greater use of “expedited removal.” As gauged by the doubling in size of the unauthorized immigrant population over the same period, “prevention through deterrence” has not been a successful enforcement strategy. Moreover, it has funneled more migrants to their death in the deserts and mountains of the southwest as they (and smugglers) resort to increasingly dangerous routes to evade border enforcement. In addition, there has been public concern over ethnic profiling and the use of extraordinary authority by Border Patrol agents to conduct arbitrary searches within 100 miles of the border. Despite these problems, the federal government continues to spend billions of dollars each year on the “prevention through deterrence” strategy. A first step in overcoming the deficiencies of this border enforcement strategy is to strengthen accountability within the Border Patrol, so that allegations of excessive force and abuse are investigated and adjudicated promptly and appropriately. The culture of the Border Patrol must be transformed to foster respect for rights. More broadly, the mission of the Border Patrol should be to capture dangerous individuals and to disrupt the operations of the transnational criminal organizations that traffic people, drugs, guns, and money. In addition, providing more pathways to legal entry through immigration reform would enhance border security by attenuating the flow of unauthorized immigrants within which dangerous criminals or terrorists can hide. Finally, the US government should pursue economic policies to promote development in Mexico and Central American countries in order to address the underlying causes of migration.
Topic:
Immigration
Political Geography:
United States and Mexico

105. Dispatches from the Field: Return Migration in Mexico

Author:
Nathaniel Parish Flannery
Publication Date:
03-2015
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Americas Quarterly
Institution:
Council of the Americas
Abstract:
José Antonio Pérez remembers as a child seeing migrants climbing onto La Bestia (“The Beast”), the train that carries Central American migrants north to the state of Oaxaca, and wondering where they were going. An uncle told him the migrants were “traveling to El Norte,” the United States.
Political Geography:
United States, Central America, Mexico, and Oaxaca

106. Why Entrepreneurship Matters in Cuba

Author:
Susan Segal
Publication Date:
05-2015
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Americas Quarterly
Institution:
Council of the Americas
Abstract:
For almost two decades, I have watched entrepreneurship explode across Latin America and the Caribbean, empowering citizens, transforming economies and changing lives. In sectors ranging from restaurants and small manufacturing to high tech, entrepreneurs are changing the economic and social landscape of the region. Perhaps most important, they are also generating jobs. Across the region, 60 percent of employees work for businesses with five or fewer employees. In Mexico, 72 percent of employment comes from micro-, small- and medium-size businesses. In Brazil, small enterprises create two out of every three jobs.
Political Geography:
Brazil, Cuba, Latin America, Caribbean, and Mexico

107. Is Mexico's security situation improving?

Author:
Eduardo Guerrero and Alejandro Hope
Publication Date:
05-2015
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Americas Quarterly
Institution:
Council of the Americas
Abstract:
Just look at the numbers; violence and murder are decreasing. When Mexican President Felipe Calderón left office in 2012, the nation's war on the drug cartels had already claimed 60,000 lives. Now, two years into the presidency of his successor, Enrique Peña Nieto, security conditions are still far from praiseworthy, but have improved in several key areas.
Political Geography:
Mexico

108. AQ Panorama

Author:
Richard André
Publication Date:
05-2015
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Americas Quarterly
Institution:
Council of the Americas
Abstract:
Stay up-to-date with the latest trends and events from around the hemisphere with AQ's Panorama. Each issue, AQ packs its bags and offers readers travel tips on a new Americas destination.
Political Geography:
United States, Mexico, and Arizona

109. Trade, Migration, and the Place Premium: Mexico and the United States

Author:
Raymond Robertson, Davide Gandolfi, and Timothy Halliday
Publication Date:
03-2015
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Global Development
Abstract:
Large wage differences between countries (“place premiums”) are well documented. Theory suggests that factor price convergence should follow increased migration, capital flows, and commercial integration. All three have characterized the relationship between the United States and Mexico over the last 25 years. This paper evaluates the degree of wage convergence between these countries during the period 1988 and 2011. We match survey and census data from Mexico and the United States to estimate the change in wage differentials for observationally identical workers over time. We find very little evidence of convergence. What evidence we do find is most likely due to factors unrelated to US-Mexico integration. While migration and trade liberalization may reduce the US-Mexico wage differential, these effects are small when compared to the overall wage gap.
Topic:
World Trade Organization
Political Geography:
United States and Mexico

110. Breaking Promises, Blocking Reform: Soft Censorship in Mexico

Author:
Fundar Center for Analysis and Research
Publication Date:
10-2015
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
National Endowment for Democracy
Abstract:
CIMA and the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers (WAN-IFRA) have been cooperating in a campaign to raise awareness around the world of the insidious practice known as “soft” (or indirect) censorship of news media. Soft censorship is used to promote positive coverage of officials or their actions–and to punish media outlets that criticize them. It is the practice of influencing news coverage of state bodies and officials and their policies and activities through allocation or withholding of state media spending (subsidies, advertising, and other media contracts), or selective application of licensing, permits, or regulations, to shape the broad media landscape; promote or diminish the economic viability of specific media houses or outlets; and reward or punish individual media workers.
Topic:
Media, Journalism, The Press, Censorship, and Freedom of Press
Political Geography:
North America and Mexico