Human Geography: People, Place and Culture, 10Th Edition
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c03Migration.indd Page 78 9/15/11 7:35 AM user-f401 F-401 Source: Fouberg, Erin H., Alexander B. Murphy and Harm J. Di Blij. 2012. Human Geography: People, Place and Culture, 10th edition. Wiley-Blackwell. CHAPTER 3 Migration Field Note Risking Lives for Remittances In 1994, I was on my way to Rosenstiel Marine Center on GEORGIA 80°W Virginia Key, off the coast of ALABAMA Miami, Florida. I noticed an 30°N overcrowded boat, with ATLANTIC p about 70 people on board. OCEAN FLORIDA The Haitians were fl eeing the most impoverished Gulf of Mexico country in the Western Miami Hemisphere. Most of the would-be illegal immigrants were men with perhaps half a dozen women and as many chil- dren. They jumped overboard prematurely when the Coast Guard approached, and some undoubtedly lost their lives; others made it to the beach and ran for the road. The Haitians the Coast Guard caught were sent home to Haiti with other illegal Haitian immigrants. The chance of getting caught is high, the travel is treacherous, and hundreds die off the coast of Florida each year. The hope of a job in the United States and the lack of hope in their lives and homes in Haiti compel them to try. The immigrants know that if they make it to shore and can fi nd their way to the homes of friends and family, they have a chance to fi nd employment and live under the radar of the Immigration and Naturalization Service (Fig. 3.1). Figure 3.1 Miami, Florida. A sailboat carrying more than 100 Haitians waits for the United States Coast Guard to pick them up after fl eeing Haiti in June 1994. © AP/Wide World Photos. 78 c03Migration.indd Page 79 9/15/11 7:35 AM user-f401 F-401 Risking Lives for Remittances 79 Across the world, hundreds of thousands of migrants have fl ed their home- Home lands by boat, train, car, or foot for opportunities in North America, Australia, by Warsan Shire China, and Europe. Immigrants are sometimes welcomed and sometimes turned away. In the 1970s, the United States government welcomed Haitian immigrants no one leaves home unless because most were educated and able to afford travel to the United States. In home is the mouth of a shark 1980, 25,000 Haitian and 125,000 Cuban immigrants reached south Florida by boat. you only run for the border when you see the whole city running as well The U.S. government considered this massive fl ow of migrants a humanitarian cri- sis because of the repressiveness of the governments in Haiti and Cuba at the time. your neighbors running faster than you President Carter admitted the Haitians and Cubans into the United States using breath bloody in their throats the discretionary parole authority of the attorney general. Later, Congress passed the boy you went to school with legislation that allowed the 150,000 asylum-seekers who arrived from Haiti and who kissed you dizzy behind the old tin factory is holding a gun bigger than his body Cuba to gain legal permanent residence and later apply for citizenship. you only leave home In 1981, President Reagan established an interdiction program through an when home won’t let you stay. agreement with the Haitian government. Since 1981, the United States Coast Guard is authorized to board any Haitian vessel, even those on the high seas out- no one leaves home unless home chases you side of the territorial sea of the United States. Once on board, the Coast Guard fire under feet hot blood in your belly can interrogate passengers to see if they have a well-founded fear of persecution it’s not something you ever thought of doing in Haiti. If so, the United States sends the immigrant to a third country in Latin until the blade burnt threats into America to seek asylum; if not, the United States returns the migrant to Haiti by your neck Coast Guard vessel. and even then you carried the anthem under Governments greatly impact migration fl ows by opening and closing doors to your breath only tearing up your passport in an airport toilets migrants. In some cases, the policy is not as simple as the door being open or shut. sobbing as each mouthful of paper In addition, governments can choose to treat two groups with similar claims dif- made it clear that you wouldn’t be going back. ferently. The United States returns the vast majority of interdicted Haitians. In 2005, it interdicted 1850 Haitians and considered refugee status for 9 of them you have to understand, through “credible fear hearings” at the Guantanamo Bay detention center. The that no one puts their children in a boat unless the water is safer than the land United States granted refugee status to only 1 of the 9. Only 54 miles separate no one burns their palms Haiti from Cuba, but since the Clinton administration the U.S. government has had under trains a “wet foot, dry foot” policy toward Cuban immigrants that does not apply to beneath carriages Haitians. If Cuban immigrants are intercepted at sea, they are deported (wet foot), no one spends days and nights in the stomach of a truck but if Cuban immigrants make it to land (dry foot), they have the right to stay. feeding on newspaper unless the miles travelled means something more than journey. Why are immigrants willing to risk their lives on overcrowded boats or by no one crawls under fences crossing treacherous deserts across parts of the U.S.-Mexican border? Economics no one wants to be beaten provides part of the answer, but it does not explain the whole story. The Pew pitied Hispanic Center found in a 2005 survey that the vast majority of undocumented (illegal) migrants from Mexico “were gainfully employed” in Mexico before they you can find the rest of the poem here: http://seekershub.org/blog/2015/09/home-warsan-shire/ left for the United States. Perception is an overwhelming factor in migration: as or here long as migrants perceive a better life abroad, they will continue to migrate. https://www.commondreams.org/further/2015/09/04/ Migration fl ows vary by region, hometown (rural versus urban), gender, socio- no-one-leaves-home-unless-home-mouth-shark economic class, age, race, and ethnicity. Geographers who study gender and migration realize that the dynamics of individual households in the sending coun- tries determine who migrates, when they migrate, and where they go. In 2007, the number of undocumented migrants in the United States peaked at 12 million. In 2010, the number fell to 11.2 million as a result of the economic reces- sion in the United States. The goal of most undocumented migrants is to work in the United States and send money home to family. Monies migrants send home to family are called remittances. Haitians living in the United States, Canada, and the Caribbean sent home over $1 billion in remittances in 2007, a fi gure equivalent to 30 percent of Haiti’s gross domestic product and far outpacing the value of Haitian exports. A 2006 census in Haiti estimated that half the country’s population is younger than 20 and less than half of the children of school age attend elementary c03Migration.indd Page 80 9/15/11 7:35 AM user-f401 F-401 80 Chapter 3 Migration school. In addition, among the working-age population, the unemployment rate in 2006 was 33 percent according to the Haitian census. One of fi ve Haitian house- holds receives remittances from abroad. The economies of many poorer countries in the Caribbean, Africa, Central and South America, and Eurasia depend in part on remittances sent to their citi- zens. In 2007, Mexican immigrants sent $23.98 billion in remittances home, up from $23.05 billion in 2006. Remittances to Mexico make up 19 percent of household incomes in urban areas and 27 percent of household incomes in rural areas of Mexico. Since 2007, the downturn in the American economy has gener- ated a new fl ow of money called reverse remittances: from Mexico to the United States. Unemployed, undocumented migrants in the United States asked families in Mexico for fi nancial support. Despite the economic downturn in the United States and reverse remittances, the Pew Center for Hispanic Research has not noted a return fl ow of migrants from the United States to Mexico. The likely reason is the high cost associated with migrating illegally from Mexico to the United States. Not all immigrants are undocumented or illegal. Of the estimated 31.2 mil- lion immigrants in the United States today, 20.4 million are legal immigrants (Fig. 3.2). Countries recognize the need for immigrant labor, and many have policies allowing, indeed encouraging, legal immigrants to work under temporary visas to fi ll a need. Thousands of people who work in the United States and Canada are 70° 60° UNITED STATES 30° 30° 20° CUBA 20° 596,700 MEXICO BELIZE 5,609,900 38,200 HAITI DOMINICAN LEGAL IMMIGRATION FROM JAMAICA 525,000 REPUBLIC MIDDLE AND SOUTH AMERICA 563,000 926,800 TO THE UNITED STATES, GUATEMALA 1980–2010 352,100 (25,000 migrants or more) EL SALVADOR NICARAGUA 680,200 185,000 10° 5,000,000 HONDURAS 10° 181,800 COSTA RICA 65,900 VENEZUELA PANAMA VOLUME 149,200 80,900 1,000,000 0 250 500 750 Kilometers COLOMBIA 500,000 501,900 100,000 0 250 500 Miles 90° 80° Figure 3.2 Legal Immigration from Middle and South America to the United States, 1980–2010.