| | | | By Daivi Rodima-Taylor Each year, migrants and others transfer hundreds of billions of dollars in remittances to loved ones in their homelands. Often, they pay hefty fees to do so. New digital services promise cheaper fees and more convenience than traditional banks, allowing people to send money with just a few taps on their phone. But there are still challenges, particularly in the very beginning and end stages of the transaction. This article explores the benefits and stumbling blocks of new digital remittance services. |
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| By Muzaffar Chishti and Julia Gelatt U.S. states are using a novel array of strategies to advance their immigration agendas. Florida and Texas have led the charge against unauthorized immigration with new laws, litigation, migrant buses and flights, and by sending the National Guard to the border. States such as Minnesota and Utah have gone the other way, expanding unauthorized immigrants’ access to benefits and services including driver’s licenses and in-state college tuition. The new era has echoes of the early 2010s, when Arizona’s SB 1070 defined a Republican-led push to increase enforcement which ran into opposition from the courts and public backlash. Will this time be different? This article provides an overview. |
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| | | Malta is not a large country. With a landmass of around 125 square miles (325 square kilometers) and a national population below that of a typical midsize city, the island nation is the smallest in the European Union. In many regards, it is also one of the least powerful. Yet due to its location smack dab in the middle of the Mediterranean, it often assumes an outsized role in migration discussions. Even more notable than the Maltese archipelago itself is the country’s search-and-rescue zone, a chunky quadrangle covering about 100,000 square miles (250,000 square kilometers) of sea between North Africa and Italy. The search-and-rescue zone is a legacy of its time as a British colonial naval base, but it means the country has been responsible for responding to a disproportionately large number of migrant vessels in distress or stranded at sea. Authorities have been accused of repeatedly ignoring these often dangerously overcrowded vessels or else returning them to Libya rather than rescuing the migrants aboard, including in just the last few weeks. When Malta does welcome migrants, it has been accused of doing so very selectively and for its own national profit. For about a decade, the country has offered citizenship to investors placing hefty sums in the economy, and even touted its passport in a Zurich Airport shop window alongside luxury goods. The so-called golden passport scheme, which offers investors who obtain a Maltese passport access to the rest of the European Union, became increasingly controversial following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine; last year, the European Commission took Malta to court over the policy, as Jelena Džankić detailed in the Migration Information Source. Malta is far from the only country to use its position at Europe’s periphery to act as a shield against irregular migrants while also rolling out the red carpet to the foreign born with deep pockets. Greece and Italy have been accused of similar callousness towards migrant vessels, yet are desperate for summer tourists and offer legal residence to migrants who make significant investments. Perhaps because of its size, Malta sometimes escapes the scrutiny directed to those two larger nations. Malta is a small nation, but it is not too small to be ignored. Best regards, Julian Hattem
Editor, Migration Information Source
[email protected] |
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| | "Lesvos offers an invaluable case study in the promises, pitfalls, and progress in the West’s humanitarian response to the ongoing refugee crisis." |
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"The Trump administration deported only slightly more than one-third as many unauthorized immigrants from the interior during its first four fiscal years than did the Obama administration during the same timeframe." |
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"A common thread in Caribbean narratives about deportation—that criminal deportees generally will reoffend in their homeland—is not convincingly borne out for Jamaica." |
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| | The latest episode of MPI’s World of Migration podcast provides insights on Haitian migration through the Caribbean. Kim Huynh’s Australia’s Refugee Politics in the 21st Century: STOP THE BOATS! offers an overview of the 2013-22 era in Australian immigration politics. Melissa Villa-Nicholas explores the intersections of technology, surveillance, and citizenship in Data Borders: How Silicon Valley Is Building an Industry around Immigrants. Rivermouth: A Chronicle of Language, Faith, and Migration, by Mexican-American translator and activist Alejandra Oliva, is a memoir with reflections on language and migration. How did Japanese cuisine go global? The Global Japanese Restaurant: Mobilities, Imaginaries, and Politics, edited by James Farrer and David L. Wank, seeks to answer. Koen Leurs examines the intersection between technology and migration in Digital Migration. Forced Migration, Gender and Wellbeing: The Long-Term Effects of Displacement on Women, edited by Selma Porobić and Brad K. Blitz, focuses on post-conflict recovery in the Balkans. |
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| | The Migration Information Source is a publication of the Migration Policy Institute, a nonpartisan, nonprofit think tank in Washington, DC, and is dedicated to providing fresh thought, authoritative data, and global analysis of international migration and refugee trends. |
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