MPI's Migration Information Source Newsletter

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October 1, 2020

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Feature
Greece Struggles to Balance Competing Migration Demands
www.migrationpolicy.org/article/greece-struggles-balance-competing-migration-demands
When he was elected prime minister in 2019, Kyriakos Mitsotakis promised what he called "strict but fair" reforms to secure Greece's borders and speed up transfers of asylum seekers crowding Aegean islands. Yet domestic and geopolitical tensions continued to roil the islands, later joined by a global pandemic, culminating in a fire that destroyed most of Lesvos's Moria refugee camp. This article examines Greece's efforts to strike a delicate balance on migration in a complex era.

Spotlight
College-Educated Immigrants in the United States
www.migrationpolicy.org/article/college-educated-immigrants-united-states-2018
Nearly 13 million immigrants have a four-year college degree or better. But these highly educated immigrants are not spread evenly throughout the labor market. They make up disproportionate shares of certain jobs, especially in the science and technology fields, accounting for 45 percent of software developers, 42 percent of physical scientists, and 29 percent of physicians. Yet there are signs that the trends of this population might be changing, as this article explores.


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EDITOR'S NOTE

The world is growing less accepting of migrants. That is the message from the latest Gallup Migration Acceptance Index, published last week, which shows that many countries are "slightly less accepting" of migrants as residents, neighbors, and family members than in 2016.

Of the 145 countries where the survey was conducted, the largest declines were in South America. In particular, Peru, Ecuador, and Colombia saw the biggest drops in acceptance of migrants. There might be a simple explanation for that. All three countries have received large numbers of the more than 5 million Venezuelans who have emigrated in recent years--and the results underscore the anxieties that can emerge among populations on the receiving end of this movement. In Colombia, the share of residents who thought it was a good thing that migrants were living in their country fell from 61 percent in 2016 to just 29 percent.

Yet the outcome is reversed in Chile, another country with a large Venezuelan population. There, support for immigrants has increased slightly since 2016, according to the Gallup data. The same is true in Moldova, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and a handful of other nations.

There are some possible easy explanations here, too. Because of the high hurdles for Venezuelans to enter Chile, those who arrive may be better educated and wealthier than Venezuelan migrants elsewhere. Moldova has a rapidly declining population and its economy relies in part on large numbers of foreign laborers.

In all, Gallup found Canada to be the most amenable to migrants, followed by Iceland, New Zealand, and Australia. Four of the top ten most accepting countries were in Africa: Sierra Leone, Burkina Faso, Chad, and Rwanda. And it might not be reflected in national policy, but the United States came in as the sixth most-accepting country. In separate findings, Gallup reported earlier this year that more U.S. residents supported increasing immigration than decreasing it--a first in the organization's 55-year history of asking.

Meanwhile, North Macedonia topped the list as the least-accepting country for immigrants, followed by several other Balkan and Central European states: Hungary, Serbia, Croatia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina. Many of these countries struggled with their position along a critical transit route for migrants heading into the European Union during the 2015-16 migrant crisis.

The findings paint a mixed picture of public openness toward migrants. While experience with unanticipated large-scale migration may engender some opposition, certain kinds of immigrants may have the opposite impact in specific contexts.

Scholarship generally backs this up. Public attitudes towards immigrants can be diverse and contradictory, and can be shaped by cultural and economic factors. Individual self-interest plays a relatively minor role, while "immigration-related attitudes are mostly driven by symbolic concerns about the nation as a whole," Jens Hainmueller and Daniel J. Hopkins wrote in a 2014 review of the literature. The Gallup findings show that globally, those attitudes are becoming less accepting. But that outcome is not inevitable.

Best regards,

Julian Hattem

Editor, Migration Information Source

[email protected]


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NEW FROM MPI

Driving Migrant Inclusion through Social Innovation: Lessons for Cities in a Pandemic
www.migrationpolicy.org/research/migrant-inclusion-social-innovation-cities-pandemic
By Liam Patuzzi

Educating English Learners during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Policy Ideas for States and School Districts
www.migrationpolicy.org/research/english-learners-covid-19-pandemic-policy-ideas
By Julie Sugarman and Melissa Lazarín

Brexit on the Backburner: Citizens' Rights and the Implementation of the Withdrawal Agreement in a Pandemic
www.migrationpolicy.org/research/brexit-citizens-rights-withdrawal-agreement-pandemic
By Aliyyah Ahad and Monica Andriescu


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HAVE YOU READ

Refugees and Asylees in the United States
www.migrationpolicy.org/article/refugees-and-asylees-united-states-2018

Welcome Wears Thin for Colombians in Ecuador as Venezuelans Become More Visible
www.migrationpolicy.org/article/welcome-wears-thin-for-colombians-ecuador

COVID-19 Pandemic Profoundly Affects Bangladeshi Workers Abroad with Consequences for Origin Communities
www.migrationpolicy.org/article/covid-19-pandemic-profoundly-affects-bangladeshi-workers-abroad-consequences-origin


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MEDIA CORNER

Meghan Benton, the director of research for MPI's international program and MPI Europe, has just launched a new podcast on global mobility amid the COVID-19 pandemic, called Moving Beyond Pandemic.

In The Great Demographic Illusion: Majority, Minority, and the Expanding American Mainstream, sociologist Richard Alba explores U.S. demographic changes.

Aimed at scholars, Human Rights and The Revision of Refugee Law by Romit Bhandari examines the relationship between international refugee law and international human rights law.

Strangers to Neighbours: Refugee Sponsorship in Context, edited by Shauna Labman and Geoffrey Cameron, explores Canada's policy allowing private individuals and groups to sponsor refugees.

Different stories of refugees resettled in Minnesota come together in Somewhere in the Unknown World: A Collective Refugee Memoir, by Kao Kalia Yang.

The Pulitzer Prize-winning graphic story of a Syrian refugee family in the United States, first published in The New York Times, has been adapted into a full-length book by Jake Halpern and Michael Sloan titled Welcome to the New World.

Acclaimed novelist and playwright Ayad Akhtar's new work of literature, Homeland Elegies, tells of an immigrant family's experience from the United States to Central Europe to Afghanistan.

Out October 1, Raising Global Teens by Anisha Abraham offers advice for guiding teenagers who are immigrants, dealing with cultural transitions, or otherwise navigating an unfamiliar global world.



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