MPI's Migration Information Source Newsletter

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October 16, 2020

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Feature
Criminalization of Search-and-Rescue Operations in the Mediterranean Has Been Accompanied by Rising Migrant Death Rate
www.migrationpolicy.org/article/criminalization-rescue-operations-mediterranean-rising-deaths
Even as the number of people making the dangerous journey through the Central Mediterranean from North Africa to Europe has declined since the migration and refugee crisis of 2015-16, the rate of deaths increased. This article evaluates the role of Europe's hardening approach to trans-Mediterranean migration and the criminalization of search-and-rescue operations by nongovernmental organizations.

U.S. Policy Beat
The U.S. Presidential Campaign Cements Political Parties' Deepening Schism on Immigration
www.migrationpolicy.org/article/us-presidential-campaign-cements-political-parties-deepening-schism-immigration
In the United States, Republicans and Democrats are deeply divided on immigration. President Donald Trump and Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden have offered sharply diverging policy positions, and the outcome of the election is sure to have profound consequences for the U.S. immigration system. Yet this partisan divide is relatively new. Just two decades ago, the parties were much more united on immigrants' role in the U.S. economy and society.


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EDITOR'S NOTE

Two years ago this week, about 160 people set off from San Pedro Sula, Honduras, headed towards Mexico and, for many, eventually the United States. In following weeks their numbers would swell to form a caravan of about 7,000 people that moved into Guatemala and across the Mexican border, traveling in a group for safety and as a political signal. In the United States, the migrants became a rallying cry for President Donald Trump ahead of midterm elections that would see his Republican Party expand its Senate majority.

In recent weeks, another migrant caravan left from Honduras heading north, but this one did not get very far. More than 3,700 Hondurans were turned back in Guatemala, where hundreds of police and military officials set up roadblocks and where, previously U.S. border agents may controversially have been involved in on-the-ground operations. Mexico had similarly deployed a heavy presence along its southern border to block passage.

The episode underscores changing migration dynamics in the Americas and around the world.

For one, it is testament to how the COVID-19 pandemic is fundamentally altering human movement. Guatemalan and Mexican government leaders cited the health crisis as the reason they halted the migrants' path, although human-rights groups claimed the pandemic was being used as a pretext. Meanwhile, some migrants said that the poverty, violence, and corruption that prompted their flight had only gotten worse during the outbreak.

The caravan's fate was also a sign of the changing posture by the Guatemalan and Mexican governments, which appear to have coordinated their response. Guatemala had previously done little to stop migrants' passage, but this time President Alejandro Giammattei declared the travelers could "put us at serious risk" and suspended some constitutional rights to detain them. Mexico, meanwhile, has increasingly taken a tougher posture towards Central American migrants, partly in response to threatened U.S. tariffs.

Finally, the caravan highlighted how immigration has, oddly, faded from the limelight of U.S. politics. Trump built his 2016 campaign around restricting immigration, has taken more than 400 immigration-related executive actions, and can exploit a deep partisan divide on the issue. But with less than a month until the election, the president was oddly quiet about the new caravan. In fact, the politician who connected it to U.S. politics was Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador.

Migration developments can be fluid, as the recent caravan demonstrated. The flows evolve in response to policy, politics, and broader circumstances, all of which are constantly changing.

Best regards,

Julian Hattem

Editor, Migration Information Source

[email protected]


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NEW FROM MPI

Will International Migration Governance Survive the COVID-19 Pandemic?
www.migrationpolicy.org/research/international-migration-governance-covid-19-pandemic
By Kathleen Newland

Immigrant-Origin Students in U.S. Higher Education: A Data Profile
www.migrationpolicy.org/research/immigrant-origin-students-us-higher-education
By Jeanne Batalova and Miriam Feldblum

Broad and Blunt, the Trump Administration's H-1B Changes Miss the Opportunity for Real Reform
www.migrationpolicy.org/news/trump-h1b-changes-miss-opportunity-real-reform
By Sarah Pierce

Supporting Immigrant and Refugee Families through Home Visiting: Innovative State and Local Approaches
www.migrationpolicy.org/research/immigrant-refugee-families-home-visiting-state-local-approaches
By Caitlin Katsiaficas

The EU Pact on Migration and Asylum-A Bold Move to Avoid the Abyss?
www.migrationpolicy.org/news/eu-pact-migration-asylum-bold-move-avoid-abyss
By Hanne Beirens


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HAVE YOU READ

Ally or Exploiter? The Smuggler-Migrant Relationship Is a Complex One
www.migrationpolicy.org/article/ally-or-exploiter-smuggler-migrant-relationship-complex-one

Development through Diversity: Engaging Armenia's New and Old Diaspora
www.migrationpolicy.org/article/development-through-diversity-engaging-armenia%E2%80%99s-new-and-old-diaspora

Mexican Immigrants in the United States
www.migrationpolicy.org/article/mexican-immigrants-united-states-2017


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MEDIA CORNER

The latest episode of MPI's Moving Beyond Pandemic podcast examines the future of travel at airports.
www.migrationpolicy.org/about/moving-beyond-pandemic-podcast

A new book from researcher Justin Schon, Surviving the War in Syria: Survival Strategies in a Time of Conflict, analyzes migration and other responses to violence.
www.cambridge.org/core/books/surviving-the-war-in-syria/50124C241344455437F82A1C4E394055

Out this month from academics James A. McCann and Michael Jones-Correa, Holding Fast: Resilience and Civic Engagement Among Latino Immigrants evaluates how U.S. policy changes have affected political attitudes and civic participation among Latino immigrants.
www.russellsage.org/publications/holding-fast

NPR correspondent Aarti Namdev Shahani's Here We Are: To Migrate to America… It's the Boldest Act of One's Life is a memoir about her immigrant family in the United States.
www.celadonbooks.com/book/here-we-are/

From South Africa, Should We Go?: To Emigrate or Not: 21 Voices Speak Their Mind, compiled by Alet Law, features reflections on emigration.
www.lapa.co.za/should-we-go

Former Arizona politician Bob Worsley examines his country's changing politics in The Horseshoe Virus: How the Anti-Immigration Movement Spread from Left-Wing to Right-Wing America.
www.bobworsley.com/

Historian Claire Zalc's award-winning Denaturalized: How Thousands Lost Their Citizenship and Lives in Vichy France is now available in English.
www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674988422


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