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January 14, 2022

Have You Read?

The Geopolitical Origins of the U.S. Immigration Act of 1965

Iran Loses Highly Educated and Skilled Citizens during Long-Running “Brain Drain”

Top 10 Migration Issues of 2021

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New from MPI

Putting Migrant Reintegration Programs to the Test: A Road Map to a Monitoring System
By Lucía Salgado, Radu-Mihai Triculescu, Camille Le Coz, and Hanne Beirens

Relaunching the Central American Minors Program: Opportunities to Enhance Child Safety and Family Reunification
By Mark Greenberg, Stephanie Heredia, Kira Monin, Celia Reynolds, and Essey Workie

El relanzamiento del Programa de Menores Centroamericanos: Oportunidades para realzar la protección infantil y la reunificación familiar
By Mark Greenberg, Stephanie Heredia, Kira Monin, Celia Reynolds, and Essey Workie

How Can Europe Deliver on the Potential of Talent Partnerships?
By Kate Hooper

Media Corner

Researcher Tim Kane argues that immigration is central to the United States’ economic growth, national security, and identity in The Immigrant Superpower: How Brains, Brawn, and Bravery Make America Stronger.

Mohammad Zaman, Reshmy Nair, and Shi Guoqing are the editors of Resettlement in Asian Countries: Legislation, Administration and Struggles for Rights, which analyzes land and settlement laws across Asia.

Wajahat Ali discusses politics, immigration, and pop culture in his memoir Go Back to Where You Came From and Other Helpful Recommendations on How to Become American.

In The Urbanization of Forced Displacement: UNHCR, Urban Refugees, and the Dynamics of Policy Change, Neil James Wilson Crawford examines how the UN refugee agency has approached people being forcibly displaced to cities.

The Marauders: Conspiracy Theories, Militias, and Violence on the U.S. Border, by journalist Patrick Strickland, documents conflicts between southern Arizona border towns and far-right militias.

Country Profile
Immigration Has Been a Defining, Often Contentious, Element Throughout U.S. History
As host to more immigrants than any other country, the United States has been shaped and reshaped by immigration over the centuries, with the issue at times becoming a flashpoint. This article covers the history of U.S. immigration and the major laws governing immigration, and provides a comprehensive overview of the present-day immigrant population.

Spotlight
Middle Eastern and North African Immigrants in the United States
Migration from the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region to the United States doubled between 2000 and 2019, yet these immigrants represented less than 3 percent of the overall U.S. foreign-born population as of 2019. MENA immigrants are more likely than other immigrants to be English proficient, have a college degree, and work in management, business, science, and arts occupations.

Editor's Note

If 2021 marked a resumption of global mobility after the onset of COVID-19 chilled international movement in 2020, it also signified a return to increased danger for many migrants.

The nearly 5,300 migrant deaths and disappearances recorded by the International Organization for Migration (IOM) last year represented a significant increase over 2020; the tally was largely similar to the trends seen in 2018 and 2019.

In some cases these figures are a reflection of the uneven economic recovery from the pandemic, which has pushed many migrants to undertake dangerous journeys across seas, deserts, and jungles. And as borders harden, migrant smugglers push their clients into ever more hostile terrain.

But even as the 2021 death toll returned to pre-pandemic levels, last year saw new areas becoming particularly deadly. The more than 650 deaths recorded along the U.S.-Mexico border were more than any other year since IOM began tracking fatalities and disappearances in 2014. More than 900 people died on the Atlantic route from Western Africa to Spain’s Canary Islands, the most in at least a decade. New flashpoints along the Belarus-EU border and in the treacherous Darién Gap between Colombia and Panama also witnessed dozens of deaths, according to IOM’s count.

Since 2014, more deaths have occurred along the U.S.-Mexico border than at any other single border, although the Central Mediterranean route that runs from North Africa to Italy is the most dangerous migratory corridor.

Of course, these numbers are inherently imperfect, and the true numbers of people dead or disappeared in transit are likely to be higher. Migrants on dangerous journeys tend to seek to avoid detection, and deaths at sea or in very remote areas may never be tracked. Furthermore, IOM’s Missing Migrants Project does not include deaths in migrant detention facilities and similar locations.

Still, the numbers do not augur well for 2022. Ongoing anxiety about new coronavirus variants, uncertain travel rules, and continued instability in many migrants’ countries of origin could lead to more hazardous journeys this year.

Best regards,
Julian Hattem
Editor, Migration Information Source
[email protected]

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The Migration Information Source is a project of the Migration Policy Institute, a nonpartisan, nonprofit think tank in Washington, DC dedicated to analysis of the movement of people worldwide.