MPI's Migration Information Source Newsletter

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February 15, 2022

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Feature
The Increasing Use of Artificial Intelligence in Border Zones Prompts Privacy Questions
www.migrationpolicy.org/article/artificial-intelligence-border-zones-privacy
Artificial intelligence systems that promise speedier travel and improved tools to halt smuggling and detect illegal entry have been embraced by border officials across the globe. But critics contend they also pose serious privacy concerns, which may become more pronounced as technologies evolve. This article examines the challenges and promises.

Feature
Black Immigrants in the United States Face Hurdles, but Outcomes Vary by City
www.migrationpolicy.org/article/black-immigrants-united-states-hurdles-outcomes-top-cities
The 4.3 million Black immigrants in the United States come largely from the Caribbean and sub-Saharan Africa. This article offers insights about rates of poverty, health insurance, and other metrics for Black immigrants both nationally and in the top five major cities of residence, finding that policies at federal and local levels, as well as the legacy of historical Black disenfranchisement, can exaggerate or reduce some of the gaps with U.S.-born White residents.


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EDITOR'S NOTE

This week is Migration Week, in which the UN Network on Migration hosts multiple meetings to showcase best practices for implementation of the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly, and Regular Migration. These events are a prelude to the International Migration Review Forum (IMRF) in May, which will be the most thorough check-in on the compact since it was signed more than three years ago. The May IMRF will be the first of its kind, to be replicated every four years.

This week, then, serves as the beginning of a long period of scrutiny for the compact, which was heralded as a game-changer for cooperation on international migration. Despite its status as a nonbinding resolution, the pact was the first global agreement on migration governance, and it promises to rally divergent interests and countries in a mutually beneficial way.

Has it been successful? The jury is still out. While international cooperation remains limited, the compact has set a groundwork upon which to build, including by creating a common language and processes for approaching issues that affect multiple countries. Migration Week and the IMRF are, if nothing else, proof that the compact is at least bringing parties to the table.

But it is also true that there have been some major developments that the framers of the compact failed to anticipate, including that it would be controversial in some corners. The Czech Republic, Hungary, Israel, Poland, and the United States all voted against the document in 2018, and a dozen other countries abstained. My MPI colleagues recently analyzed the institutional and political crisis that the pact inspired in Europe: www.migrationpolicy.org/research/european-negotiations-global-compact

More broadly, though, it is hardly conceivable that any international framework on migration would have been able to foresee and prevent much of the unilateral policymaking and isolationist instincts that have proliferated since the onset of COVID-19. The pandemic has been in many ways unprecedented, and while it accelerated action on some migration cooperation efforts, such as around migrants' access to health care, it hindered others. MPI's Transatlantic Council on Migration weighed these developments a few weeks ago, concluding that "[w]hile the age of unilateralism may be waning, challenged from both the inside and outside, building a foundation for international cooperation on the world's most pressing issues will not be automatic or without difficulty." Read that report here: www.migrationpolicy.org/research/new-phase-international-cooperation-migration

Migration Week, then, is one step on the long road of building this foundation. The mere fact of its existence may be encouraging to those who believe that international challenges are best solved by international solutions.

Best regards,

Julian Hattem

Editor, Migration Information Source

[email protected]

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NEW FROM MPI

A Parent's Guide to English Learner Assessments
www.migrationpolicy.org/research/parent-guide-english-learner-assessments
By Delia Pompa and Jazmin Flores Peña

Una guía para padres sobre las evaluaciones de estudiantes de inglés
www.migrationpolicy.org/research/guia-padres-evaluaciones-estudiantes-ingles
By Delia Pompa and Jazmin Flores Peña

Four Years of Profound Change: Immigration Policy during the Trump Presidency
www.migrationpolicy.org/research/four-years-change-immigration-trump
By Jessica Bolter, Emma Israel, and Sarah Pierce


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HAVE YOU READ?

Digital Litter: The Downside of Using Technology to Help Refugees
www.migrationpolicy.org/article/digital-litter-downside-using-technology-help-refugees

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

Children Left Behind: The Impact of Labor Migration in Moldova and Ukraine
www.migrationpolicy.org/article/children-left-behind-impact-labor-migration-moldova-and-ukraine


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MEDIA CORNER

Migration scholar Hein de Haas offers a note of caution about exaggerating the climate-migration link in the latest episode of MPI's podcast "Changing Climate, Changing Migration."
[link removed]

War journalist Matthieu Aikins follows the trail of an Afghan asylum seeker headed to Europe in "The Naked Don't Fear the Water: An Underground Journey with Afghan Refugees."
www.harpercollins.com/products/the-naked-dont-fear-the-water-matthieu-aikins?variant=39348715716642

European politics and the aftermath of the 2015-16 refugee and migration crisis is the subject of "Delegating Responsibility: International Cooperation on Migration in the European Union," by Nicholas R. Micinski.
www.press.umich.edu//12068235

In "Migration and Multiculturalism in Scandinavia," editors Eric Einhorn, Sherrill Harbison, and Markus Huss collect comparative perspectives on national identity and belonging.
[link removed]

Jonna Perrillo compares education opportunities available to the children of Nazi scientists and Mexican-Americans in post-World War II Texas in "Educating the Enemy: Teaching Nazis and Mexicans in the Cold War Borderlands."
[link removed]

Céline Cantat, Ian M. Cook, and Prem Kumar Rajaram are the editors of "Opening Up the University: Teaching and Learning with Refugees," which features thoughts on establishing and running programs for displaced students.
www.berghahnbooks.com/title/CantatOpening

"Dreams for Our Children: Immigrant Letters to the Future" is an anthology of perspectives from immigrants and children of immigrants in the United States, edited by Omotayo Banjo.
[link removed]


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