Asylum seekers and other distressed migrants appear to be taking more perilous journeys by sea. More people—159,000—crossed the Mediterranean in 2022 than any year since 2017, as the European Union confronts a growing population of asylum seekers in addition to millions of displaced Ukrainians. The Mediterranean has been the world’s deadliest migration route for years, but humanitarian rescue groups are coming under new pressure from leaders such as right-wing Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, who has described search-and-rescue missions as a lure for migration. Meloni, who previously called for a naval blockade to stop migrant boats from crossing, had previously initiated a standoff with France over responsibility for arrivals. Large numbers of humanitarian migrants have taken to the seas in other parts of the globe, too. For instance, more than 3,500 ethnic Rohingya attempted to cross the Bay of Bengal and Andaman Sea last year, more than three times as many as in 2021. At least 348 migrants died or disappeared, including approximately 180 people whose boat is believed to have sunk in December after weeks stranded at sea. Hundreds more Rohingya have been stuck at sea for extended periods. Many members of the ethnic group, who have been described as the world’s most persecuted minority, are fleeing military-controlled Myanmar and overcrowded camps in Bangladesh. On the other side of the globe, at least 321 migrants died or disappeared in the Caribbean, more than any other year on record and nearly double the 180 deaths and disappearances in 2021. The largest share of those who could be identified were from Haiti, which has spiraled through political and socioeconomic crises involving a collapsing government, escalating gang warfare, and natural disasters. Sizable numbers of migrants from Cuba, the Dominican Republic, and Venezuela are heading to sea, with U.S. government encounters of sea-faring Cubans and Haitians at levels not seen since the 1980s and the 1990s. Many are headed to Florida, where authorities have registered a fourfold increase in migrant encounters over the last fiscal year. As Muzaffar Chishti and Jessica Bolter wrote in the Migration Information Source last year, the increase echoes trends of a generation ago and has prompted renewed debate over U.S. officials’ uneven treatment of migrants depending on their nationality. There are many factors driving these dynamics, including the uneven state of the global economy, political unrest, and legacies of the COVID-19 pandemic. But undoubtedly some of this movement is in reaction to hardening land borders in EU Member States, the United States, and elsewhere. Time and again, analysts have noted the balloon-like nature of migration trends, in that closing off one pathway simply diverts individuals elsewhere, often at significant personal peril. It just might be that new restrictions on land-based passage at the U.S.-Mexico border, in Southeastern Europe, and elsewhere are pushing people out to sea. Julian Hattem
Editor, Migration Information Source
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