Migration

With the fate of many African migrants often being one of death from the failure of rickety boats used to move them towards the European coast, nervous smugglers ejecting their “clients” during the journey, or just a lack of action from receiving countries to save stranded migrants from drowning, there has been some recent progressive measures to reduce illegal immigration to Spain, or at least reduce the risk of those who will eventually make the journey.

Spain and Senegal signed and agreement to help combat illegal immigration until the 30th of June 2008 by working together in reducing the numbers of migrants fleeing Senegalese ports towards the Spanish Canary Islands. The agreement has paid dividends and as a result there has already been a reduction of boats from 901 in 2006, to only 101 in the first half of 2007.

Cooperation between Senegal and Spain has not been adopted solely via setting up common barriers. A number of Spanish businessmen have opted to go to Senegal directly and offer working visas to many of Senegal’s brightest young people who often have to use rickety boats and deal with organized mafia to get to Spain illegally. Often many of the young Senegalese do not survive the journey, or lose their money to unscrupulous individuals who leave them bankrupt with no way out of their country. Some of Spain’s entrepreneurs understand that many would come illegally and often are solely seeking employment to feed their families and make a better life. With institutional supports in Spain and opportunities to work, more than 500 Senegalese have taken the low risk option to come and work in Spain.

While the limited actions of the Spanish Government and businessmen are a very progressive approach towards addressing illegal immigration, an overall grand push in addressing the issue is needed. On the 25th of June 2007 the EU announced 380 million Euros in funding to assist migrant home countries in increasing security against illegal immigration. Similar to the cooperation agreement between Spain and Senegal, the EU will work on future frameworks to reduce illegal immigration from its source and curb unnecessary deaths for those economic migrants coming to the EU from Africa. While illegal migrations and deaths are certain to continue, there seems to be at least some small and ever growing efforts in addressing the immigration problems and rights of migrants coming to Spain and the EU.

The New York Times is reporting a wonderful story about a satirical column by Gustavo Arellano, which runs in the alternative Orange County, CA. newspaper. The friendly advice column Ask a Mexican! has dedicated itself to openly addressing stereotypes that often plague the relationship between the large Mexican immigrant population and the rest of the population. His column, which now appears in two dozen alternative weeklies and has just been turned into a book, has become a ‘hot topic’ accross the nation. Many feel that his satirical commentary reinforces stereotyping, while others are thankful for the humorous look at the problems that arise with increased immigration. While some in the Mexican community consider him to be a pariah, Arellano vows to soldier on, clarifying that Mexicans don’t call white people gringos - “only gringos call gringos gringos.”

Check out his weekly column here.

Even high-profile migrants have got to fit the bill. Australia’s immigration services have banned rapper Snoop Dogg from entering the country after he failed a character test. The BBC quotes Immigration Minister, Kevin Andrews, who notes: “He doesn’t seem the sort of bloke we want in this country.” The star, whose real name is Calvin Broadus, has wracked up a number of offences over the year, prompting the government to rescind his visa. This is not the first time the Dogg has run into trouble - he was also denied a visa to the UK, prompting P.Diddy to cancel their joint concert in the country.

In 2006 the UNHCR reported that nearly 26,000 Somalis made the journey from Somalia to Yemen that year, and approximately 330 died while 300 were declared missing and reported dead. With the ongoing conflict in the East African nation of Somalia, the urge to leave for many grows as the conflict continues. The risk of travelling to Yemen since the beginning of 2007 has grown rapidly however, with this year alone 113 people have gone missing and 35 were confirmed dead in their sea voyage from Somalia on refugee boats on March 22nd 2007. Last week as well, another 365 arrived in Yemen, where smuggles forced 34 refugees overboard and who consequently drowned.

“As the smuggling boats entered the Yemeni waters, coast guards began firing on them, causing one boat to capsize,” Sadat Mohammed, head of refugee affairs in the Somali community in Sana’a

Their fate was not merely from just falling overboard according to Mr. Mohammed. Twenty of the refugees who resisted were apparently stabbed in the process of escaping from the coast guard.

With one in ten refugees to Yemen coming on smugglers boats, and the fact that the majority do land in Yemen and do improve their standard of living, there will likely not be a reduction in refugees to Yemen from East Africa, as well as refugees to other countries coming from the region. With the large number of migrants in Yemen from Somalia and Ethiopia, there is a hope from local leaders in Yemen from East Africa that greater attention will be paid to the rights of those leaving the region and losing their lives in the process.

On April 17th 2007 the BBC World Service broadcast a story which until recently has received little attention in the media. With the tensions and deaths of soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan and the UN focus on Iran and missing sailors, the consequences of conflict in the region has only recently focused on the resulting refugees leaving Iraq for neighboring countries and overseas.

Today the UN addressed the issue of Iraqi refugees. The UN wanted the two main recipient countries, Syria and Jordan to accept more refugees from Iraq. Approximately two million reside outside Iraq in Syria and Jordan alone, with another 50,000 leaving Iraq each month. With around 4 million Iraqis residing outside their home country worldwide, the strain on Syria and Jordan in not only accepting more refugees, but maintaining the current refugees in good care is likely a burden too hard to bear.

“I hope this conference will galvanise international support to provide them with more protection and assistance and I hope it will mobilise resources in establishing much needed protection space,” Ban Ki-moon – UN Secretary General

The UN urged all countries to accept a number of refugees from Iraq, and for the wealthier countries such as the US and EU to assist financially as well as accepting a number of refugees into their own countries as well. The only solution is international solidarity on the issue, said High Commissioner for Refugees, Antonio Guterres before the conference held today by the UN refugee agency. He claims this as the worst refugee crisis to hit the Middle East since 1948.

Where Iraqis have fled to:

Syria: 1,200,000
Jordan: 750,000
Gulf states: 200,000
Egypt: 100,000
Iran: 54,000
Lebanon: 40,000
Turkey: 10,000
Internally displaced: 1,900,000
Source: UNHCR

For Stories of Individual Iraqi Refugees: BBC News - Iraqi Refugee Stories 

Over on her very interesting blog, our fellow FPA analyst Bonnie Boyd provides insights into the new policies of Tajik President Rakhmon, which have an impact on Tajik migrants and their remittance payments.

 …Though President Rakhmon has not yet descended into full  Tajikistanibashi mode, this ruling will have several short-term and medium-term effects on its own.  First of all, it creates an anti-Russian feeling in a state which has already lost considerable numbers of its ethnic Russian population through out-migration.  Second, it puts in jeopardy temporary migrants from Tajikistan in Slavic states, especially Russia, but also possibly Kazakhstan.  These migrants are already in some physical jeopardy in Russia, and retaliatory acts against them in the Russian Federation are sure to step up.  The loss to Tajikistan’s remittance economy will be considerable.  According to a January, 2007 World Bank Report on the European and Central Asian economy remittances make up 12.5% of Tajikistan’s GDP (look at figure 2.1)….

Read her full article here..

The fate of boat people who seek a better life by taking to a voyage at sea to reach the shores of more prosperous countries are random at best. Three stories illustrate the conditions and result of such attempts to escape poverty around the world.

In Senegal, with the results of poverty and recent civil conflicts, many Senegalese seek to enter Spain via small boats which land in secluded areas of Southern Spain and disappear into society and larger cities of the Iberian region or beyond into France and the rest of Europe. Due to recent civil wars, the islands of Ellenkine and Carabang in the Casamance Region of Senegal has become a departure point for many illegal immigrants into Southern Europe. The move has also attracted many authorities, who took hundreds of illegal immigrants of various backgrounds into custody on April 8th.

The fate of many migrants are not always just prison. Smugglers near Yemen today dumped nearly 120 Ethiopian and Somali migrants into the sea. The migrants were coming from Somalia to Yemen in a series of three ships, and a number of them were forced, some through physical violence, to dive into the sea for unconfirmed reasons. This comes two weeks after 35 dead African migrants and 113 missing migrants were also lost in the Gulf of Aden on their way to Yemen.

In a odd twist of fortune, The Miami Herald has a story about two refugees with a different fate. Jean-Ferdinand Monestime, a Hatian who came by boat to Florida is awaiting his asylum hearing in the US, while a refugee from Cuba, Francisely Bueno who came to the US in a similar manner has been recruited by the Atlanta Braves AA farm team to pitch for their club. With some assumption of scandals recruiting boat people is noted in the article, the issue of the detention of boat people in the US, and the rights of Cubans to claim political asylum is discussed in the light of rights and sporting abilities.

On April 4th 2007, the continuing tensions surrounding US immigration reform and its effect on American industry was highlighted on a raid on the Cargill pork plant in Illinois. In the raid, 62 illegal immigrants were arrested and taken into custody. While they are part of an independent sanitation crew, the Cargill raid and make up of the workforce is common among meat producing companies throughout the US as well as support companies. In Cargill alone, one-third of the workforce is Hispanic, while the majority of the sanitation crew is made up of Hispanics. Out of the 62 arrested, 13 were taken for identity theft, 49 on immigration charges including the manager of the sanitation company as well as the personnel administrator.

See Reuters Article: US Immigration officals arrest 62 at pork plant

While Cargill’s official policy is to hire legal immigrants, they are not alone in being swept up in complex employment factors which affect almost every industry in the US. With the approach of the next US election there is a push to reform immigration laws to allow for legal immigration, while deterring illegal immigration. President Bush proposed raising the H-1B visa cap by making it easier to become a temporary guest worker in the US. Representative Sheila Jackson Lee also proposed a comprehensive immigration reform which would allow for immigrants to be naturalized if they resided in the US for more than 5 years, would take English classes, offered community service and were of a “good moral character”.

Not all in the US have such a positive view to an open policy towards immigration reform. In December of 2005, the House of Representatives Bill 4437 (H.R. 4437) was introduced by Representative Jim Sensenbrenner. The proposal was to build a 700 mile fence along the Mexican border, criminalize actions which help illegal immigrants as well as mandatory detention of illegal aliens. While Bill 4437 was passed in the House of Representatives, the Senate in May 2006 passed a compromise bill that proposed a 370 mile fence to be built and that illegal immigrants already in the country would have a legal route to citizenship. It would also provide for 200,000 more guest workers per year.

See Video – Workpermit.com

Despite the adjustment of policy, the issues surrounding immigration reform will likely not offer an easy solution for any future candidate. In a recent report from the Department of Homeland Security, it was found that there were currently between 11.5 million and 12 million illegal immigrants currently in the US, with 600,000 still residing in the US after being ordered to leave. Even after $204 million were spent to establish an effective program from deporting “fugitive aliens”, the lack of funding, detention space and the fact that since Feb 2002, there has been an 88% increase in the number of fugitive aliens, shows how difficult it is for any policymaker to devise an effective solution to the problem of immigration reform. With the next President likely having immigration reform as one of the main issues in the next few years, it remains to be seen if any policy or reform of the US immigration system will give any advantage to political candidates in the next Presidential election.

Berlin played host to the celebration of the 50th anniversary of the signature of the Treaties of Rome, the cornerstone of the modern European Union over the weekend. Germany’s presidency of the Council is a fortuitous coincidence, imbuing these celebrations with a particularly symbolic air. As one of the founding nations, a country divided until 1989, it serves as a reminder of the Union’s initial purpose: to allow Europe’s citizens to live together in peace.

To mark the day, the Berlin Declaration was signed by all 27 Heads of State and Government. Say what you will about the political significance of this document, it includes a number of key features which are a sign of the development the Union has undergone over the past 50 years and the challenges it faces today.

Including the fight against illegal immigration in the Berlin Declaration was particularly important to the Spanish government, who has demanded Europe provide additional resources to help it tackle the onslaught of African migrants that risk their lives to land on the Canary Islands. More than 31,000 migrants reached the islands last year, six times more than in 2005. FRONTEX, the EU border control agency, has been working toward finding practical solutions to return migrants to their home countries.

In addition, the fight against racism and xenophobia was formally written into the declaration:

“We will fight terrorism, organised crime and illegal immigration together. We stand up for liberties and civil rights also in the struggle against those who oppose them. Racism and xenophobia must never again be given any rein.”

The latter reflects Europe’s commitment to fundamental rights, formally anchored in the Charter. In the absence of a ratified European Constitution, these kind of declarations, the commitment to the European Year of Equal Opportunities and the Court of Justice’s decision to uphold the provisions of the Charter in its rulings are the only means to express the importance of these guiding principles for EU policy making.

The protection of fundamental rights for all residing in the EU is the goal of the European Fundamental Rights Agency (EFRA) launched today in Vienna, Austria. EFRA previously functioned as the European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia (EUMC). The agency’s core competence will remain the same: data and information collection on the abuse of fundamental rights in the Union. This monitoring function has become all the more important since the introduction of formalized anti-discrimination legislation, through Article 13 of the EU Treaty. Robust anti-discrimination legislation is a part of the legal foundation of functional integration policy and crucial toward allowing regularized migrants equal accesss to employment, housing and social services. The creation and remit (i.e. limited statute of EFRA) has been the subject of criticism, though in absence of the European Constitution, that would have firmly anchored the Charter of Fundamental Rights, the EFRA might prove to be as good as the European Union can get given the current political circumstances. Member States had enough problems transposing the EU anti-discrimination Directive into national law, although this goal has finally been achieved. We will monitor the effectiveness of EFRA in helping migrants integrate into European society closely on the pages of this blog.