One aspect of the bill rarely mentioned in the past week, but which attracted scrutiny, is health care coverage for legal and “illegal” immigrants. The issue rose to the forefront of public conscience during President Obama’s speech to Congress in September. Joe Wilson, a Congressman from South Carolina, shouted “You lie!” after Obama stated that Democrats did not intend for “illegal” immigrants to receive health care coverage. (Note: Please see my posting here that discusses terminology.)

Concerns over spending finite resources on health care for undocumented persons are understandable, though the numbers are not as large as one might be led to believe from the media. While the country’s undocumented population remains substantial, statistics show that less than one in 11 of the uninsured is an “illegal” immigrant.

A report by the Migration Policy Institute details those immigrants who would and would not be covered. Some Representatives want to withhold health benefits from legal immigrants who have lived in the US for less than five years, affecting more than 1 of the 4.2 million uninsured permanent residents.

Given that these green card holders reside legally in the US and may one day be citizens, it seems more than reasonable that they too should be able to pay for and receive health insurance.

Getting health care right is important. So too, is immigration reform. The uncertainties on coverage would be less complicated if the United States had successfully solved its immigration quandary. The Obama administration considers this a priority, and should health care reform pass successfully, immigration policy is on the docket for 2010.

If you were looking for a reprieve from the town hall meetings and tea parties marked by with emotion and rhetoric, don’t hold your breath. Immigration debates, here we come.

Right from the start this film draws the audience in. It is a movie about a young Honduran woman named Sayra who rides on top of trains hoping to reach Texas through Mexico. It is also about Casper (a.k.a. Willy), a Mexican gang member in trouble who meets up with Sayra along the way. Casper’s association with the gang shows how brutal life is for him and his protégé, Smiley. Their initiation rituals are physically punishing.

This film is also about desperation, about the crushing poverty that leads people to risk everything to find a better life. It is also about gang style brotherhood and the long reach of certain gangs. There is at least one point when Casper, who protected Sayra once, tries to leave Sayra by hopping off a train while she sleeps. But she is stubborn and places her fate in his hands and joins him. The acting is superb. All of the characters are believable and the audience sees clearly, even in his quietest moments, how Casper (played by Edgar Flores) struggles with his past, a past he is trying to leave behind. The story also shows how one decision can alter a person’s life, how difficult it is to escape one’s lot in life.

The relationship between Sayra and Casper is refreshingly non romantic. They have an affinity for each other and look out for one another but remain just friends. This film also puts a human face on migration. All the while the audience asks, “Will Casper escape his past? Will Sayra make it to the United States?” It is worth watching to find out.

“Sin Nombre” is available for rent.

Murphy can be reached at:  Lojano at comcast.net

Readers, however, might overlook another outcome of this conflict – the displacement of Somalis throughout the globe, and the creation of a wide-ranging diaspora. All one needs to do is search “Somali” and “community” on the web to get an idea of the global spread of Somalis.

A 2009 UNDP report provides a summary of the Somali diaspora. It found that approximately one in every seven Somalis now live overseas, totaling more than one million persons. Top locations, outside of Kenya and Yemen, in Europe (rank order) are the UK, “Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Italy.” In North America large communities reside in the Minneapolis region, Columbus, Ohio, and Toronto, Canada.

Collectively, these overseas Somalis act as a powerful financial force by sending back remittances. This strong tradition of giving uses hawala, an informal system for transferring funds, and monies may be used to support family members, or also as business investments. The aforementioned UNDP report states that the diaspora sends $1 billion, or even as much as $1.6 billion annually back to Somalia. This appears to be an impressive amount, particularly when compared to the $214 million in aid pledge by foreign donors earlier this year.

Who would massacre these Colombians, and to what end? It may be an extreme sign of anti-immigrant sentiment within Venezuela; Colombians make up its largest foreign-born group and often compete for jobs while being labeled with negative stereotypes. Another more likely possibility is that Colombian guerrillas, such as the ELN and FARC, crossed the border in order to kill suspected paramilitary adversaries.

The region between Venezuela and Colombia is relatively porous, allowing the movement of migrants as well as armed groups. Venezuela’s border-states host more than 200,000 persons who are forcibly displaced due to the ongoing civil conflict in Colombia, as well as tens or even hundreds of thousands of others who seek better economic opportunities. Meanwhile, Bogotá has presented evidence that the government in Caracas allows Colombian guerillas to use its territory for sanctuary.

Whether or not the intent of the murders was to send a message or settle an old score, the Colombian migrant community must live with a deepened sense of their own vulnerability. They often live on the margins, struggling to find adequate housing or jobs. Many are also without legal documentation, and open to intimidation and abuse from local authorities. At the same time, Venezuela’s murder rate has unfortunately skyrocketed within the past decade, and few perpetrators are ever brought to justice. Under these circumstances one can only hope that no additional massacres take place.

More information on the latest victim can be found here.

Today, a National Public Radio (NPR) story highlighted the increased northward movement of Hondurans, as they seek employment, not to mention a safer locale. As one of the poorest countries in the hemisphere (along with Haiti, Nicaragua and Guyana), Hondurans have often found better financial circumstances elsewhere. Now their country’s weak economy has been made worse due to a still uncertain political situation.

At present, Honduran emigration may be a relative exception. For example, while the global economic troubles have led to a steep reduction in the immigration of Mexicans into the United States, Hondurans continue to look for jobs abroad. Many of them end up seeking opportunities in Mexico.

Although a range of factors are at play, economic migration generally takes place if an international migrant perceives that the likely financial benefits to movement – taking into account the costs and risks involved – outweigh the opportunities of remaining in their country of origin. Interestingly, with the current financial climate this means that Mexico remains the location of choice for more of its citizens, while also remaining attractive to the comparatively poorer Honduras.

Further information on the decline in Mexican migration to the United States can be found here.

Regardless of where one stands on the debate over immigration and borders, we can agree that these human rights violations are detestable. Mexican authorities are doing what they can to improve the situation, but there are accusations that some police officers are in cahoots with the kidnappers.

Despite the high cost and physical danger, thousands of migrants continue to attempt to cross into the United States. This signals the desperate economic situation in their country of origin, and the enduring hope and dream of building a better life elsewhere.

The NYT that provides further information can be found here.

Concerned about negative impact of human settlement, the Ecuadorian government has forced more than one thousand migrants to return to the mainland. Originally, they had traveled to the Galapagos in order to seek wages in service industries that are double what they could earn elsewhere. (The NYT article on this topic can be found here.)

This situation serves as an example of the interconnectivity of migration and the environment.

Migrants tend to move to where they can best make a living, even if it will cause harm to local environments. The priorities of housing, food, and seeking a livelihood often outweigh concern for natural habitats, unless they can be convinced of the long-term benefits of sustainability. On the other hand, environmental change, whether a rapid and devastating hurricane or slow-onset desertification, can lead to the need for people to migrate.

How should governments balance the welfare of their people with the need environmental protection? The answer is not clear. Now some Ecuadorians on the Galapagos ask whether foreign tourists and tortoises are more valued than they are. This is similar to concerns by Kenyans who live outside their country’s national parks.

In the end, perhaps better management of the Galapagos by the Ecuadorian government could have avoided this situation in the first place. It continues to subsidize flights to and from the mainland, and has permitted the islands’ population to double in the past decade, to 30,000 persons.

Next year the Obama administration will likely push for comprehensive immigration reform that legalizes millions who are currently in the United States without documentation. The US has an estimated 11 million “illegal immigrants”, representing approximately 3% of the total population. (Note: Please see a clarification on terminology below.)

This is an astonishing number. Albeit the immigrants are not evenly distributed across each state or region, consider this mental exercise. The typical Major League baseball game draws nearly 30,000 fans. Imagine that the next time you got to the ballpark, statistically speaking, you are cheering alongside nearly 1,000 undocumented persons.

The debate on granting citizenship to “illegal immigrants” aside, one major roadblock to changing documentation is the capacity of the major government agency charged with this role, United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). The agency is working to put a system in place that will allow it to speed its processing capacity. A New York Times article provides further insight into these preparations.

When President Bush raised immigration reform in 2007 it drew enormous attention from proponents and opponents nationwide. No doubt USCIS is aware of this, and therefore “officials have held meetings around the country in recent weeks to gather suggestions from the public for the overhaul”. It appears that 2010 holds the promise of more rallies and rhetoric about US immigration policy.

At present, Obama is already finding it challenging to pass new health care legislation. Once it is over, how much political capital will he still have to tackle immigration? No doubt, each remain critical issues for the United States in the 21^st century.

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Terminology: As an aside, the correct terminology for use in this case is actually irregular migrant, which does not have such a negative connotation, and separates the individual, the migrant, from an action, illegal entry. The International Organization for Migration (IOM) defines irregular migrants as persons who move to a new location by means of irregular or illegal methods, without officially recognized documentation. These irregular migrants are not illegal people, but may indeed be in another country illegally. For further analysis on the debate over terms, please see this article within Migraciones Internacionales.

On PBS next Monday Director Juan Mandelbaum brings his personal experience growing up in Argentina during the military junta to American networks. Information about the airing of the documentary is listed below:

OUR DISAPPEARED/NUESTROS DESAPARECIDOS is the heart-breaking chronicle of director Juan Mandelbaum’s personal search for the souls of friends and loved ones, idealistic young students and activists, who were caught in the brutal vise of the right-wing military and “disappeared” in his native Argentina during the 1976-1983 military dictatorship. OUR DISAPPEARED/NUESTROS DESAPARECIDOS will air nationally on the Emmy Award-winning PBS series Independent Lens, hosted by Terrence Howard, on Monday, September 21, 2009 at 10PM (check local listings.)

While this blog often addresses issues between nations and between power brokers on many of these nations, it is crucial to view political views from the perspective of those individuals who have suffered personal trials within the context of a larger political events or crisis. I encourage everyone to try to watch the documentary if living in the US or having access to a PBS station. If information for those you living outside to US is made available in accessing the film, I will post further information about dates or viewing times on this blog.

Please tune in!

As with any change in life, growing older can present its challenges. Beyond relatively incipient social-networking programs like Twitter and Facebook, or newfangled cell phones to deal with, there is the transition from the workforce to retirement, and adjustments as some friends or spouses pass away. New routines must be established.

How is this time of transition for older immigrants in the United States? They are a population often overlooked within current debates on teaching English to immigrants in schools, or competition posed by migrants entering the labor pool.

Last weekend a New York Times article provided further description of the lives of immigrants over 65 years of age in the United States.

For many, there is a shift away from a familiar culture of reverence for elders that may be more common in their country of origin. A total of “seventy percent of recent older immigrants speak little or no English” and foreign-born elderly are one-third more likely to live in poverty. As a result, their ability to assimilate and to care for themselves is more delicate than that of younger populations.

At the same time, this population continues to grow in size. As a nifty graphic attached to the article describes, “since 1970, the number of United States residents 65 and older who were born in Europe dropped by nearly half, while those born in Asia and Latin America increased tenfold”. It is these “elderly, [who] now make up America’s fastest growing immigrant group”.

A witty comment from Judith Treas, who teaches sociology and studies populations at the University of Califorinia, Irvine:

“They never win spelling bees . . . they do not join criminal gangs. And nobody worries about Americans losing jobs to Korean grandmothers.”

In the end, this vulnerable immigrant population would benefit from greater attention. Hopefully this NYT article will increase efforts to bring this about.