Problems of Migration and How to Control It Extend Far Past the Mexican Border, Experts Say

Almost daily, news reports remind Americans of the recurring drama that unfolds along the U.S.-Mexico border, a transit point for tens of thousands of impoverished Latin Americans attempting to enter the United States illegally. The issue of undocumented immigration has become a hotly debated and politically charged topic, as Congress considers a sweeping overhaul of U.S. laws and critics call for political asylum for immigrants fleeing warfare.

But as experts meeting in La Jolla noted last week, the much-publicized immigration problem along the border is only the most dramatic example of a massive movement of millions of people throughout the hemisphere. For instance, while the United States draws migrants from Mexico and elsewhere, Mexico itself attracts refugees from Guatemala, while Haitians go to the Dominican Republic, Colombians find work in Venezuela and Bolivians seek a better life in Argentina.

Most migrants are fleeing the twin perils of the Third World: poverty and warfare. The movement has accelerated since the 1960s, experts noted, as Latin American economies have worsened and periodic violence has gripped the region.

“There are borders in all the Americas, and almost every border in the Americas has very similar problems to what we have,” noted Joseph Grunwald, president of the Institute of the Americas, a La Jolla think tank.

Last week, academicians and other experts from throughout the Americas gathered at the institute’s offices in an effort to explore migration as a hemisphere-wide issue, rather than as an isolated phenomenon that affects only the United States. No one proposed any definitive solutions to a complex problem that involves fundamental economic inequities between the nations involved.

Makeshift Remedies

Participants noted that makeshift remedies, such as increasing border guards, have repeatedly failed to stem the tide of migration. Though there are no easy answers, experts agreed that wider discussions of the hemisphere-wide movement can assist in better understanding the massive migration.

“We must strengthen hemispheric cooperation,” said Gabriel Murillo Castano, a political scientist from Colombia who has written a book about migrant workers in the Americas. Everyone agreed that cooperation is a laudable goal but everyone also agreed that it’s easier said than done.

Several speakers noted that although illegal immigration has become a principal concern in Washington, U.S. and Mexican officials rarely discuss the issue together. For so-called “sender” nations such as Mexico, observers noted, immigration often serves as a kind of safety valve, allowing an outlet for desperate peasants who may otherwise agitate for change at home.

“It has been virtually impossible for the countries involved to talk to each other,” noted Doris Meisner, a former Justice Department official.

Often, participants noted, politics enter into the question of migration.

Currently, one Costa Rican speaker noted, Costa Rica is home to more than 100,000 undocumented immigrants who have fled warfare in Nicaragua, where the United States is financing an armed insurgency. Malnutrition and other ailments are chronic among the Nicaraguan refugee population, taxing resources, said Edelberto Torres Rivas, a social scientist from Costa Rica.

“No matter what your ideological position is, there is no question that United States policy is causing refugees to leave Nicaragua,” Torres Rivas said in an interview. “We feel (that any) policy that favors war as a solution to social problems cannot be acceptable.”

Crucial Determination

Politics is also evident in the always-thorny question of who is a political refugee and who is an economic refugee. The determination is crucial because the laws of the United States and other nations provide asylum for those fleeing political or religious persecution, but not necessarily for people simply seeking economic betterment.

In the United States, Cuban and Haitian immigrants have been variously categorized as economic and political refugees, depending on the prevailing political currents. And while Salvadorans and Guatemalans fleeing U.S.-supported rightist regimes are routinely denied political asylum in the United States, immigrants leaving communist governments generally have a better chance of winning asylum.

The determination in asylum cases has “very little to do with the individuals” seeking asylum, said Meisner, who is a former acting commissioner of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service. “It has everything to do with . . . U.S. policy towards the sending country,” she said.

For the migrants themselves, the movement brings mixed results.

While they may better their plight in their adopted countries, Murillo, the Colombian political scientist, noted that they typically face considerable hardship and discrimination in their new homes in the United States and elsewhere. Meantime, he added, border areas, with their typically large immigrant populations, are economically depressed throughout the Americas.

“Border development in the Americas has been neglected for decades,” Murillo said.

As the immigration issue heats up in the United States, there are increasing calls for more severe solutions, including the posting of U.S. military units along the border. Once regarded as an outlandish idea, Meisner noted, the notion is now given serious consideration, although there is little evidence that it would help alleviate the problem.