Thinking Regionally to Act Locally in Immigration Policy

This transcript was generated using AI and may contain inaccuracies. If you notice an error, feel free to email [email protected].

CHAPTERS 

[00:04:39]: How the U.S. immigration debate has shifted and what has improved 

[00:07:07]: How migration in the Western Hemisphere became more diverse and harder to categorize 

[00:11:16]: Why investing in root causes matters

[00:13:55]: How countries across the hemisphere are at very different stages of managing immigration 

TRANSCRIPT

[00:00:02.00] 

Welcome to the World of Migration, the podcast that the Migration Policy Institute has launched as part of its 20 year anniversary celebration. This series showcases some of the top thinkers on migration policy who were central to MPI's creation or are leading the organization. Today, we're asking them not only to reflect on how policy has changed over the past two decades, but also to share some of their reflections on their careers and and offer thoughts for today's emerging migration experts. My name is Andrea Tanco and I am the Strategic Advisor to MPI President Andrew Selee, as well as an Associate Policy Analyst at MPI. And today I am delighted to be here with Andrew to speak about all things migration. Andrew became President of MPI in 2017 after a long career at the Woodrow Wilson center, where he founded its Mexico Institute and later served as the Center's Vice President for Programs and Executive Vice President. Andrew's research has a special focus on immigration policies in the United States, Latin America and the Caribbean. And of late, he's traveled a good bit to Central America to better understand the forces driving immigration as well as on-the-ground interventions that could help bring stability to the region.

[00:01:15.07] 

He's the author of several books, most recently Vanishing Frontiers: the Forces Driving Mexico and the United States Together. Andrew is also widely consulted by officials in the U.S. Mexico and Central America on current migration patterns and policy impact. And as such, I can't think of anyone better to tackle our subject today, Thinking Regionally to Act Locally in immigration policy. Andrew, thank you so much for coming on the podcast today.

[00:01:42.20] 

Thank you, Andrea. It's great to be with you.

[00:01:45.11] 

This is like having our normal everyday conversations, but getting to do it for an audience, that's a lot of fun.

[00:01:51.07] 

I know. So much to talk about and reflect. I think it's a particularly good time to speak with you on this subject given that the U.S. Government seems far more intentional at present on working with neighbors in Mexico and Central America to build a regional migration management system. So, first of all, I would like to ask you if you agree or you accept this proposition. And if so, could you elaborate a bit more on where things stand at the moment?

[00:02:21.07] 

You know, it's funny, one of my first engagements with MPI, I mean, I guess I started working with MPI, you know, when I was at the Wilson center on another project. But back in 2010, 2011, Demetrios Papademetriou and Doris Meisner approached me about doing a task force together about regional migration. We were thinking about Mexico, Central America, the United States, and probably Canada as a migration system. And so we did a task force and we published a report. And, you know, we basically said there is. This is going to be a regional migration system. We should start thinking about how to manage it. You know, U.S. policymakers always think this is a border issue when people come. But, you know, there's a larger migration system going on here that we need to think about, and you need to think about your near neighborhood. And when the report came out in 2013, it landed like a thud, because in 2013, Mexican migration had dropped. Central American migration was just starting to pick up, but it wasn't yet a political issue in the United States or in most of the countries people were coming from. And so nothing happened.

[00:03:21.04] 

But it's. It's been fun to go back to that report because I think a lot of it is really true today. And I do think you're right. There's an appetite right now, particularly in the U.S. government for the first time, to think regionally about this. And I think in some of the countries in the region as well, people have very different ideas what that means. I think there's less clarity on what thinking regionally means then. But, at least the idea that it's important. You can't actually solve border issues at the border. But you need to think in broader horizons. You need to think in terms of legal pathways and protection systems and people's livelihoods and alternatives to migration and returns, for that matter, and how returns happen with dignity. You know, all of those broader things that should have been on the table a long time ago we were talking about back in 2011, 2012, 2013, but. But really matter right now. And so I think it's great to see that. And I think there' an appetite also. Looking at the hemisphere, there's been sort of a North American system with Central America, Mexico, the U.S. And Canada.

[00:04:17.20] 

But then there's, you know, everything going on with Venezuelan migration and Haitian migration and Nicaraguan migration to Costa Rica, where that. That heads further south. And some of that's getting connected. And so I think there's some awareness now that we need to think about the Americas as a common system where we really have shared challenges. And then how you make that operational is hard, but at least getting there to understand that is a big step.

[00:04:39.06] 

Absolutely. And I guess you provided like a throwback to 2013, but I'm actually quite interested in hearing your thoughts on how have you seen the U.S. Policy conversation around immigration specifically change over the past two decades. So you just mentioned where we are now in 2021. But what have you seen changing in these past two decades?

[00:05:04.15] 

You know, in, in some ways it never-a lot of things repeat, right. Or at least echo over time. And so I think, you know, the angst over people coming to the country, you know, through, you know, in unauthorized, irregular ways continues to reverberate in the American public. Right? And I think that's a reality and I think it's something that, that we need to acknowledge is going to be there, right. And needs to be met. And I think for, for any of us that at some point in life have said, you know, but look, people come, they integrate, it's not a big problem. We do have to understand that this is the notion of people coming not through authorized legal channels causes anxiety. At the same time, I think actually you've seen a growth in people's recognition of immigration as a positive force in U.S. society, you know, and I think that's surprising. It'll surprise a lot of people. But if you look at the polls, I mean, back in the 90s and the early 2000s, it was actually much more negative. And what's happened is the United States is again, we had lived through a very anomalous period of 30 years where there was very little immigration.

[00:06:04.10] 

And so people had very little familiarity with immigration. That's changed, right? And there's new generations growing up that, that have grown up in a society that's shaped by immigration much more actively. But there was this period where we tried to close down immigration, you know, in the 1920s, and it sort of lasted to the mid-60s. And so there's, you know, two generations grew up with very little immigration happening in the country. And so now we're back to sort of normality. What, what is normal in the United States where, where you have, you know, about 13% of the population foreign born, where people have, you know, maybe one in four children are, are, have at least one foreign-born parent, where this is very much present in people's lives, right? And so it's become, I know there's lots of tensions and lots of debates and we just went through a period of an administration that, you know, certainly made closing the border a banner. But in reality, in American society, I think people are actually more comfortable with immigration than, than we've seen in the past. And so how we get it right, how you, how you then take advantage of that to allay some of the anxieties and some of the reasonable anxieties and take advantage of some of the benefits, I think is a real opportunity going forward.

[00:07:07.22] 

And Then finally we have to say also that at least from Latin America to the United States and within Latin America, migration has become more complicated. Right. There's more migration happening within Latin America. Mexico is becoming a recipient country. You know, Colombia, Peru, Ecuador. I mean, countries that really didn't have a lot of, of immigration. If anything, they were countries of out migration. There's, there's suddenly countries that are receiving people for the first time. Right. This is becoming a huge phenomenon. And the people coming to the United States, especially those coming to the border, are a much more diverse group of people. I mean, when we were having these conversations in the 90s, it was all about, you know, Mexican adults trying to cross the border to get to the United States. Now it's families, it's children, it's adults, it's people from, you know, 10 or 12 different nationalities. and so in some ways that makes it a more complex problem, but in other ways it also shows that you really do have to have a hemispheric and a regional focus in order to think smartly and think sensibly about migration.

[00:08:03.17] 

Absolutely. You just mentioned something key and it's this transformation that countries in the Western Hemisphere are experiencing. So you, you mentioned Mexico became becoming a recipient country. But I'm actually quite interested if you could elaborate a little bit on what other trends we're seeing in the region and things that we're going to have to have in mind for future trend on migration.

[00:08:26.07] 

I mean, I think one of the other ones is you're seeing a lot of mixed migration. I mean, we were used to, when we were talking about Mexican migration to the United states in the 90s and 2000s, it was primarily economically motivated. You know, and as always happens, it was both a sign of growth and change. People had enough money to begin thinking about international migration and a sign of scarcity. Right. And at the same time not being able to make their basic needs met by staying. Right. So having enough to dream of another possibility, having the social networks to do that, that. And at the same time knowing that if they stayed, the opportunities just were not sufficient. So. And we're seeing some of that going on in the hemisphere, certainly in Guatemala and parts of El Salvador and Honduras. But then we're seeing lots of things that force people out of their homes. Right. Even in Mexico now. Right. I mean, we're seeing a rise in violence that's pushing people out because, you know, someone is, wants to recruit their kids for a drug cartel. Right. Or for a local criminal gang or, or has taken over their Land, we're certainly seeing this with the gangs and the criminal organizations operating in El Salvador and Honduras and parts of Guatemala.

[00:09:30.14] 

We're seeing political chaos in Nicaragua and Venezuela and really the collapse of the state and the economy in Haiti and to some extent in Venezuela as well. So these things, you know, it becomes much more complicated because it is, you know, we can talk about creating legal pathways for people to come for work. We're not very good at it, I should say, by the way. It's the kind of thing that is a challenge in and of itself. But you can think about how you create legal pathways for work, but then you also have to reckon with the fact that a lot of people are being forced out for other reasons, you know, that really require protection mechanisms as well. And so I think we're, you know, and then lots of people falling between the two. And I think that's been one of the major challenges. It's one of the issues on the Venezuelan migration in South America as well. Right. I mean, are these refugees, are these migrants? You know, people are both in many ways, and it's hard to make those distinctions in the modern world. In a way, we thought we could.

[00:10:20.09] 

Could do it. Maybe we never could, but we thought we could 20 or 30 years ago.

[00:10:24.05] 

Yeah, absolutely. And also worth mentioning, the recent report that our colleague Jessica Bolter and Caitlyn Yates wrote about the rise on extra continental migration going through the Western Hemisphere. Right. From African nation(s). I think that's another one that we're going to have to be following closely.

[00:10:41.16] 

And I think now that you mentioned that, I mean, Jess and Caitlyn's work, part of it started by thinking about, you know, as Europe changes their policies, how does that then affect people who might otherwise have gone to Europe. Right. And might choose to come to the United States? And I think we're seeing some of that in reverse, too. People who might come to the United States thinking about going to Europe, particularly Spain, from Latin America, but also other places in Europe. I mean, this is, you know, we can think regionally, but then you have to keep thinking. We can think immediate region, then you have to think hemisphere, and then you have to think also globally. And how do these pieces connect? And the Afghan crisis, of course, is a good reminder of that as well.

[00:11:16.16] 

No, but so timely that you bring, you know, Europe into the conversation that we're having here today. Because I think we've seen this focus on root causes of migration and the role of development starting to appear in the conversations of the U.S. government on how to address migration in the Western Hemisphere. And maybe these ideas came about more slowly to the table than countries in Europe, for example. So what role do you think this focus on root causes, as well as creating more collaboration within the region of migration management will have on the overall U.S. strategy to deal with, with migration from and through the region?

[00:11:59.20] 

You know, I'm both heartened and occasionally concerned by the focus on root causes. I mean, I think it is, you know, I think it is the right thing to do. I think the, the reality is for most people would rather not migrate. I mean, some people will always migrate, right? I mean, migration is a natural phenomenon that happens and has happened since the beginning of history. Some people always migrate. But we don't want people in a position where they feel forced to migrate either because someone is knocking on their door or, and threatening to take them away or because the economic conditions don't allow them to have a dignified life. So focusing on root causes really matters, right? Both the protection side and the, you know, the questions of governance and stability and the questions of economic development. And I think it's great that we've gotten to that place and I think it's good that the U.S. is beginning to invest in some of this and we see the European Union doing the same thing. Where I worry occasionally is that it becomes a substitute for thinking about migration policy. People think that if you invest in root causes, you know, then no one else is going to, is going to pick up and move.

[00:12:57.09] 

And the reality is in the short term, you know, nothing, no kind of external existence is probably going to change the calculus for most people. You, you may be able to work on some specific triggers of migration. I mean, there may be things around indebtedness, around specific kinds of violence. You know, there, there may be specific interventions that are very useful to stop triggers that move the needle and get people to decide to move, but it's not going to change the overall balance of people wanting to move in countries that have really long term deficits, that don't allow people live in dignity. And so it is both great that we're now looking at the long term issues. I think that is a really helpful step forward and it's not going to be sufficient if we don't also think about migration management, how we create protection mechanisms and how we create legal pathways for mobility. Because people are going to be moving in the short term, right? We may be able to affect the long term, maybe even the medium term, but the short term we need to manage in a smart way.

[00:13:55.05] 

No, excellent Points. And I think we're seeing so many challenges on the migration policy debate. The right, the rising humanitarian protection needs, greater mixed migration flows, new pressures to migrate that are resulting from climate change induced events, changing demographic realities. I can, I could go on and on, but you know, as you look across these challenges, where would you situate the U.S. and its neighborhoods in the Western Hemisphere in terms of vitality in policymaking and on the ground initiatives to deal with some of the challenges?

[00:14:30.11] 

You know, I think it's new. I think, I think most of the repertoires that the U.S. has are still around border management. You know, there is a growing knowledge base, particularly in Central America, around development that's healthy. I think Mexico is still learning to embrace its reality as an immigrant country. I think others have been quicker at this. Like Colombia has, you know, very rapidly adapted to that. But that's because Colombia didn't have a choice also. I mean it was also good leadership, I think from successive administrations, but it was, you know, but it also was. Didn't have a choice. Mexico still sees itself as a pass through primarily and the reality is people are actually staying. It's something you write about a lot. I know you and Ariel have been working on this topic about how Mexico is becoming an immigrant country. You know, I think Canada is interested and intrigued and is willing to be helpful, but is still, you know, less affected by people moving and therefore it's not a political issue. So it's hard. You know, they're happy to be part of the conversations, but they're not necessarily quite, it's not as politically salient an issue.

[00:15:31.04] 

And then I think in Central America you begin to get into countries that have different capacity levels and different willingness to deal with migration issues. I mean, you have Costa Rica, which is a country that's received, you know, somewhere between 12 and 15% of the population is foreign born, very close to the U.S. in that sense, has taken in a very large number of Nicaraguans in successive waves, but also Venezuelans and Colombians during periods of turmoil and has a lot more capacity to do things, but is a small economy. And then you have, you know, Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras, which are more fragile states. They're not collapsing states, but they're not yet, you know. And they're ambivalent about what their role is on migration at this point and Nicaragua, which really is an authoritarian state. So I think there's a different, there's a beginning of this conversation going on. And yet the reality on the ground is there are different actors with different points of view and different capacities. And when you look in South America, you also see countries like Brazil or Argentina that have enormous capacity to integrate migrants don't always do it perfectly. Like the U.S. I mean, often imperfect in how they do it, but they, but they have capacity.

[00:16:34.09] 

And then you see countries like Peru, which have built capacity or Ecuador, but are still really learning how to do it and still a little ambivalent on what their role is. Or Chile about migration. Right. Whereas Colombia has embraced it. We see some other countries that are, you know, much like in the U.S. you see sort of that debate back and forth about whether we really want people here or not.

[00:16:51.21] 

Yeah. And something that I've noticed specifically since 2014 with the first unaccompanied minor crisis from Central America and then the subsequent flow of Venezuelans leaving their country in 2015, is that we're definitely seeing an emphasis or, you know, increased attention on migration policy debates in larger summits. Right. Summit of the Americas or the North American leaders, or the high level economic dialog between the U.S. Mexico and Canada. Like now, migration is one of the top pillars that they need to address. So even that reckoning at that higher level of policymaking I think is definitely happening across the Western Hemisphere, but we still need to see how is that going to materialize or like, in practical terms, how is it going to look on the ground? Which is a great way to ask, ask you, I guess our, our last question for today's conversation on, you know, what, what makes you most hopeful and also most concerned about the future when it comes to migration.

[00:17:52.23] 

You know, what makes me hopeful is that I've seen smart thinking here and there, you know, and, and not just by people in government, but by, you know, civic organizations and by, you know, by civil society groups, by larger publics. I mean, when you see what Colombia did vis a vis, a vast flow of people coming from Venezuela or Costa Rica has done with Nicaraguans who've arrived or, you know, for that matter, Ecuador and Peru or, you know, or Brazil or Argentina and Uruguay. I mean, there really have been a lot of attempts to try and manage and recognize that the arrival of new people can actually be really beneficial. Right. And figure out how to create the legal pathways to make this happen in a way that everyone benefits. And you know, I think you're seeing some thinking in the U.S. around this about how do we take care, you know, how do we bring people out of the shadows who've been in this country a long time time, you know, what do we do in terms of the future flows at a time where the economy is expanding? Can we create a flexible immigration system that allows people to, you know, come when we.

[00:18:53.06] 

At a time where we need greater human capital in the economy and contract it when we don't. When there's bad times, so begin to create a more flexibility. I think a lot of ideas are on the table and people are thinking not about, you know, migration as a problem, but migration and mobility as an opportunity and a natural phenomenon that needs to be managed in smart ways. That said, I also think there's often a backlash. And there's a backlash in part because migration involves confronting differences, right? Involves people who are different in some way, religion, culture, race, ethnicity, language, you know, some sort of different, simply nationality coming into a society that feels established, right? And so there's always sort of that pressure for change. We're also living in a time of economic uncertainty. Even right now where we're seeing expansion in the economy, many people feel uncertain about the future of their jobs, right? And so that creates. Also worries about people coming in. And then, I think, you know, policymakers make this worse when they don't make smart decisions, like when we don't actually create the legal pathways, when we don't think about how to manage integration in smart ways that also, I think, leads to-

[00:20:01.10] 

And how to resource things. How do you resource schools, how do you resource healthcare when there's an influx of people in a specific area? You know, those sort of issues, I think, can create the kind of backlash that can also take us backwards in thinking about immigration. And so, I mean, I think there's a real need. And this is where MPI comes in a lot as well as. I mean, some is trying to record all of this, but also and sort of chart the course of history and understand how it's evolving and how policy is evolving, but also sort of looking around the corner and thinking about what sort of policies are going to help us manage the movement of people around the world, because it's happening in planned ways, but it's also happening at times in unpredictable ways when there's crises. And so how do we have the policies in place that help us take the most advantage of that, manage it in ways that are controlled and regular and expected to channel chaos into some sort of order and manage integration to make sure that people who have arrived and the communities that have received them are able to find a meeting point, right?

[00:20:55.18] 

And find a future together in a productive way with the resources they need to make it happen. And so, you know, a lot of what we do at MPI is really trying to think of those policy options. What are the policy options, both in the United States, but also, you know, we work a lot in other countries. You know, what are the policy options that really are going to help people manage migration in a way that benefits everyone? Right. And everyone, or at least most people, feel like they're part of this. Right. That they have a stake in the changes going on in their own society driven by migration.

[00:21:24.19] 

This is a great place for MPI to fill that knowledge gap and to continue working as just the Western Hemisphere and other regions across the world actually, you know, go on this transformation from being immigrants in countries to receiving more transit migration and receiving new, new communities.

[00:21:43.03] 

Well, you and I know, in no way do we want to say that the Western Hemisphere or the Americas have discovered, like, the way of managing migration, because we know all the downsides of everything that's happened. Right? I mean, we can criticize, you know, we could run through each country and critique policy and critique what's. What's on the ground. That said, there has been an evolution for many of the countries in the hemisphere being immigrant societies to being immigrant societies and managing it with a little less political chaos and political vitriol than we've seen in other parts of the world. And I think that's something worth learning from. Right. I. I wouldn't say you can lift the. There's a Latin America, there's a single Latin American model, or you can take it and lift it and take it somewhere else, you know, and. And none of the models we've seen are perfect, and some are much less perfect than others. But there is a sense in which there's been, at least until now, a little less drama as people have moved across borders. And there are many reasons for it, but hopefully it's something that.

[00:22:36.09] 

That the rest of us, including those of us in the United States, can learn from as well.

[00:22:40.10] 

Well, thank you so much, Andrea. This has been such an interesting discussion, and we definitely appreciate you coming onto the podcast, and I always appreciate having these conversations with you. I'm so grateful to work with you, definitely.

[00:22:53.23] 

Thank you, Andrea. Great to be with you. And I look forward to continuing this conversation offline, as we always do.

[00:23:01.15] 

Andrew Selee is the president of the Migration Policy Institute. Thanks for tuning into this episode of the World of Migration, MPI's 20th anniversary podcast. For more on MPI's first 20 years, please visit our website, migrationpolicy.org/about/20th. You can find all the episodes of the World of Migration and other MPI podcasts online at migrationpolicy.org/podcast or you can find us wherever you get your podcast. Just search for World of Migration and please give us a review while you're there. This episode was produced by Michelle Mittelstadt and Yoseph Hamid and made possible through the systems of Lisa Dixon. Our music is a song called Geographer by Bright Idea. My name is Andrea Tanco and thanks again for listening.