Migration in the News

Federal agencies fail to protect migrant nannies (Toronto Star)

2009-03-16T19:45:00.000-07:00

http://www.thestar.com/Comment/article/602649

By Robert Cribb and Dale Brazao

Family Stories as Secret Text for Immigrants (New York Times)

2009-03-16T19:43:00.000-07:00

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/16/nyregion/16hunter.html

March 15, 2009
By Kirk Semple

Where Education and Assimilation Collide (New York Times)

2009-03-16T10:40:00.000-07:00

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/15/us/15immig.html?emc=eta1

March 14, 2009
By Ginger Thompson

An article based on the recent focus on NYTimes's blog (discussed in the previous post) - thanks to Michelle for sending me the link!

The Best Ways to Teach Young Newcomers (New York Times)

2009-03-11T20:12:00.000-07:00

http://roomfordebate.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/03/11/the-best-ways-to-teach-young-newcomers/?hp

March 11, 2009
By the editors of the NY Times - part of the "Room for Debate" blog

First of all, this is an interesting (albeit problematic) interactive map of immigration in the US - my home-county of Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, for example, had a total population of 750,096 in 2000; 52,131 were foreign-born (about 7%) and of that 7%, the largest foreign-born group was "Asia, Middle East." Right. Still, you can look at "number of residents" vs. "percent of population" across time, which gives the data an interesting visualization.

Here, you can also look at the demographics of any individual school district in the US. My school district was incredibly white and nondiverse but seems to be (slowly) changing.

The blog entry itself tackles the question: should "the children of immigrants, and who don’t speak English well" be segregated "to give them intensive support"? There are several interesting points made, and if you need further proof of how screwed up the "No Child Left Behind" act is, look no further.

For now, I'm looking forward to future installments "on how the latest wave of immigrants is affecting other American institutions."

Workers Without Borders (New York Times)

2009-03-10T18:02:00.000-07:00

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/10/opinion/10gordon.html?ref=opinion

March 9, 2009
By Jennifer Gordon (opinion piece)

So today we have two opinion pieces on temporary foreign workers - one in the US, one in Canada.

For the US, Gordon suggests something she calls "Transnational Labor Citizenship" or a transnational union. This would give temp. foreign workers fair working conditions, which she claims would both allow for greater remittances and "address the inconsistency and inhumanity of policies that support free trade in goods and jobs but bar the free movement of people." I guess this is a compromise in her view (if you don't give people US citizenship/rights, at least give them fair working conditions) which she compares to the EU (When Poland joined the EU, Britain predicted 50,000 migrants in four years; instead, more than a million arrived. However, "the influx did not take a serious toll on native workers’ wages or employment...Migrants who were not trapped in exploitative jobs flocked to areas that needed workers and shunned the intense competition of big cities. And when job opportunities grew in Poland or shrank in Britain, fully half went home again.")

But Poland <--> England migration within the EU - where a migrant has the option/possibility of settling permanently - is very different than Mexico <--> US migration where (legal) permanence is often not the case. Still, interesting idea.

She finishes with this:

"Like it or not, until we address the vast inequalities across the globe, those who want to migrate will find a way...The United States needs an open and fair system, not a holding pen. The best way forward is to create an immigration system with protection for all workers at its core."

And thus, working immigrants (that's labor, not people) remains at the core of immigration.

(By the way, on the topic of remittances, this is a great NY Times article.)

Economic crisis bears down on vulnerable immigrants (Toronto Star)

2009-03-10T17:35:00.000-07:00

http://www.thestar.com/Comment/article/598083

March 9, 2009
By Harald Bauder (opinion piece)

More about temporary foreign workers in Canada: first, an ironic quote, possibly by Max Frisch in reference to Germany's failed guest worker program: "We asked for workers but people came."

Bauder suggests extending the new Canadian Experience Class (currently aimed at those with Canadian degrees and Canadian work experience) to temporary foreign workers. The column is good - although still justifying that "protecting these workers is in the interest of all Canadians" rather than an issue of individual worker/human rights.

The comments following the article are depressing & scary, as expected.

Tough times hit temporary foreign workers (Georgia Straight)

2009-03-05T21:04:00.000-08:00

http://www.straight.com/article-204254/tough-times-hit-temporary-foreign-workers

March 5, 2009
By Carlito Pablo

The Georgia Straight is a Vancouver alt-weekly paper, and this was published in their paper and on their website.

Temporary "foreign" workers are always vulnerable: their labor is often desperately needed to support a country's economy, since it falls within the "3 Ds" category (dirty, dangerous, and/or demeaning - such as the construction industry or, in a slightly different way, Canada's live-in caregiver program) and citizens are unwilling to do it. Their tenuous legal status, however, creates an opportunity for exploitation - migrants are often more likely to put up with poor working conditions, pay, and workplace abuse to avoid being deported - and as an economy slumps, temporary "foreign" workers can be legally let go & deported (or illegally, if their contracts are not up) as to reduce job competition for citizens. This article does a good job of alluding to these deeper issues within any temporary "foreign" worker program as the economy brings them to the forefront.

According to [Erika Del Carmen Fuchs], many temporary workers don’t know that they have the same rights as Canadians and permanent residents in the workplace. But what bothers her more is the way these workers are regarded in general. “You need them when times are good but you don’t need them when times are bad,” she said.

Because really...

these people have become an “invisible work force” because no one has the job of identifying and serving them.

Why Skilled Immigrants Are Leaving the U.S. (Business Week, Yahoo! News)

2009-03-04T08:51:00.000-08:00

http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/feb2009/tc20090228_990934.htm

March 3, 2009
By Vivek Wadhwa

The recent study Wadhwa refers to, lead by Wadhwa himself and put out by the Kauffman Foundation, can be found in pdf format here. Wadhwa writes:

We find that, though restrictive immigration policies caused some returnees to depart the United States, the most significant factors in the decision to return home were career opportunities, family ties, and quality of life.

This is in line with similar studies I have read; however, this study is by far the most comprehensive - and possibly the most explicitly biased, as it's put out by the Kauffman Foundation which mainly aims to "advance entrepreneurship" (i.e. view migrants as labor) but more soon after I read the entire study.

Canada may decrease immigration numbers (CIC News)

2009-03-03T15:24:00.000-08:00

http://www.cicnews.com/2009/02/canada-decrease-immigration-targets-nows-time-submit-application-02700.html

February 2009
by Citizenship and Immigration Canada News in Canada Immigration Newsletter

This really shows the Immigration Minister's relatively-new immense power thanks to bill C-50, passed last June in 2008 (CBC article here, No One Is Illegal's take on it here). Not only will Canada likely accept less immigrants, but those immigrants will be more carefully (and explicitly, legally) selected based on market demands.

Scientists Fear Visa Trouble Will Drive Foreign Students Away (New York Times)

2009-03-03T15:19:00.000-08:00

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/03/science/03visa.html

March 3, 2009
By CORNELIA DEAN

"And the United States can no longer assume that this country is everyone’s first choice for undergraduate, graduate or postgraduate work" - definitely true.

Welcome!

2009-03-03T15:16:00.000-08:00

As a graduate student studying geography and migration, this is a blog to aggregate articles I casually read/see in popular media and comment on them. I grew up in the US and now live in Canada, so you can expect a certain geographical bias. Also - this blog by no means attempts to be exhaustive! - but is rather a casual running commentary. Please feel free to send me articles, videos, etc. for posting. My email address can be found here: http://www.sfu.ca/~lrb5/ as can a brief bio of myself. Thanks!