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Great Recession, Migration Management and the Effect of Deportations to Latin America

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Immigrant Vulnerability and Resilience

Part of the book series: International Perspectives on Migration ((IPMI,volume 11))

Abstract

This chapter considers the importance of the Great Recession on our thinking around the effects of migration on development in Latin America. Historically migration has played an important role in the globalization of Latin American livelihood and governance strategies and as such provided empirical background to the transnational migration paradigm and concepts such as transnationalism from ‘below’ and from ‘above’. The Great Recession and ensuing intensification and diversification of migration control nevertheless have made apparent that promises of development and global incorporation through migration not necessarily apply to marginalized sectors of society whose migrants often remain undocumented. The chapter argues that to the extent that pre-recession migrants with relative ease managed to settle the relationship between migration and development through more or less or self-determined processes of recruitment, remittances, and circularity, post-recession migratory projects are increasingly marked by strenuous experiences of irregularity, danger, debt and deportation.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    In 1914 half of Buenos Aries’ population was for example foreign born. See ‘The Tragedy of Argentina’, The Economist, February 15, 2014, p. 18.

  2. 2.

    The collective project entitled ‘New Landscapes of Migration: A comparative study of mobility and transnational practices between Latin America and Europe’ involved Colombian and Dominican migrants in Spain, Italy, the United Kingdom and Denmark. Field work and quantitative survey data collection was generously funded by the Danish Council for Social Science Research.

  3. 3.

    Similar migration-related housing booms occurred throughout Latin America, see e.g. Guarnizo and Días (1999) for Colombia, Kyle (2000) and Mata-Codesal (2013) for Ecuador, Paerregaard (2008) for Peru, Camus (2008) and Sørensen (2011) for Guatemala.

  4. 4.

    In the early 2000s, remittances constituted double the size of Official Development Assistance (ODA) and had by 2013 risen to triple the size. The growing influence of migrant social networks and the overall volume of financial resources flowing through these networks appeared to target the poor at least as well as ODA (which not in itself is an indicator of success), and to contribute to offset the progressive fragmentation of international responses to development and humanitarian crises.

  5. 5.

    The great majority or 65 % of the total number of deported migrants from the U. S. in 2013 were Mexicans, followed by Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Brazil and Colombia.

  6. 6.

    For deportation from the U.S., see https://www.ice.gov/removal-statistics/

  7. 7.

    DIRECTIVE 2008/115/EC OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL of 16 December 2008 on common standards and procedures in Member States for returning illegally staying third-country nationals.

  8. 8.

    Some variation in approach between Northern and Eastern Europe on the one hand, and southern Europe on the other, can be observed. In Northern Europe deportation on the whole is increasing, while in Southern European frontier states, such as Spain (but also Malta, Cyprus, Italy and Greece), greater emphasis is placed on removing people before they arrive (militarization of maritime borders, but also deportation upon arrival in airports).

  9. 9.

    Spanish deportation and border apprehension numbers stem from media coverage, e.g. http://comunicacionpopular.com.ar/7-800-deportados-desde-espana-en-2011/ and www.taringa.net/posts/noticias/6719193/Espana-expilsa-30mil-inmigrantes-por-ano.html (both accessed during February 2014).

  10. 10.

    See http://www.migrantesecuador.org/index.php/noticias/espana/9096

  11. 11.

    See GFMD Roundtable Discussion at www.gfmd.org/documents/…/gfmd_manila08_csd_Session_2-1_en.pdf

  12. 12.

    For US spending on deportation, see http://timesfreepress.com/site/between-two-worlds/deportation/php; for similar deportation spending calculations, see http://www.irr.org.uk/pdf2/ERA_BriefingPaper4.pdf

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  1. Danish Institute for International Studies, Copenhagen, Denmark

    Ninna Nyberg Sørensen

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Correspondence to Ninna Nyberg Sørensen .

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  1. Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Winthrop University, Rock Hill, South Carolina, USA

    María Aysa-Lastra

  2. Departamento de Sociologia I, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Madrid, Spain

    Lorenzo Cachón

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Sørensen, N.N. (2015). Great Recession, Migration Management and the Effect of Deportations to Latin America. In: Aysa-Lastra, M., Cachón, L. (eds) Immigrant Vulnerability and Resilience. International Perspectives on Migration, vol 11. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-14797-0_12

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