Immigration and Migration

In an article for Bloomberg, Judd Devremont and Todd Moss highlight the rapid urbanization of Africa, arguing that the success or failure of Africa in the global economy will depend on its cities. In Nigeria, this can be seen most clearly in Lagos.  At independence in 1960, Lagos had an estimated population of 763,000; today it is about 13 million. Together with Lagos state, the population reaches 21 million. While Lagos is by far the largest city in Nigeria, security concerns, rural poverty, and hopes for greater economic opportunity are driving people to cities all over the country. In the decade between 2007 and 2017, Nigeria’s urban dwellers increased from 41 percent of the population to about 50 percent. In 2019, there were 7 cities with a population of one million or more, 80 with a population ranging between one hundred thousand and one million, and 248 with a population between ten thousand and one hundred thousand. But much of this urbanization is unplanned and chaotic. According to a World Bank report about African cities, "Africa’s cities feel crowded precisely because they are not dense with economic activity, infrastructure, or housing and commercial structures." They lack "formal housing in reach of jobs, and without transport systems to connect people living farther away," forcing residents to "forgo services and amenities to live in cramped quarters near their work." The realities of life in Nigerian cities are hard. In Lagos, about two of every three people live in a slum. Less than 10 percent of residents have access to piped water (for those that do, it is often riddled with sediment and unsafe to drink), forcing urban households to purchase water from vendors at up to three times the normal price charged by Lagos state. Only six percent of urban households have a flushing toilet that is connected to a sewage system. But life goes on. For all its shortcomings, Lagos is the center of much of what is dynamic and vibrant about Nigeria, a point Judd and Todd stress about African cities in general. The informal economy provides employment incompletely captured by statistics. In Lagos, there are few beggars; everyone has a hustle. Vendors working the city’s ubiquitous traffic jams (“go slows”) sell everything from mops and buckets to juju materials to the complete works of Shakespeare. Others provide services, such as washing the feet of market ladies several times a day. It is the home of Nollywood, a home-grown film industry that is widely influential in Africa and spreading around the world. It is the center of Nigerian telecommunications, and cell phone use is ubiquitous. The Nigerian Communications Commission stated that Internet users in Nigeria numbered 116 million in March 2019—well over half of the country’s estimated population. The most modern of financial and other services are available to clients in the Lagos-Ibadan corridor, the capital Abuja, and sporadically elsewhere. Information technology and sophisticated financial services are starting to power the modern sectors of the economy, though not to the same extent as in South Africa or Kenya, though the economy of Lagos state is larger than that of Kenya. Hence, as Judd and Todd argue, they require attention for their enormous potential, both good and bad.

Mass international tourism has become a hallmark of globalization, but the question of whether it leads to peace is up for debate.

Dealing with Central American migrants, rising crime and faltering energy supplies will require more U.S. help.

More than three million Venezuelans have fled poverty, hunger, violence, and persecution in recent years, journeying throughout the Americas and Southern Europe.

Adjunct Senior Fellow Catherine Powell presided over a CFR roundtable, “Bringing a Gender Lens to Immigration: Domestic Violence–Based Asylum and Family Separation” with Lee Gelernt, deputy director of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) Immigrants’ Rights Project, and Sandra Park, senior staff attorney with the ACLU’s Women’s Rights Project.

Boosters often like to talk about an “emerging middle class” in Africa. Leaving aside definitional issues—who is middle class varies from country to country—in some African countries a middle class does seem to be growing, though it is not as big or growing as fast as some of the media hype implies. Nigeria, with its huge population, is one of the countries that commentators often look to.  But Quartz Africa identified the fact that many of those who are tech-savvy or have other job qualifications in demand—current or potential members of such a middle class—are leaving. Many seek to raise their families abroad and do not intend to come back. Popular destinations include Canada and Australia, both of which have skills-based immigration programs. Others, for example, deliberately overstay their visas in the United States, which has led to a crackdown on U.S. visas for Nigerians.  Drivers of middle class immigration, according to Quartz, include the breakdown of the Nigerian educational system at virtually all levels, high unemployment and poverty levels in Nigeria, and a general disillusionment with the country’s political leadership. In the March 2019 presidential elections, only 35 percent of those registered actually voted. Even taking into account voter suppression, which did occur, the figure is not encouraging.   Quartz acknowledges that emigration is not cheap, that it is the well-off, not the poor, who can leave. According to an Afrobarometer survey of thirty-four African countries, the younger and more educated a person is, the more likely they are to consider emigrating. About half of Nigeria’s population lives in “extreme poverty,” in absolute number more than any other country in the world. The poor can emigrate, but they are more likely to cross an adjacent border in the search for work. According to the same Afrobarometer report, most Africans that consider immigrating, consider doing so to another African country. 

Jack McCaslin is a research associate for Africa policy studies at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington, DC. Popular culture, including sports, has long been one of America’s most powerful exports. Athletes, in turn, have been influential ambassadors, if not for the U.S. government, then for America writ large. Last week, for the first time in National Basketball Association (NBA) history, the Finals tipped off outside of the United States, in Toronto. While only about two hours away from the U.S. border at Niagara Falls, the NBA has set its sights much farther afield.  In February, the National Basketball Association (NBA) announced that it would set up and help run a twelve-team-league, the Basketball Africa League. Slated to begin in 2020, it would be the first time that the NBA helped operate a league outside of the United States and Canada. The league would be in partnership with the International Basketball Federation (FIBA), and would build on FIBA’s Africa League. According to Adam Silver, the NBA’s commissioner, there is enormous interest from the U.S. business community and former President Barack Obama, who attended game two of the Finals in Toronto with the commissioner, wants to be involved.  In some ways, the NBA’s relationship with Africa dates back to 1984, when Nigeria’s Hakeem Olajuwon was drafted first overall by the Houston Rockets. He would go on to become one of the greatest NBA players of all time and be inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame. Seven years later, the Denver Nuggets drafted another future-Hall-of-Famer, Dikembe Mutombo, from Democratic Republic of Congo. At the beginning of the 2018–2019 NBA season, rosters included thirteen players born in Africa, and many more born to African parents abroad. Africans are well represented in the Finals in Toronto. Serge Ibaka of Republic of Congo and Pascal Siakam of Cameroon play for the Toronto Raptors, as does OG Anunoby, who was born to Nigerian parents in the UK and was raised in Missouri. Masai Ujiri, Toronto’s president of basketball operations and former NBA Executive of the Year, was also born to Nigerian parents in the UK, and spent some of his childhood in Nigeria before moving to the United States to play basketball professionally; one of the Raptor’s assistant coaches, Patrick Mutombo, was born in Democratic Republic of Congo. The Golden State Warriors’ Andre Iguodala, a former Finals Most Valuable Player (MVP), was born in the United States to an American mother and a Nigerian father. As an institution, the NBA has been increasing its ties to the continent over the past two decades. Basketball Without Borders (BWB), another partnership between the NBA, WNBA, and FIBA, is a global basketball development and outreach initiative. Its first camp in Africa took place in 2003 (attended by Ujiri), though NBA players, including Dikembe Mutombo, participated in clinics in South Africa in the early 1990s. NBA Africa was officially launched in 2010 to “grow the game of basketball” by, among other things, building courts, cultivating top talent, and using NBA players “with ties to Africa to contribute to local communities and philanthropic causes.” Amadou Fall, a Senegalese NBA executive, has led that office, one of twelve offices outside the United States, since it was founded. He was recently named president of the new Africa league.  The NBA’s activities in Africa and around the world have enjoyed the active participation of current and former players. For example, from 2005 to 2017, the NBA and WNBA boasted over one hundred “sports envoys,” current and former players who travel abroad to lead clinics and speak on diversity and leadership in partnership with U.S. embassies. This is perhaps what sets the NBA’s initiatives in Africa apart: the personal investment of current and former players and executives, particularly those with ties to the continent. Far beyond simply finding the next Olajuwon, Mutombo, or Embiid, the NBA’s Africa League, should it fully materialize, will build personal relationships between North America and Africa, help achieve certain development objectives through its business and outreach, and improve America’s overall image on the continent.

Mexico can’t end the migrant flow by itself. But it can—and likely will—raise tariffs that target swing states.

If the president succeeds, he will be free to slap tariffs on any country or any product at any time for whatever reason he dreams up.

Afrobarometer, a credible, pan-African polling organization, released new data [PDF] on the desire to migrate in most African countries. How to respond to immigration in all its forms is a compelling political issue in rich countries, making the migration data especially relevant now. Notably absent are residents of Sudan, South Sudan, and Eritrea, whose citizens comprise a large proportion of African migrants. Nigeria, fortunately, was included. In 2016, Nigerians were the largest migrant group entering Greece and Italy, and they were the largest group trapped in Libya. In some ways, the Afrobarometer findings are no surprise: about one-third of those Africans surveyed have considered emigrating. Their primary motivation is to search for work and to escape from poverty. Afrobarometer finds that migration is especially attractive to the young and the better educated. Younger people have always been able to move more easily than other age groups, and the better educated are likely to be more aware of opportunities outside their own country. They are also more likely to find work.  What is surprising is that the largest share of potential migrants, 29 percent, want to go to another African country within their particular region, and an additional 7 percent want to go elsewhere in Africa. North America would attract 22 percent, and Europe 27 percent. The rest of the world would attract the other 13 percent. In other words, more than a third of potential migrants would stay in Africa, while about half would go to the developed world. This varies by region, however. In southern Africa, more than half of potential migrants would stay on the continent, while in North Africa, the figure is just 8 percent. Afrobarometer found 3 percent of those surveyed were actually making preparations to emigrate. But in Zimbabwe and Lesotho the number was 7 percent. Zimbabwe, of course, has an economy that has all but collapsed, its population is relatively well-educated, and migration to South Africa is easy. Ease of migration to South Africa is also true of Lesotho, where its citizens have long worked in South African mines.  The populations of African countries are growing faster than their economies. It should be anticipated that African interest in migration will only increase absent economic transformations at home.

Sadly, they also help keep the country’s repressive regime in power.

Mexico and Central America can do little to curb migration without robust U.S. support.

A quarter billion people worldwide live outside their country of nationality. One-tenth of them are refugees fleeing political persecution and other acute threats.