Immigration and Migration

Despite the standstill in Congress on immigration reform, state and local governments have been very active in passing their own immigration legislation. In this article for Foreign Policy, I look at what different states and cities are doing regarding immigration and the effects of their policies. You can read the beginning of the piece below:  With all the mudslinging and acrimony in Washington over unaccompanied minors and unauthorized immigrants, you might have missed it. Immigration reform has already happened -- in fact, hundreds of times. With the federal government incapacitated, states, cities, and municipalities have stepped into the fray. In 2013 alone, forty-five of the fifty state legislatures passed over four hundred laws and resolutions on everything from law enforcement and employment to education and public benefits. Among this flurry were a few in the Arizona SB 1070 style -- bills making life more miserable for undocumented immigrants. These laws ranged from blocking access to health care and schools to criminalizing common activities such as driving cars or buying homes. But the majority are actually designed to find ways to integrate undocumented immigrants -- funding English language and citizenship classes and providing access to medical care and other social services. You can read the rest of the piece here on ForeignPolicy.com.

With Eric Cantor’s loss earlier this week, most believe immigration reform is dead. Yet with tens of thousands of Mexican and Central American children flooding across the U.S. southern border, a legislative overhaul is even more important. In this piece for Foreign Policy, I look at why these kids are coming and what we need to do about it. You can read the beginning of the piece below: Among the faithful, there has been at least faint hope that after the primary season ends and before midterms begin immigration reform might occur. President Barack Obama even held off on reviewing deportation policies in May to give space for a legislative fix. But now, with Eric Cantor’s loss in his House primary to Tea Party outsider David Brat, that slim chance is pretty much nil. The tragedy is that this setback is occurring precisely at a time when the human cost of our broken immigration system has again made the headlines, this time in the faces of thousands of undocumented children flooding across the southern border. U.S. Customs and Border Protection apprehended over 47,000 unaccompanied youths at the border over the last eight months—mostly from Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras—overwhelming U.S. border facilities and detention centers. With the UNHCR reporting that the numbers will reach 60,000 this year, this has the makings of a full-blown humanitarian crisis. You can read the rest of the piece here on ForeignPolicy.com.

Last week, Foreign Affairs hosted a full day conference on Mexico, to talk about the country as a regional and global player. Panel topics included U.S.-Mexico cooperation, bilateral trade, regional immigration, and Mexico’s social inclusion and education system. You can find the full agenda here. The video starts with an introduction from Gideon Rose, the editor of Foreign Affairs, and then is followed by my conversation with Mexico’s Secretary of Foreign Affairs José Antonio Meade. You can watch the event below or read the transcript here. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E1lpzg8cgsU#

The Legatum Institute, a London-based policy organization, just published its annual Prosperity Index. Using eighty-nine indicators across eight indices—economy, entrepreneurship and opportunity, governance, education, health, safety and security, personal freedom, and social capital—it moves beyond more standard macroeconomic country rankings to take into account income and social well-being. Questions range from if citizens have “helped a stranger in the past month” to a nation’s “incidence of tuberculosis.” With the scores tallied up, here is a look at where Latin America’s prosperity by their measures stands. In the economic sphere, Latin America took off—passing the global average for the first time—with nine countries among the world’s top fifty economies. Mexico led in the twenty-seventh spot (up from the thirty-fourth position in 2011), passing Brazil in the thirty-second position. El Salvador and Chile also performed quite well in the economic rankings, benefiting from low inflation and relatively low unemployment rates. Chile and Panama excelled in the entrepreneurship and opportunity index, measured by indicators such as R&D investment and secure internet servers. Costa Rica, Brazil, and Mexico came in close behind—an encouraging sign for regional start-ups and potential foreign investment. Latin America also shined in the personal freedom scores, which include social tolerance, civil liberties, and satisfaction with individual liberties indicators. In this index, Uruguay and Costa Rica ranked tenth and eleventh in the world respectively, and ten Latin American countries landed in the top fifty countries. Somewhat surprisingly Mexico lagged at number eighty-one in this category—behind the global average—pulled down by the low number of Mexicans who reported that their country is immigrant-friendly (50 percent), compared to 85 percent in the United States. In safety and security, Latin American countries (unsurprisingly) fall behind. Mexico, Ecuador, Venezuela, and Colombia all rank in or near the bottom quarter of countries across a wide range of indicators ranging from theft statistics to whether citizens felt that they could safely express their political opinions. Some 25 percent of Paraguayans, 19 percent of Venezuelans, 17 percent of Ecuadorians, and 13 percent of Mexicans reported personally being assaulted in the past year, and only one quarter of Venezuelans reported feeling safe walking alone at night. The region’s education and health systems also lag. Although Argentina and Uruguay rank the highest in Latin America, they only made it into the forties and fifties globally. Only 60 percent of Brazilians responded optimistically about their children’s opportunity to learn (compared to the global average of over 70 percent). And in Mexico, only 1.7 hospital beds were available for every 1,000 potential patients (compared to 3.1 globally). Emerging from the data is a more diverse picture of Latin America. Uruguay, Costa Rica, and Chile rank similarly to Italy, Poland, and the UAE, and economic heavyweights Mexico and Brazil come in overall behind countries such as Hungary and Malaysia. By expanding the ways one measures a country’s prosperity, the index usefully differentiates and highlights some lesser known successes and challenges across Latin America and the globe more broadly.

It is well known that the departure of educated and highly trained Africans from their continent is a significant break on development. With respect to medical doctors, the president of the Nigeria Medical Association, Dr. Osahon Enabulele, MD, placed this reality in high relief in a press interview on September 27. Dr. Enabulele said that of 71,740 medical doctors registered with the Medical and Dental Council, only 27,000 are practicing in Nigeria. He said some 7,000 Nigerian medical doctors (MD) work in public health in the United Kingdom and the United States while others have left the medical profession altogether. Various Nigerian diaspora websites place the number of Nigerian MDs in the U.S. at much higher. According to the press, the World Health Organization’s standard is one medical doctor to six hundred patients. In the United States, that ratio is one to three hundred, according to the 2004 census. That standard indicates that Nigeria would need more than 280,000 MDs for its population of some 170 million. By that standard, Nigeria registers about a quarter of the MDs it needs, but it has only about 10 percent of the physicians its population size requires practicing in the country. Nigeria is thus training MDs for the first world that it badly needs at home. But MDs in Nigeria are notoriously underpaid and overworked. Among physicians of my acquaintance there is no shortage of dedication and devotion to their patients. But there is widespread frustration at the lack of supplies and pharmaceuticals, and the low level of training amongst nurses and medical technicians is concerning. Considering the poor conditions of public hospitals in Nigeria, working in public health in Manchester or Houston can be attractive.

During the weeks surrounding the 2012 presidential election, many analysts and observers, including myself, wrote about the Latino electorate’s arrival onto the political scene. A record breaking 11.2 million Hispanics voted and their concentration in swing states including Colorado, Nevada, and Florida, pushed Obama to victory. A new Pew Hispanic report, however, shows that this demographic still lagged its electoral potential last November. Despite the surge in absolute numbers, less than half (48 percent) of eligible Latino voters cast ballots, compared to 66.6 percent of blacks and 64.1 percent of whites. Education appears to affect Hispanic voting rates. Over 70 percent of college-educated Latinos voted, compared to only 35.5 percent of those without a high school diploma. Age also played a role, with older Hispanics voting more than their teenager and twenty-something counterparts. And Cuban-Americans were much more likely to make it to the polls than Mexican-Americans. But there is some positive news for those hoping Latino voters will catch up with other demographics in terms of their electoral participation. Another recent Pew Hispanic study shows that the Hispanic drop-out rate halved during the past decade, leading more to graduate from high school than in years past. Even better, it reveals that in 2011 Hispanic high school graduates continued on to college at their highest levels ever (some 69 percent), and even surpassed whites in certain categories. Hispanics are still less likely than other demographics to attend a four-year university or be in college full time. But as the number of college educated Latinos increases, it should have positive effects for not only their advancement in the U.S. workforce but also for voter participation.

As Senate immigration negotiations continue, the Council on Foreign Relations has just released a report on the effectiveness of U.S. immigration enforcement. The authors, Bryan Roberts (a senior economist at Econometrica, Inc), John Whitely (an economist focusing on resource allocation), and my colleague Edward Alden, detail the dramatic surge in border security "inputs"—personnel and money—outlining the sharp increases in the number of border patrol agents and the amount of their budgets. But the report highlights the lack of government data on "outputs" (i.e., the results of each program) and "outcomes" (how successful or unsuccessful each policy was in reducing illegal immigration). This data gap hinders America’s ability to understand and measure the effects of an added dollar or border patrol agent, and as a result limits the ability to improve enforcement policies. Going forward, the report urges Congress to fill this vacuum, and also calls for designing models to predict illegal immigration flows, and for strengthening congressional oversight on enforcement policies (by holding quarterly hearings for relevant Senate and House committees). By collecting and disseminating information on how well specific enforcement policies worked (or did not work), scholars and policymakers would hopefully not only be better informed, but better equipped to manage illegal immigration. It is well worth a read, and you can find the full report here.

As President Barack Obama meets today with his counterpart, Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto, he is navigating one of America’s broadest and most complex bilateral relationships. In this op-ed for the BBC (that you can read here and below), I argue that it is important for Obama and his team to take into account the fundamental transformations that Mexico has undergone over the past thirty years—since it is these new realities that will shape both the substance and nature of U.S.-Mexico relations far into the future. President Obama’s visit to Mexico is part of a long tradition of diplomatic relations between the U.S. and its neighbor to the south. But while many Americans feel that they understand the basic economic and social forces that drive Mexico, the realities are much more interesting. Here five myths about Mexico, that have a direct impact on American foreign policy, are debunked. Mexico is no longer a poor country Though many Americans think of Mexico as a country of either wealth or poverty, by most accounts it is now a middle-class country. A majority of Mexican households—incorporating roughly sixty million people—now have disposable income. Half of the people in Mexico own their own car, and one-third own a computer. Nearly everyone has a television and mobile phone. These new urban middle-class Mexicans are also investing in their children’s education. There are now 45,000 private schools, comprising nearly a third of all Mexico’s schools. Student enrollment in universities and beyond has tripled in the past thirty years, from under a million in 1980 to almost three million today. The rise of the middle class has affected Mexico’s politics, too, with this segment pivotal in voting out the long-ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) in 2000, and then voting it back in to Los Pinos, Mexico’s White House, last year. This crucial voting bloc is increasingly up for grabs, rapidly joining the ranks of Mexico’s proclaimed political independents. They mirror the U.S. middle class in their concerns, paying close attention to economic opportunities and security, two important issues in U.S.-Mexico relations. Mexican manufacturing doesn’t harm U.S. workers For Mexico, the biggest issues in the U.S.-Mexico relationship are economic, and President Enrique Peña Nieto is hoping to deepen commercial ties between the two nations. In his State of the Union address, President Obama praised Ford Motor Company for bringing jobs back from Mexico as part of a strategy to make "America a magnet for new jobs and manufacturing". Yet this statement, at least with regard to Mexico, is mistaken. It isn’t that globalization doesn’t lead some jobs to foreign lands. It does. But by expanding abroad, companies become more competitive, supporting and creating jobs at home. Ford increased its U.S. workforce (and plans on adding thousands more jobs by 2015), but it hasn’t stopped hiring in Mexico. It is expanding a plant in Hermosillo and adding over 1,000 positions in the last few years in the state of Sonora. A study by two Harvard business professors and a University of Michigan colleague shows that for every ten people hired overseas by American corporations, two new jobs are created in the United States. Mexican immigrants are not going to keep flooding the U.S. The net migration from Mexico to the U.S. is zero, due to many factors. The U.S. has cracked down on undocumented immigrants like these Mexican men being held by Border Control. The images of hundreds of thousands of Mexican immigrants illegally entering the United States each year, chased down by border patrol agents on foot, horseback, or truck, resonates widely. But this reality has changed. The estimated numbers coming north each year are down to levels last seen in the 1970s. In fact, a 2012 Pew Hispanic Report noted that the net immigration for Mexicans in and out of the United States was "zero". In other words the same numbers of Mexicans entered and left. This can in part be explained by the U.S. recession, but it also reflects changes within Mexico. Mexico has undergone a major demographic shift in the last generation. In the 1970s, women were having an average of seven children, but today that number is closer to two—the same as the U.S. With fewer citizens coming of age each year relative to the overall population, the decades where Mexico’s "extra youths" headed to the U.S. are over. Mexico’s democracy is not weakening Although many feared that the 2012 return of the PRI would push Mexico back into its authoritarian past, checks and balances now exist and constrain whomever wears the presidential sash. In Mexico’s Congress, the three major political parties must negotiate to get any bill passed, and the nation’s Supreme Court has increasingly exercised its autonomy to restrain both political officials and vested interests. The country’s media and civil society groups more generally are beginning to play an important watchdog role, questioning policies and exposing bad behavior. And finally, Mexico has reached a relatively enviable space, ranking in the upper tiers of nearly all relative international measures of democracy. Mexico is not at risk of becoming a failed state Over the last six years, some 70,000 Mexicans have been killed in drug-related violence, and tens of thousands more have disappeared. Mexico’s police have often been unwilling or unable to stem the bloodshed, and the judicial system too has failed—with just 2 percent of all crimes ending in convictions. But while Mexico faces a serious security threat from organized criminal groups, the country continues to collect taxes, build roads, run schools, expand social welfare programs and hold free and fair elections. Its economy has grown steadily, if somewhat slowly, and Mexico maintains an important presence in multilateral groups and summits. It has also begun the long and arduous path of professionalizing its police forces and transforming its courts to create a democratic rule of law. One thing about Mexico that remains true is the deep and now permanent economic, political, security, and personal links between Mexico and the United States. For Presidents Obama and Peña Nieto, there is much to gain from a better understanding of each other’s country.

Sharone Tobias and Will Piekos look at the top five stories in Asia this week. 1. China released a white paper on defense on Tuesday. The 2013 National Defense White Paper blamed Japan and the United States for the rise in tensions in the region (in so many words). It complained about neighboring countries for “making trouble over the Diaoyu islands,” referring to Japan. It also referenced the United States, saying, “some country has strengthened its Asia-Pacific military alliances, expanded its military presence in the region, and frequently makes the situation tenser.” The white paper omitted any reference to a “no-first use” policy on nuclear weapons for the first time, a possible change in China’s nuclear policy. It is unclear what the significance of this omission is, though, as experts have questioned China’s commitment to this policy in the past. 2. Shifts in North Korea policy? China’s special envoy on North Korea, Wu Dawei, will travel to Washington, DC, next week for “an in-depth exchange of views” on the “denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.” The announcement comes after U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry visited Beijing and urged China to help convince the North to get rid of its nuclear weapons. Kerry has also indicated a readiness to talk with North Korea, as long as it takes steps toward denuclearization. Meanwhile, Pyongyang announced its own preconditions for resuming talks with Washington and Seoul, demanding the withdrawal of UN sanctions and the end of U.S.-South Korea military drills. North Korea’s willingness to discuss even the possibility of dialogue hopefully signals a desire to deescalate the tensions that have plagued the Korean Peninsula. 3. China GDP growth slows to 7.7 percent. New economic data in the first quarter of 2013 showed slower-than-expected growth that surprised analysts, who had forecasted growth of around 8 percent. It’s possible that even that number is inflated, given that there are strong incentives for local government officials to inflate their numbers for promotions; the Chinese National Bureau of Statistics only takes two weeks to compile its data, compared to six weeks in Hong Kong and eight weeks in the United States. For years, China’s stated goal was to secure 8 percent GDP growth, in a policy called “bao ba (保八),” or “protect the eight,” on the premise that the country needed that level of GDP growth to maintain domestic stability. 4. Bird flu fears increase. The numbers keep rising, as China has now confirmed ninety-one cases of H7N9 and raised the death toll to seventeen. Meanwhile, fears of human-to-human transmission have intensified—the Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention has reported that 40 percent of people who have tested positive for H7N9 had no recent contact with poultry. Still, such fears seem premature, and the World Health Organization has stated that there is “no evidence of ongoing human-to-human transmission.” 5. Chinese national killed in Boston bombing. Lu Lingzi, a graduate student at Boston University from Shenyang, was confirmed as a victim of the Boston Marathon bombing on Monday. The U.S. Embassy in Beijing issued visas to her parents, as well as to the parents of a second Chinese student injured in the attack. China’s new ambassador to the United States, Cui Tiankai, stated that “We strongly condemn such an act of terror targeted at innocent civilians. We stand with the United States. We are ready to further our cooperation with the United States in fighting terror.” Bonus: Rodman to return to North Korea, says Kim Jung-un just needs a hug. The basketball star is planning his second “diplomatic” visit to North Korea. Dennis Rodman claims that the most recent increase in tensions is because “[Kim] just wants to be loved. He just wants to sit down and talk. That’s all.” The Worm, as Rodman is affectionately known, also says he’s been approached by the FBI for insider information into the North Korean regime. In unrelated news, North Korea recently released its most hilarious propaganda video yet, claiming that Americans drink coffee made out of snow and that North Korean aid workers hand out cakes in the streets. Watch it here, dubbed in English. (Update: the video is a hoax, but the comedic factor remains. Enjoy!)

In anticipation of my talk next Tuesday in Los Angeles, I wrote the following piece for Zocalo’s Public Square: As my plane touched down at Benito Juárez airport in early 1994, I didn’t know that it was the start of a twenty-year relationship with Mexico. I was coming to work at a boutique investment bank, the first paying job I was offered that would allow me to live in Latin America. I wasn’t an obvious choice for the city or for the profession—a liberal arts degree holder who grew up in the rural Midwest. Still, there I was, playing international banker in this teeming city of twenty million. I dove into the hubris of it all, poring over balance sheets and building financial models to pass judgment on Mexico’s publicly traded companies. I followed global financial markets, trying to match our traders’ exuberance as they lobbed Cetes and Tesobonos, Mexico’s peso- and dollar-denominated bonds, back and forth. Being a foreigner in Mexico in the 1990s had its advantages. My status as a novelty—both a professional woman and a foreigner—opened doors that would have remained shut for most twenty-two-year-olds elsewhere. I was able to meet the CFOs and CEOs of the companies I was covering and to attend high-powered meetings and meals. And I could pretend not to speak Spanish when pulled over for a bribe. But my peculiarity also had its downsides. I was frequently the only professional woman in the room. I quickly learned not to wear black suits, so as not to be confused with the edecanes—the young women at meetings and conferences whose job it is to circulate microphones and coffee. Mexico’s social scene revolved around couples, forcing me to go along with some odd match-ups in order to fit in. Then, just short of my one-year anniversary of living and working in Mexico, the peso crisis hit. Unless you’ve lived through one, it’s hard to understand what a currency meltdown in an emerging market is like. There is nothing gradual about the erosion of hope and stability as the speculative capital heads for the exits. And the financial tsunami touches all aspects of life. In 1995, Mexico entered one of its worst recessions on record, restaurants and shops closed seemingly overnight, and millions lost their jobs. The financial trendsetters—those with the first mortgages and car loans—were battered by interest rates that reached the triple digits. Equally devastating was a widespread sense of deception, as my Mexican colleagues and friends had believed the promises of President Carlos Salinas’ government—that this time things were different, that Mexico’s boom-and-bust cycles were a thing of the past. The crisis gave us fortunate few paid in dollars an opportunity to use our sudden windfall (our paychecks went a lot further in pesos) to travel widely, and have the run of the country. From Playa del Carmen to San Luis Potosí, San Cristobal de las Casas to Zacatecas, Aguascalientes to Guanajuato, I crisscrossed Mexico, trying to see as much of my new home as possible. Still, despite the country’s undeniable allure, the day-to-day grind, the sadness of so many pushed back into poverty, and the escalating crime in Mexico City made life difficult. I, like many others, was held up at gunpoint, a milestone that turned my leisurely walk across a park to work into a dreaded gauntlet, as I tried to forget the feeling of hard metal pressed against my chest. At work, I began to realize that banking was not my long-term calling. So, when offered a job in New York to cover Latin America more broadly, I jumped. While living in the middle of the economic, social, and political turmoil, it was hard to see what was happening. It was only when I returned to live in Mexico five years later that the permanence of the shifts became apparent. Having left banking for academia, I came back as a Fulbright scholar, based at the ITAM, a private university on the edge of the cobblestoned Mexico City neighborhood of San Angel. I delved into the impacts of the economic changes that followed the crisis, particularly what the privatization of Mexico’s social security meant for financial markets, Mexico’s larger economy, and workers. Once back in Mexico, the most immediately noticeable change was the air itself. Where smog had obscured the city’s basic contours, government regulations on factory relocation and car use meant you could finally see, even on bad pollution days, at least one block ahead. Politics had also changed, partly in reaction to the 1995 peso crisis, which dealt a blow to the long-ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party’s (PRI) credibility. By 2000, Vicente Fox, Mexico’s first non-PRI president in seven decades, occupied Los Pinos, Mexico’s White House. The economy had recovered, and policy changes had put an end to the self-inflicted crises of the past. Mexico’s streetscapes also were different. On the roads, the numerous jalopies were in much shorter supply, and the previously ubiquitous Volkswagen Bug taxis had been replaced by Nissan Tsurus and Dodge Neons. U.S. retail stalwarts Walmart, Starbucks, and Office Depot occupied many of Mexico’s busiest corners, and their corporations’ annual reports attested to the rising disposable income of their Mexican clientele. After buying an old 1994 Honda Civic from a departing journalist, my husband and I hit the roads on weekends, revisiting my favorite haunts—many now transformed by bustling new commercial centers and housing developments. The rows and rows of neatly appointed starter homes began along the main roads and disappeared over the horizon. Not everything was rosy. Basic services—telephone and Internet—cost more than what we had paid in the United States. The divide between the “haves” and “have-nots” persisted, with grinding poverty coexisting alongside the shoots of new prosperity. And interactions with Mexico’s bureaucracy and corrupt traffic cops remained both maddening and (only in retrospect) entertaining. Today I am a frequent visitor to Mexico, and a close watcher of U.S.-Mexico relations. The country—the vibrancy of the capital, the beauty of the smaller cities and towns, the bustle of markets, stores, and factory floors—continues to draw me. The changes in the physical landscape, the workplace, and the freer media are undeniable evidence of the transformation of Mexico over the last three decades. It’s hard not to be optimistic about the country’s future prospects when you see the roofs of the cement-block houses that fill working-class neighborhoods. Look up, and, more often than not, you will see rebar sticking out—attesting not just to the owners’ desire but their expectation that soon they will be building a second (or even third) floor. But there is also desolation in the burnt-out buildings in Ciudad Juárez and other towns, scars attesting to the extortion and violence wrenching the country. It is hard to miss the hushed conversations and tight faces of those who lost their loved ones, either to a bullet or to the unknown. I remain frustrated by how unfair the system can be, especially to the poor and unconnected. I wonder, with so many others, why Mexico’s governments can’t seem to get things together, or to take on powerful vested interests. Of course, I no longer have to go to Mexico to see it. Mexico is right here in the United States. Mexicans, their families and communities, once limited to a few border state outposts, now span the nation, to places such as Charlotte, North Carolina and Frankfort, Indiana. The economic links between the two countries are deeper, and visible in the vegetables on our tables, in the parts in our cars, in the care of our young and old, in the energy that powers our transportation, and in the drugs sold on our streets. Millions of U.S. jobs now depend on workers to the south, as parts move back and forth—often more than once—before the washing machine, cellphone, computer, or car is fully assembled. This movement of people, production, and goods has brought the two countries together, blurring what was once distinctly foreign and different. Still, we struggle to understand one another.