2016 Migratory Report by Matias Cavoti Part 1 Introduction Definition of Migrant

Introduction

Ever since the Lampedusa shipwreck back in October of 2013, that put migrants and their plight on a 24/7 news cycle,  viewers got to see in real time the slow evolution of a Migratory and Refugee crisis that climaxed in late 2015. This coverage from global news networks sparked a strong social/political debate over migrant  control, immigration flows and migratory policy or lack there of, and this debate been going on the last three years topping many States political agendas, there has been a large number of reports by international organizations like from the International Organization form Migrations that use the Lampedusa event as a starting point but explain that migrants fatalities have slowly have been on the rise for the last 15 years,  because of lack of legal access to destination countries like the United States or the member countries of the EU, through legal/political means, for example, establishing travel visas or not permitting access  legal residencies in host countries and even physical barriers like building walls  with tight border control, just to name a few, have hindered the opportunities of many migrants pushing them to take risk in trying to reach and enter the country they want to immigrate to, many time putting their life in danger. And  what has become increasing evident observing major destination countries and even transit States, the last five years, is that their migratory policies are outdated or even broken,  the tools that they use to manage migratory  flows are buckling under pressure  because of the increasing amount of people arriving, and for example  as this report will explain many destinations States like the United States of America and even transit countries like Mexico, do not take the proper statics on migrants border deaths or missing, so it's pretty hard to establish the proper actions to curve illegal transits, because the places where border deaths occur are the same places where migrants and smugglers try to crosses illegally so State cannot take the appropriate actions because they are basically operating in the dark in many cases.

This brief report will concentrate on the migratory flows themselves, the dangers that migrants face in their migration, analyze the politics behind this transnational phenomena and explain some central migratory concepts. For example, Push and Pull factors will be only mentioned only when needed. The time frame for this study will be from the Lampedusa shipwreck in October 2013 to September of 2016 when Frontex becomes the official Border control and Coast Guard of the European Union which seem to be a real game changer. And this Report will mainly focus on the migratory flows that cross Central America crossing Mexico to the United State,  Easter and Western African flows heading north and the eastern European flows, these four  major areas are major migratory hotspots which International Organization for Migration (IOM) has made a series of reports during last three years, the United State Department of State Trafficking In Persons of 2016, Frontex Quarterly Reports and news articles from various  sources. 

Now this study  will center on  migrants and will leave refugees mostly out of analysis because both these two international phenomena are distinctly different but are actually growing into each other, the line between them is getting harder to define so it's fundamental to establish some basic concepts like migrant before moving on with this report to understand exactly what is being referenced to eliminate any misconceptions or errors of interpretations, first and foremost Migrant must be defined, and one must note that IOM has modified their definition of migrant in 2016 so we'll work  with the new definition and the old one, to see the evolution of the concept that was needed to better understand the phenomena: 

"IOM defines a migrant as any person who is moving or has moved across an international border or within a State away from his/her habitual place of residence, regardless of (1) the person’s legal status; (2) whether the movement is voluntary or involuntary; (3) what the causes of the movement are; or (4) what the length of the stay is (IOM 2016)[1]". But this definition adds new elements that were not present in the previous one which defined migrants as "people or group of individuals that move from one geographic unit to another crossing administrative or political frontiers with the intention establishing themselves temporarily or permanently in a place different from their place of birth (IOM 2011)".  

The newer definition explicitly covers more theoretical terrain while the older one does cover the same issues, but implicitly and with some level of interpretation.  The first difference is the reference to the legal status that is made explicit the fact that migrants can be legal, temporary, permanent, illegal, irregular, undocumented, refugees, stateless and displaced by humanitarian or environmental disasters. Now  even though Refugees can be considered migrants, this particular concept has been separated and treated distinctly differently for  traditional migrations, but as referenced previously in the report  as of late the theoretical line drawn between these two concepts have become increasingly blurred with the ever growing mix migratory flows that have been observed the last   20 years. So it's  impossible to leave refugees totally out of the analysis because the flows in  many cases are mixed having a symbiotic relationship in some cases migrants capitalizing off refugees and vice versa, this will be illustrated later in the report when it will be explained how migrants took advantage of the Syrian refugee crisis to enter the Europe.

Now back the factors that differentiated these two concepts is that migrants travel and reestablish themselves voluntarily while refugees are pushed out of their country involuntarily, now with this new definition establishes that in both cases they are considered migrants be it voluntary or not and puts both under the same theoretical umbrella.

One must note that in  July of  2016 of the International Organization for Migrants (IOM) official became a related organization to the United Nations, this will give the UN mandate for the first time on migratory issues and when this happened both institutions made joint declaration referred to Refugees and Migrants, the UN and IOM, established and reaffirmed some key principals that I would like to highlights:

·         Even though migrants and refugees each have unique legal definitions, people that are migrants or refugee have the same universal human rights, and even though migration must be an option, not an obligation. But   It's getting harder to separate the flow of refugees and migrants, mixed flow are growing more common.

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Now having established what is a migrant, it is fundamental to understand what is a Migratory  Policy (MP), it can established that it is an  important political tool and has become hot topic in many countries during the last  10 years and for example it took center stage during the 2016 US election with diametrically opposed positions held by the candidates Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, in how to manage the migratory flows in direction towards their country and what to do with the illegal migrants that are already in its national territory. Now for nations that are the destination for large masses of immigrants, they are in great need for tools to act and control migratory flows that are directed in their direction and through a proper MP, for example, can help recipient  States to capitalize on the human capital migrants represent.  So basically the objective for a migratory policy is to find a way to manage the flow of people entering (or exiting) a country temporarily or permanently and how can it serve best the needs/interests of the host country. Migratory policies can have the objective of retaining, promoting, regulating, incorporating, recovering and even blocking or redirecting migrants (Marmora 2002)[2].  
Also, we must define the what is trafficking of persons or human trafficking, concepts that will be recurring issues in this report, they are umbrella terms for the act of recruiting, harboring, transport, providing or obtaining a person compelled labor or commercial sex acts through the use of force, fraud or coercion. (TIP 2016). The TIP report establishes that movement isn't obligatory, a person can be subjected to human trafficking in their own hometown, but for the sake of this report, we will only highlight most important international cases where people are forced or tricked to cross international borders.

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[1] http://www.iom.int/who-is-a-migrant

[2] The last two policies are not referenced by Marmora in his book The Policies of International Migrations, in his book he tends to omit that blocking or redirecting migrants is an option for the State, but these options a very real and are applied often.