2016 Migratory Report by Matias Cavoti Part 2: United States of America/ Land of the Free and ¿Home of the Illegals? (Work in progress)

United States of America/ Land of the Free and  ¿Home of the Illegals? (Destination Country and Tier 1) :  

To begin let's get a quick  migratory picture the United States before entering the subject Illegal Migrants and how the Obama administration handled this complicated issue. The U.S.   is the country that has a largest immigrant population in the world[1]  42.4 million people that makes up for 13.3% of its population of 318.9 million (Migration Policy Institute/MPI 2016 )  and around 11 million of those foreign born people are undocumented/illegal migrants living which make up 5% of its work force (Le Monde Atlas of Minorities 2014), there has been a strong demand Illegal migrants that are a flexible supply of low skilled workers that are not affect by the  United States migrant quota system, with "relatively little enforcement  against illegal aliens at U.S worksites" (P 9.Hason 2007). So one can affirm that business are the big winners with the actual status quo who capitalize on the use of Illegal migrants as their principal work force and illegals have a positive impact on federal tax revenue  individual States feel the strain on the public services and there tax payers suffer higher taxes. The "illegal immigration" pins the States and local labor forces against the Federal Government, business and the American consumer.    

Now let's explain very briefly the basic US migratory policy, which can be characterized as a regulation policy. Migrants have three options to work in the US:

·         Becoming a legal permanent resident, normally be being a family member of a US citizen, and in these cases are exempted of quota restrictions.

·         Temporary Work in the United State, which must be sponsored by a company for example. There is a quota 65.000 three year visas per year and 66.000.

·         Entering Illegally to the country.

 In a report written by Gordon Hanson called "The Economic Logic of Illegal Immigration" for serial publication Council of Foreign Relation, explains that for example that 958.000 migrants got there permanent residencies in 2004, in a processes that takes 5 years, which 66% had been eligible because of having family members in the country, 16% thanks to their employer sponsorship and 7% where refugees. Now out of this group 61% of these individuals were at some moment Illegal Aliens. After being accepted as permanent residents these people with 5 more years of naturalization they are eligible for citizenship. Now Gordon Hanson explains that Illegal migrants are very flexible work force that are not affected by the US migratory quota system, so they can easily satisfy spikes in labor demand this is way business is quick to defend migrants and vouch for them to obtain residencies when needed.

But what is a Illegal Migrant/Immigrant a term that seems so prevalent especially during the US election cycle in 2016? Now for the IOM the term is not correct and should not be used, and  the correct form to refer to a person that  has entered illegally into  a country, be it the United States like any other, or over stayed there time of permanence, should be called a irregular migrant and one must add that they do not have the right to transit in the country or stay (IOM 2011). The illegal aspect may be the migrants transit or crossing into the country or their overstay, but they cannot be considered themselves as illegals.

Now something curious is that the term illegal migrant  isn't the correct term in the United States either even thought politicians and public officials use it all the time, the correct way to describe these people is illegal alien or undocumented alien which has a definition very similar word for word to IOM's irregular migrant but adds that these migrants are deportable.

So why is the term illegal migrant is used? It has  strong criminal  and political connotation, the IOM affirms that it denies any basic humanity towards these migrants  (IOM 2011) and elevates them to the grade of a menace especial when used by  right wing politicians, that scapegoats on migrants to gain political capital and backing among their constituency, but one must note that the left also sometimes uses this term in a patronizing way when needed. Now the irresponsible use of the term Illegal Migrant  especially by Donald Trump during the election cycle of 2016 has lowered general public sensitivity and empathy towards these people and has over simplified a very complex international phenomena, with easy fixes, to a conundrum within a quagmire.      

 A underlying  mentality  that has been around gaining traction since Reagan's Amnesty, that if migrants break the law,  if anything bad happens to them, they brought it onto themselves, not paying much regard to what drives these people or way they were pushed out of their country in the first place. This negative mentality generates a situation where migrants  risk of  labor exploitation, being taken advantage of by organized crime and the risk of dying in the crossing.

There is a certain level of ambivalences and double standard  towards illegal aliens by the State and the possibility to obtain a permanent residence and a possible citizenship also leads to certain speculation from illegal aliens that take a tremendous risks because till they regularize their situation they can be deported out of the country. To understand this situation better with a metaphor, till aliens get their legal residencies they have a elastic cord stretching all the way back to the border ready to snap them write back if anything goes wrong, this illustration helps understand the precarious situation of these people and that there transit is not complete until they get their papers in order the border is literally one step away.      

The only major United State Policy towards trying to resolve the illegal migrants problem goes all the way back to the Ronald Reagan Precedence with the  1986 Reform and Control Act (IRCA), which granted amnesty for all Illegal aliens that had arrive before 1982, but from that point would establish that the government would crack down on Illegal migrants, monitor companies so they would not contract them and establish a strong border enforcement.

Now in the report  Fatal Journeys (FJ) by the IOM it affirms that the "story of  migrants death in North America is a story of exclusion and exposure" (FJ 2015). Migrants and especial poor undocumented migrants are increasingly seen as a negative other, especially  for a certain parts of the US society, being viewed  as the ones responsible a wide range of  growing social problems in the country, from competing and stealing jobs from Americans too being a security risk to the country being involved in criminal activities from drug trafficking to terrorism, one must observe that the moment they became visible, having been able to obtain limited upward social mobility, breaking the paradigm of poor illegal migrants that remain isolated and invisible,  they altered the ontological security[2], basically altering the day to day for Americans, and because of this they became a easy target for the discriminatory discourse of Donald Trump, pushing a securitization agenda against illegals that basically are the scourge of society especially focusing on illegal Mexicans who are a grave security risk for the country, promising to deport as many as possible and to build a wall on the Mexico border, which this nation will pay for.  

But what happened during the Obama administration that generated such back lash against illegal aliens? Barak Obama's administrations migratory policy towards illegal aliens, was focused on deporting of criminals and recent unauthorized aliens, having opted not to use voluntary returns,  which was more prevalent during previous administrations, because it does not generate legal repercussions and paper trail, opting for  formal removals with legal proceedings and criminal charges for illegal entries or reentries.

Here are the statistic of deportations of the last three years of Obama's administration[3]:

	Apprehensions	Removals	Returns	Total Deportation
2014	479.371	407.075	163.245	570.370
2015	331.333	333.341	129.122	462.463
2016	408.870	344.354	106.600	450.954
Totals	1.219.574	1084770	398.967	1.483.787

Now here are Obama's administration  totals  from his  two terms compared to the Clinton's and Bush's presidency, which each also had two terms[4]:

	Apprehensions	Removals	Returns	Total Deportation
Clinton	11.036.463	869.646	11.421.259	12.290.905
Bush	8.055.633	2.012.539	8.316.311	10.328.850
Obama	3.307.017	3.094.208	2.186.907	5.281.115
Totals	22.399.113	5.976.393	21.924.477	27.900.870

The lower overall total of deportations during Obama's administration  can be attributed to the fact that throughout these years the Mexican economy was doing well while the U.S. was dealing with a low labor demand in its post recession economy and Obama had "inherited a formidable immigration machine" for migratory control especially at southern of the border (Chishti/MPI, 2016). Now the policy shift  mentioned  before to formal removals over voluntary returns, observable in the statistics, has produced a drop in recurring aliens, those who have been formally removed and try  to cross again has dropped 29% in 2007 to 14% 2014. With formal removals illegal aliens formally have criminal records so their chances to get legal residencies or any kind of job, are off the table. But on the other hand in U:S. government shift and focus policing the border has established a implicit policy to leave illegal migrants  alone who have integrated themselves and do not get into trouble with the law, and this worked in tandem with the local policies of sanctuary cities like Los Angeles or San Francisco. And  here where Trump gets his political traction against Illegal aliens and implicitly against immigrants in general, gaining favor from the Alt Right.

Now those  migrants and smugglers that cross illegally with  success having penetrated more than 100 mile into United States territory or have  taken advantage of the US policy of segmented enforcement, which only guards the main legal and illegal crossing points not going deep into the desert falling back on the natural barriers of this inhospitable geography. Now segmented enforcement has causes the problem  of  funneling imprudent migrants into dangerous areas put their live at risk. Us Border Patrol estimates that 6.500 (P 26. FJ2) border death since 1998 and 320 during 2015, with three major causes being  the Rio Grande, the southern desert and violence at the border, and one must note that these are deaths on the US side of the border,  and the report  does not have the statistics of the Mexican side and there is a known number of missing especially in the dessert areas where many times entrances goes totally undetected.    

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[1]The Top Ten countries with the most overall migrants from 2015  in  order  The United States of America is first, Germany second, Russia third, Saudi Arabia fourth, United Kingdom fifth, United Arab Emirates sixth, Canada seventh, France eighth, Australia ninth and finally in tenth place  Spain (MPI 2016). 

[2] Ontological Security: Can be define  as a  form of security that is provided by order, continuity and stability in the lives of the citizen of a country,  this approximately summarizes the concept developed by Anthony Giddens (1979).

[3] Source MPI (2016)

[4] Source MPI (2016)