Journal articles on the topic 'Mexico – Emigration and immigration – Government policy'

AbstractDo Caribbean Basin states influence U.S. immigration policy? Although the terrorist attacks of September 2001 eventually derailed migration talks, before that time Mexico and the United States appeared poised to negotiate a major bilateral agreement, largely on Mexico's terms. Drawing on 88 detailed interviews conducted with Mexican and other Caribbean Basin elites, this article examines sending-state preferences for emigration and their capacity to influence policy outcomes. The informants considered migration to be the most problematic issue on the bilateral agenda, but also saw migration policy as relatively open to source-state influence. A case study of Mexican emigration policymaking details the national and transnational changes that make migration increasingly an inter-mestic policy issue.

During the past decade Mexico has experienced both large-scale emigration, directed mostly to the United States, and the mass immigration of Central American refugees. The implementation of the United States Immigration and Control Act of 1986 and the possible escalation of armed conflicts in Central America may result in expanded inflows either of returning citizens or of new refugee waves. To develop appropriate policy responses, Mexico would need reliable information on international migration flows. This note reviews available sources of that information and evaluates their strengths and limitations.

Since Poland joined the European Community, it has been transforming from a country of emigration into an emigration-immigration one. Year by year an increase of immigrants coming to Poland has been observed, which involves the Polish government and local authorities taking actions within the implementation of migration policy. The multifaceted processes of integration take place on the levels of linguistics, culture, education, and social activation aimed at combating social exclusion of this group of Polish inhabitants.

Relying on Mexican archival evidence, this article argues that Mexico opposed the U.S. effort to place a quota on Mexican immigration during the late 1920s because pro-quota arguments rested on a presumption of Mexicans’ racially inferiority. The three perspectives of the Mexican government officials Francisco Suástegui, Enrique Santibáñez, and Manuel Gamio demonstrate why Mexicans chaffed at the U.S. quota debate. Each of these perspectives also offers an analytical framework through which historians can understand how Mexican officials hoped the United States and Mexico could resolve the immigration controversy through bilateral negotiation. Finally, these officials’ fears about the quota demonstrate that U.S. immigration policy held significant consequences for diplomatic relations between the United States and Mexico.

Purpose – How do economic prosperity, health expenditure, savings, price-stability, demographic change, democracy, corruption control, press freedom, government effectiveness, human development, foreign aid, physical security, trade openness and financial liberalization play-out in the fight against health-worker crisis when existing emigration levels matter? Despite the acute concern of health-worker crisis in Africa owing to emigration, lack of relevant data has made the subject matter empirically void over the last decades. The paper aims to discuss these issues. Design/methodology/approach – A quantile regression approach is used to assess the determinants of health-worker emigration throughout the conditional distributions of health-worker emigration. This provides an assessment of the determinants when existing emigrations levels matter. Findings – Findings provide a broad range of tools for the fight against health-worker brain-drain. As a policy implication, blanket emigration-control policies are unlikely to succeed equally across countries with different levels of emigration. Thus to be effective, immigration policies should be contingent on the prevailing levels of the crisis and tailored differently across countries with the best and worst records on fighting health-worker emigration. Originality/value – This paper has examined the theoretical postulations of a World Health Organization report on determinants of health-worker migration.

National immigration policy meets the realities of unauthorized immigration at the local level, often in ways undesired by residents, as exemplified by the dramatic rise of local anti‐immigrant legislation in US states and municipalities. Scholars have studied why some states and municipalities, but not others, engage in immigration policy making. Such research is not designed, however, to evaluate how the basic structure of US government facilitates and shapes local protest. To probe that issue, we compare Chiapas, Mexico and Arizona, USA, both peripheral areas significantly affected by unauthorized immigration and national policies designed to control it. We find that the open texture of US federalism facilitates local activism, while Mexico's more centralized government does not. Activists within both states are similar, however, in deploying law creatively to critique national policy, a reminder of the growing worldwide significance of legal pluralism and legal consciousness in the politics of protest.

In the eyes of many North Americans, Mexico is above all a country of immigration from which hundreds of thousands hope to pass across the border to find the promised land in the United States. What these North Americans do not realize is that for thousands of Latin Americans and for many U.S. intellectuals, Mexico after the revolution of 1910-1920 constituted the promised land. People persecuted for their political or religious beliefs—radicals, revolutionaries but liberals as well—could find refuge in Mexico when repressive regimes took over their country.In the 1920s such radical leaders as Víctor Raúl Haya De La Torre, César Augusto Sandino and Julio Antonio Mella found refuge in Mexico. This policy continued for many years even after the Mexican government turned to the right. Thousands of refugees from Latin American military dictatorships in Argentina, Chile, and Uruguay fled to Mexico. The history of that policy of the Mexican government has not yet been written.

U.S.-Mexico migration has been completely transformed. Currently, more Mexicans return from the United States to Mexico than those who migrate to that country. Millions of Mexican migrants have left the United States due to the economic recession, a harsher immigration policy, and a stronger deportation system. Mexican returnees, voluntary and involuntary, present a diverse profile and wide-ranging reintegration needs, which constitutes a challenge for the government in Mexico. Here we analyze specific initiatives and programs created by the Mexican federal government to serve returnees, also we identify various challenges and areas of improvement. Finally, we offer recommendations for a better reintegration of the returnee population.

The paper presents the policy of the Young Turks and the attitude of the Government of the Kingdom of Serbia towards the emigration of Muhajirs from Bosnia and Herzegovina to the Ottoman Empire, and later their return to the homeland. The Serbian Government opposed the emigration of Muslims from Bosnia and Herzegovina to the Ottoman Empire and refused to provide assistance to those who moved to the area under the sovereignty of the Ottoman Porte. On the other hand, the Government of the Kingdom of Serbia supported and helped the movement of Muhajirs back to their homeland. For the purposes of writing this paper, we used primarily published and unpublished archival material of Serbian origin, the contemporary press, and relevant literature.

Purpose – Owing to lack of relevant data on health human resource (HHR) migration, the empirical dimension of the health-worker crisis debate has remained void despite abundant theoretical literature. A health worker crisis is growing in the world. Shortages in health professionals are reaching staggering levels in many parts of the globe. The paper aims to discuss these issues. Design/methodology/approach – A quantile regression approach is used to examine the determinants of health-worker emigration throughout the conditional distributions of health-worker emigration. This provides an investigation of the determinants when existing emigrations levels matter. The author assesses the determinants of emigration in the health sector through-out the conditional distribution of HHR emigration. Findings – The findings have been presented in two main strands: when existing emigration levels are low and when existing emigration levels are high. In the former case (when existing emigration levels are low), wealth-effects have the following implications. First, while economic prosperity is a good tool against nurse brain drain in middle income countries (MICs), health expenditure is a good instrument against physician brain drain in low income countries (LICs). Second, whereas positive demographic change fuels the problem in LICs, it mitigates the issue in their MIC counterparts. Third, savings, government-effectiveness, foreign-aid and inflationary pressures only accentuate the problem for both income groups. Fourth, corruption-control becomes a vital tool for emigration-control in both income-brackets. Fifth, while trade openness mitigates physician emigration in LICs, financial openness has the opposite effect on nurse emigration. In the latter case (when existing immigration levels are high), the following conclusions have been drawn. First, While economic prosperity fights nurse emigration only in LICs, savings is a tool against physician emigration only in their MIC counterparts. Second, health expenditure and inflationary pressures are relevant tools in the battle against physician resource flight. Third, whereas, government effectiveness is an important policy measure for mitigating emigration in LICs, human development plays a similar role in MICs. Fourth, democracy, press-freedom, foreign-aid and financial openness fuel emigration in either income strata. Fifth, population growth and trade openness are important tools in the fight against brain-drain. Sixth, the HIV infection rate is a deterrent only to nurse emigration. Originality/value – This paper complements existing literature by empirically investigating the World Health Organization hypothetical determinants of health-worker migration in the context of globalization when income-levels matter. In plainer terms, the work explores how the wealth of exporting countries play-out in the determinants of HHR emigration.

ANDRÉS MANUEL LÓPEZ OBRADOR’S GOVERNMENT AND ANTI‑ IMMIGRATION POLICY In this article we propose to address and analyse some actions related to migration in the government of Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO), Mexico’s president‑elect in 2018. The United States’ migration containment policies make use of the submission of countries such as Mexico and Guatemala, in a process known as border externalisation. The main containment wall is Mexico, which uses its two borders as militarised spaces to stop flows, especially from Central America, from reaching the United States. Throughout the text we will discuss the necropolitics associated with the practices of death and the selective policies towards the migrant population.

In April 2018, the US government introduced a ‘zero tolerance’ illegal immigration control strategy at the US-Mexico border resulting in the detention of all adults awaiting federal prosecution for illegal entry and the subsequent removal of their children to separate child shelters across the USA. By June 2018, over 2300 immigrant children, including infants, had been separated from their parents for immigration purposes. Media reports and scenes of distraught families ignited global condemnation of US immigration policy and fresh criticism of immigration detention practices.Detention of children for immigration purposes is known to be practised in over 100 countries worldwide, despite a significant body of research demonstrating the extensive harm of such policies. This review explores and contextualises the key potential impacts of family separation and detention of children for immigration purposes including damaged attachment relationships, traumatisation, toxic stress and wider detrimental impacts on immigrant communities. As such, it is critical for host nation governments to cease the practice of family separation and child detention for immigration control and promote postmigration policies that protect children from further harm, promote resilience and enable recovery.

The aim of this paper is to consider measures that contribute to the regulation of temporary and circular migration, as well as reintegration in the countries of the Western Balkans, which have long faced numerous and diverse challenges of labor emigration. Immediately after the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, a large number of migrant workers returned to the countries of the Western Balkans. Migrant workers, especially those who are staying abroad temporarily, have faced sudden and numerous migration challenges, but they also want to return to work abroad as soon as the conditions are met. Therefore, in order to improve the position and protect the rights of international migrants as efficiently as possible in the future, it is necessary to develop measures that can complement the activities of the Western Balkan countries to regulate and encourage temporary and circular migration, as well as reintegration of migrant workers upon return. This is particularly important in the context of the complex challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic, as the contribution of both highly-skilled and low-skilled foreign workers has been shown to be an integral part of the sustainability of the state system in immigration countries. They will increasingly direct immigration policies towards measures to attract the necessary foreign workers. Therefore, emigration countries should work on improving legislation, developing inter-institutional cooperation and strengthening the capacity of actors at both national and local levels of government and building an approach that includes cooperation of whole of government approach, including the scientific and civil sector. After the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, it was shown that migration policy should rapidly develop measures that reduce the costs and negative effects of migration to the lowest possible level, both for migrants and their families who often remain in the country of origin.

The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 (INA) created an immigration system favoring the immigration of spouses, children, and parents of US citizens, thereby establishing family unity as the cornerstone of US immigration policy. Despite this historical emphasis on family unity, backlogs and limited visas for non-immediate relatives of US citizens and legal permanent residents, the militarization of the US-Mexico border, punitive measures for those who enter without inspection, such as the forced separation of children from their parents at the US border, and an aggressive policy of deportation have made it more difficult for members of Mexican binational families to unify. How do members of Mexican binational families manage the hardships that result from US immigration policies that prolong and force family separation? Immigrants and return migrants alike may not be aware of their rights and the legal remedies that exist to enforce them. Structural barriers such as poverty, legal status, fear of deportation, lack of proficiency in English, and lack of familiarity with government bureaucracies no doubt prevent many migrants in the United States and return migrants in Mexico from coming forward to request legal assistance and relief in the courts. Despite these barriers, when it comes to family matters, members of some Mexican binational families can and do assert their rights. In this article, we analyze an administrative database of the Department of Legal Protection of the Mexican consular network that documents migrant legal claims resulting from family separation, along with findings from 21 interviews with consular staff and community organizations in three consular jurisdictions — El Paso, Raleigh, and San Francisco — to investigate the sociolegal processes of claims. Our investigation centers on the mediating role the Mexican state — via its consular network — has developed to assist binational families as they attempt to assert their rights and resolve child support and child custody problems resulting from prolonged and forced family separation. We find that the resolution of binational family claims in part depends on the institutional infrastructure that has developed at local, state, and federal levels, along with the commitment and capacity of the receiving and sending states and the binational structures they establish. These binational structures transcend the limitations of national legal systems to achieve and implement family rights and obligations across borders.

During the summer of 2018, the US government detained thousands of migrant parents and their separated children pursuant to its zero-tolerance policy at the United States–Mexico border. The ensuing media storm generated unprecedented public awareness about immigration detention. The recency of this public attention belies a long-standing immigration enforcement practice that has generated a growing body of research in the past couple of decades. I take stock of this research, focusing on the causes, conditions, and consequences of immigration detention in the United States. I also discuss critical tasks for future research, including ( a) examining the role of local governments, the private prison industry, and decision makers responsible for release decisions in maintaining the detention system; ( b) extending the field of inquiry to less-visible detainee populations and detention facility guards and staff, for a fuller understanding of detention conditions; and ( c) investigating not only direct but also indirect consequences of detention.

Rising crime, homicide, economic despair, infant mortality. The common narrative of the situation in the Northern Triangle nations of Central America, Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador, points to these grim circumstances to explain the exodus of families leaving for America. But it is not the case that conditions have worsened there in recent years; the best available data show improvement in many socioeconomic measures. This article draws upon the best sources from the Northern Triangle, Mexico, US, and international organizations. Socioeconomic studies and analysis by universities, policy groups, and government agencies from the region provide details on the day-to-day experiences of ordinary people, the realities of poverty, crime, and violence. The conclusions from these studies do not always match common suppositions. Homicides are down, but El Salvador and Honduras remain two of the most dangerous countries in the world. In the Northern Triangle, economic growth has been above the regional average, while the percentage of families living in poverty in Guatemala is actually increasing as income distribution worsens. More Central American families are migrating to the USA than ever before, but far fewer total immigrants are coming to America as the immigration from Mexico has declined. This article concludes with policy recommendations. Since the US economy is creating more jobs than entrants into the workforce. US immigration policies should be adjusted to match economic needs and must be changed to reflect its highest humanitarian values.

This article is devoted to the relationship between interwar Ukrainian political emigrants and local authorities in the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (Yugoslavia). A comparative analysis of the attitude of the Yugoslav authorities towards Russian and Ukrainian emigrants was conducted. The Russophilia of Yugoslav authorities, who viewed the Ukrainian question through the lense of the Russian emigrants, was described. The idea of Pan-Slavism had been spreading in the Balkans for a long time, which facilitated the legitimization of friendly relations between the southern Slavs (primarily Serbs) and Russians, whom Serbs considered as protectors from the Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian Empires. Yugoslavia sided with the anti-Bolshevik White Movement, an ally of the Entente, which had a positive impact on the situation of Russian emigrants. The young state was in need of professionals with a good command of foreign languages and European culture. Many emigrants met those requirements. Therefore, in the early 1920s, several thousands of emigrants worked in the public service. The reigning Karadjordjević dynasty had marital ties with the Romanov dynasty. A former Russian diplomat was among advisers to the king and the head of government. The immigration from the former Russian Empire was addressed by the Royal Court as well as several ministries and central government institutions. Direct support to the immigrants was provided by the State Commission for Assistance to Russian Refugees. Yugoslavia was a center of political and religious immigration for Russians and a provincial center for Ukrainian emigration. It is concluded that the Yugoslav authorities did not distinguish Ukrainians from Russian emigrants, therefore, any specific policy towards them was not carried out. The degree of interaction of Ukrainian emigrants with local authorities in Yugoslavia varied geographically (Slovenia and Croatia, on the one hand, and Serbia and Macedonia, on the other) and in time (in the first half of the 1920s and from the mid-1920s until the beginning of World War II). Keywords: authorities, emigration, Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, Yugoslavia.

Foreign-born population in Slovakia has been growing steadily over recent years. Since 2018, foreigners from the so-called third countries have become dominant within the immigrant population. The migration crisis due to the Pandemic seems not affected the patterns of migration to Slovakia. We would argue that the need in Slovakia‘s domestic labour market affected immigration flows more than anything else. Before the outbreak of the COVID-19 Pandemic, due to emigration flows, there was a shortage of labour in the country. However, as a result of the restrictive measures taken by the government in response to the Pandemic, changes are taking place, which also has an impact on the employment of foreigners. During the Pandemic, several laws regulating the legal status of foreigners in the Slovak Republic have been amended. This article focuses on the legislative developments in shaping the Slovak migration policy in the near future.

Agreement of Democratic Parties in the Years 1948-1950 – an Attempt to Consolidate the Milieu of Polish Political Immigration After his arrival to London in 1947, Stanisław Mikołajczyk undertook endeavors to form a national committee, which would be a projection of the World War II quadruple agreement, which brought together Polish Peasant Party (Polskie Stronnictwo Ludowe), Polish Socialist Party (Polska Partia Socjalistyczna), Labor Party (Stronnictwo Pracy) and National Party (Stronnictwo Narodowe). The creation of the Agreement of Democratic Parties was to be the initial step towards the future cooperation and functioning. Yet the National Party was not interested in such cooperation and the Agreement turned out to be a weak entity, unable to conduct active policy among Polish emigration. Differences between parties proved to be too big a barrier, among others regarding the question of the legality of Polish government in exile. The final blow to Mikołajczyk’s concept was the creation of Political Council by National Party, Polish Socialist Party and the Polish Liberty Movement “Independence and Democracy” (Polski Ruch Wolnościowy „Niepodległość i Demokracja”).

International labor migration is one of the most important elements of the modern global economy. Amid growing knowledge economy, migration of highly skilled specialists plays an increasingly important role. For Israel, as an immigrant society, migration issues have been of paramount importance since the early days of the independent state. However, in the first decades the discussion focused mainly around the influence of immigrants on the economic development of the country and identification of the most effective ways to adapt immigrants. At present, the Israeli economic model is built in such a way that the institutions of the knowledge economy are at its core, that requires a significant amount of labor with an appropriate level of skills. At the same time, today Israel witnesses emigration of such specialists, mainly to the United States. This paper is devoted to the analysis of the current situation. The article substantiates the relevance of the chosen topic not only for Israel, but also for other economically developed countries and gives a brief bibliographic review in the field. Next, the author analyzes the tendencies of high skilled work force immigration to Israel at the present stage through the analysis of the supply and demand in the country's labor market in the high-tech sector and assessment of the government programs created to attract foreign non-Jewish specialists to the country which appear to be not effective. The article also deals with the problems of emigration of high skilled workers from Israel. An overview of the magnitude of the phenomenon is given based on international comparisons; main reasons of the trend are identified and analyzed; government programs for the return of compatriots are assessed. It is argued that Israel should pursue a more effective policy to attract highly skilled non-Jewish immigrants into the country, which will fully realize the existing positive externalities and dampen the problem of brain drain.

A heated debate has arisen over U.S. policy toward the large number of Salvadorans and Guatemalans who have come to the United States in recent years. The question is whether the U.S. government should continue to deport these individuals or should offer them some special protection. The key point of debate is the motivation of the émigrés. Officials of the U.S. Department of State and the Department of Justice have maintained that Salvadorans and Guatemalans who come here are merely economic migrants in search of a better life, and that as such, they are ineligible for any special treatment under U.S. immigration law. According to representatives of the Reagan administration, the fact that many Central Americans pass through Mexico on their way to the United States is evidence of their economic motivations.

Abstract This article examines the treatment of women in flight from domestic violence at the U.S. – Mexico border. It compares the robust state protections available to domestic violence victims in the interior of the country with the hostile landscape women encounter at the border. The article draws on three sources for information about the treatment at the border of domestic violence victims: an in-depth case study of one woman’s experience of domestic violence and flight, a small data set of domestic violence victims detained in the Eloy Detention Center in Arizona during 2010 and 2011, and a detailed analysis of the policies and practices at play when a woman in flight from domestic violence comes to the U.S. border. From these sources, a grim picture emerges that may surprise many. Women fleeing violence whose lives entangle with the border confront a bureaucracy and justice system that harkens back to the time, 50 years ago, when domestic violence was seen as a private matter about which there was little the government could or should do to respond. Building on this descriptive account, the article draws on political theories of citizenship and membership to highlight the moral and legal inconsistencies between the immigration policies of the United States and its national values and commitments regarding violence against women. It suggests that language about the “private” nature of the violence at issue for women in flight from domestic violence should not be used to cloak underlying concerns about immigration admissions policies. Transparent discussion of the considerations at issue lays bare the irrationality of applying fundamentally different conceptions of domestic violence depending on which side of the geographic border it occurs.

In recent years, the issues of integration – related on the one hand to people referred to as foreigners, immigrants, newcomers, etc. – and on the other hand to host societies – have been gaining importance in the Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries, including Poland. Before the political and socio-economic transformation at the turn of the 1980s and the 1990s, it was a country relatively closed to international migration. Only in the early 1990s did it open up to migration fl ows. That was also the time when the state’s policy in this area had been gradually emerging. The preparations for EU membership enforced the process of developing a national migration policy. Poland’s accession to the EU in 2004 and to the Schengen zone in 2007 saw its full involvement in EU migration governance in terms of internal and external policies, and thus the further europeanisation of national law, public policy, and practices in the field of migration management. Recent years have seen a change in Poland’s migration status, which has now become an emigration-immigration state, and the near future may bring about its transition into a new immigration state, especially in connection with the influx of large numbers of forced migrants from Ukraine since the end of February 2022. At the time of writing, that is mid-2022, Poland does not have a formalised integration policy at the central level. National law provides integration measures only for benefi ciaries of international protection (persons with refugee status and subsidiary protection), which concerns a very small group of foreigners. However, the last two decades have seen increased involvement at the local government level (especially in cities) in integration. This is a process taking place in local communities with the support of other actors such as NGOs, informal associations, or universities. One such example is Warsaw, the capital of Poland, where the largest number of migrants, both voluntary and forced, live. This paper aims to explore the selected practices undertaken by some of Warsaw’s municipal institutions and offi ces, which can be treated as an important part of the local integration policy and which could be a role model for other cities less experienced in immigrant integration.

Este artículo se pregunta si: ¿la política migratoria restrictiva elaborada y puesta en marcha por el gobierno francés, a través de la aceleración de las salidas y de la reducción de las entradas, que pretende reducir el número de inmigrantes y favorecer une inmigración de trabajo tratando de atraer a los más cualificados, permitirá hacer frente a los nuevos retos impuestos por el envejecimiento de la población, el aumento de la mortalidad y la disminución de la población activa? Defendemos la hipótesis según la cual, esta política carece de sentido en un contexto caracterizado por un bajo saldo migratorio, porque la llegada continua pero reducida de inmigrantes no compensa el envejecimiento de la población, provocará una falta de mano de obra, un declive de la actividad económica y una crisis del sistema de pensiones, por el aumento de los jubilados y el descenso de la población activa. Más allá, se repercutirá tanto en el crecimiento económico como en el Estado de Bienestar. A pesar de estos datos, el gobierno francés se empeña en aplicar su política de inmigración en razón de las ideas de los gobernantes, de la presión de la extrema derecha y de la visión cortoplazista de los cargos electos.This article asks whether the restrictive policy on migration drawn up and implemented by the French government speeding up emigration and reducing immigration in an effort to reduce the number of immigrants and encourage an immigrant workforce, in an attempt to attract more skilled workers, will enable them to overcome the new challenges imposed by the ageing of the population, the increase in the mortality rate and the reduction of the active population.We defend the hypothesis that this policy does not make any sense in a context characterised by a low balance of migration, because the constant albeit reduced stream of immigrants arriving in the country is no compensation for the ageing population. It will lead to a lack of manpower, a decline in economic activity and a crisis in the pension system, because of the increase in the number of pensioners and the slump in the active population. Beyond that, it will have repercussions on both economic growth and on the Welfare State. Despite these facts, the French government is set on applying its policy on immigration in line with the ideas of the people in power, of the pressure from the extreme right and of the short-term view of the politicians.

In March 2020, the United States government began a series of measures designed to dramatically restrict immigration as part of its response to the global health crisis caused by the coronavirus pandemic. This included Title 42, which deported asylum seekers immediately and prevented them from applying for asylum. These measures worsened an already precarious situation at the US–Mexico border for an estimated 60,000 asylum seekers who were prevented, by the Trump administration’s ‘Remain in Mexico’ (aka MPP) policy enacted in January 2019, from remaining in the United States while they awaited their asylum hearings. In-depth interviews, participant observation, and social media analysis with humanitarian and legal advocates for asylum seekers living in a camp at the border in Matamoros, Mexico reveal that COVID-19’s impacts are not limited to public health concerns. Rather, COVID-19’s impacts center on how the Trump administration weaponized the virus to indefinitely suspend the asylum system. We argue that the Matamoros refugee camp provides a strategic vantage point to understand the repercussions of state policies of exclusion on im/mobility and survival strategies for asylum seekers. Specifically, we use the analytical lenses of the politics of im/mobility, geographies of exclusion, and asylum seeker resilience to identify how COVID-19 has shaped the im/mobility and security of the camp and its residents in unexpected ways. At the same time, our research illustrates that camp residents exercise im/mobility as a form of political visibility to contest and ameliorate their precarity as they find themselves in conditions not of their choosing.

Incorporating Muslim Migrants in the West: The French Model of IntegrationThe Muslim emigration to France is connected with many social, religious and political problems. The worshippers of Islam were admitted to settle, but not to integrate with French society and the national economy. Although, according to the French scheme of integration, all people are equal before the law and it is unlawful to emphasise differences, life in France does not reflect the Republican idea any more, and instead of creating the French nation as one community, a multicultural society unable to assimilate newcomers is being born.There are numerous stereotypes in French society that push aside Algerians and Moroccans, especially those living in the suburbs, and put them in conflict with the French legal system. This approach should change and the French must cease perceiving Muslims as strangers and realise they are lawful citizens, an inseparable part of their everyday life. The successive generations of Muslim immigrants should no longer be pushed to the margins of social life because of their ethnic origin, name, religion, and culture.The violent riots in France in 2005 and 2007, however, were caused not only by cultural conflict but also by the recession of the French economy. The main problem in the French suburbs is the high level of unemployment (40%) caused by the numerous meanders of the immigration policy. Instead of facilitating employment for immigrants, the government demands special professional training even for jobs which do not require such qualifications.

By the 1920s, anti-Mexican campaigns in the United States had become a major liability for US interests in the Americas, as rival imperial powers attempted to exploit growing anti-American sentiments in Mexico and Latin America against American imperialism. The U.S. State Department sought to curtail animosity in Latin America by contesting discriminatory domestic practices that angered elite Mexicans and Mexican-American leaders who identified as white. After blocking eastern and southern European and Japanese immigration in the 1924 National Origins Act, the eugenics movement turned its attention to excluding Mexicans from entering the US. When legislative attempts at restriction failed because they conflicted with national and international commercial interests, non-legislative avenues were sought, including the Census and the courts. The 1930 Census was the only census that categorized Mexicans as a separate “race.” In the context of a changing racial formation in the United States, this unique category was reversed in 1936 due to Mexican-American leaders leveraging the fragility of the “Good Neighbor Policy” to force the Federal government into action.

Although Salvadoran emigration to the United States is one of the most important migratory flows emanating from Latin America, there is insufficient information about the predictors of first unauthorized migration from El Salvador to the United States. In this study, we use data from the Latin American Migration Project–El Salvador (LAMP-ELS4) to perform an event history analysis to discern the factors that influenced the likelihood that a Salvadoran household head would take a first unauthorized trip to the United States between 1965 and 2007. We take into account a series of demographic, social capital, human capital, and physical capital characteristics of the Salvadoran household head; demographic and social context variables in the place of origin; as well as economic and border security factors at the place of destination. Our findings suggest that an increase in the Salvadoran civil violence index and a personal economic crisis increased the likelihood of first-time unauthorized migration. Salvadorans who were less likely to take a first unauthorized trip were business owners, those employed in skilled occupations, and persons with more years of experience in the labor force. Contextual variables in the United States, such as a high unemployment rate and an increase in the Border Patrol budget, deterred the decision to take a first unauthorized trip. Finally, social capital had no effect on the decision to migrate; this means that for unauthorized Salvadoran migrants, having contacts in the United States is not the main driver to start a migration journey to the United States. We suggest as policy recommendations that the United States should award Salvadorans more work-related visas or asylum protection. For those Salvadorans whose Temporary Protected Status (TPS) has ended, the United States should allow them to apply for permanent residency. The decision not to continue to extend TPS to Salvadorans will only increase the number of unauthorized immigrants in the United States. The United States needs to revise its current immigration policies, which make it a very difficult and/or extremely lengthy process for Salvadorans and other immigrants to regularize their current immigration status in the United States. Furthermore, because of our research findings, we recommend that the Salvadoran government — to discourage out-migration — invest in high-skilled job training and also offer training and credit opportunities to its population to encourage business ventures.

Este artículo intenta hacer un balance crítico de las promesas y prácticas del gobierno del presidente Barack Obama en materia migratoria. Hace énfasis, desde una perspectiva relacional, en las decisiones ejecutadas durante su segunda administración y su articulación con medidas implementadas por el gobierno mexicano para contener la migración irregular de migrantes centroamericanos en tránsito hacia Estados Unidos. Destaca el análisis del llamado Plan Iniciativa para la Prosperidad del Triángulo Norte de Centroamérica y el Programa Frontera Sur, dos iniciativas que forman parte de un todo articulado en materia de seguridad y contención migratoria.

Tomato (Solanum lycopersicum L.) is an important vegetable crop in Florida, a state located in the south-eastern region of the United States. The state is the second largest producer of tomatoes in the country and contributes to almost 90% of the domestic winter tomato supplies. However, tomato farmers in Florida have come under increasing pressure due to climate changes, foreign imports, and rising production costs. The purpose of this paper is to analyze whether Florida tomato growers will continue to sustain their production given the seasonal and geographic production advantage, yet against various internal and external threats emerging throughout the fresh produce supply chain. We developed our study on a multi-disciplinary conceptual model of network (supply chain) relationship and primary and secondary data gathered from various stakeholders and the literature. We found that Florida farmers have done remarkably well by adapting to warming temperatures and changing consumer expectations about environmental sustainability and responsible labor practices. However, foreign competition, labor shortage, the rising costs of inputs, extreme weather events (hurricanes), and pests and diseases due to humid climate continue to affect the sustainability of the Florida tomato production. Our paper suggests various farm-, market-, and institution-level adaptation mechanisms for preventing the regional production advantage of the Florida tomato industry from eroding. Newer immigration laws are necessary for easing the labor situation. In order to have a level playing field with respect to the use of protected agriculture technology such as in Mexico and Canada, U.S. farmers in general and Florida farmers in particular need government support. Florida farmers need to diversify their fresh produce market strategies, finding new product streams. There is also a need for reforming the product certification landscape, which some growers find cumbersome and cost prohibitive. Growers may gain from being better able to convey to consumers the information regarding their effort put into environmental sustainability, workers welfare, and safe food.

Drawing on the concept of a “complex humanitarian crisis,” this paper describes how outflows of migrants from Central America were transformed into such a crisis by intransigent immigration and border policies enacted in both Mexico and the United States. We describe the origins of the migration in U.S. Cold War interventions that created many thousands of displaced people fleeing violence and economic degradation in the region, leading to a sustained process of undocumented migration to the United States. Owing to rising levels of gang violence and weather events associated with climate change, the number of people seeking to escape threats in Central America has multiplied and unauthorized migration through Mexico toward the United States has increased. However, the securitization of migration in both Mexico and the United States has blocked these migrants from exercising their right to petition for asylum, creating a growing backlog of migrants who are subject to human rights violations and predations both by criminals and government authorities, leading migrants to label Mexican routes northward as a “corridor of death.” We draw on data from annual reports of Mexico's Red de Documentación de las Organizaciones Defensoras de Migrantes (Network for the Documentation of Migrant Defense Organizations) to construct a statistical profile of transit migrants and the threats they face as reported by humanitarian actors in Mexico. These reports allow us to better understand the practical realities of the “complex humanitarian crisis” facing undocumented migrants, both as unauthorized border crossers and as transit migrants moving between the southern frontiers of Mexico and the United States. Policy Recommendations Policy makers need to address: Governments must recognize that the humanitarian crisis facing migrants is not confined to border regions but unfolds at places of both origin and destination as well as within extended geographies of transit in-between. The current refugee protection regime and asylum system are ill-matched to the needs and vulnerabilities of today's migrants. In an era of rapid climate change, rising state failures, and escalating violence, people are not moving so much to advance economically as to escape a growing array of threats not covered by the 1951 Refugee Convention, which needs to be updated. Developed nations must honor rather than elide their obligations under international law to accept asylum applicants and fairly adjudicate their cases, Since a large fraction of the Central Americans arriving at the southern US border have relatives in the United States, creating a pathway to legal status for unauthorized US residents would relieve a lot of the pressure on the asylum system by enabling authorities to release applicants to the support and care of legally resident relatives rather than placing them in an overburdened detention system. Governments need to scale back the securitization and criminalization of migration, which have made human mobility an increasingly precarious and risk-filled activity that contributes to rather than forestalls the proliferation of crime and violence. Human rights and humanitarian agencies need to revisit their missions to derive new ways of working conjointly and in parallel with each other and with governments to better understand and meet the needs of migrants in the 21st century.

The article considers the formation of the demographic situation in Ukraine during its independence, namely - from 1991 to 2022. The authors analyzed the main demographic indicators - birth rate, mortality rate, natural increase, average life expectancy in the country over the past thirty years. In the first years of our country's acquisition of statehood, in addition to positive natural population growth, the increase in its number was also facilitated by a positive balance of migration due to a significant influx of immigrants. However, the deepening socio-economic crisis in 1992-1995 led to a sharp decline in birth rates, a deepening of natural population decline due to negative natural growth, and mass migration abroad in search of work. For the first time since this period, a negative balance of migration was recorded in Ukraine, and from that time until 2022, the volume of emigration exceeds immigration. Indicators of natural population movement have significant differences in the regions of Ukraine, urban and rural settlements. The highest values ​​are traditionally preserved in Volyn, Rivne and Zakarpattia oblasts, and the lowest ones are in Chernihiv and Sumy oblasts. The study allowed us to draw conclusions about the negative demographic phenomena - a rapid decline in population due to a significant decrease in birth rates, high mortality rates, the spread of the phenomenon of "aging" of the population. All this leads to the inevitable depopulation in the country, which confirms the demographic loss of about 10 million people during the study period (due to natural population decline and high migration in the mid-1990s and early XXI century). The demographic situation in rural areas remains particularly catastrophic. Negative demographic trends are exacerbated by the mass exodus of young people to study and work in the cities. Among the main factors that influenced the formation of the current demographic situation in Ukraine are: socio-economic (high unemployment, migration abroad, low level and quality of life compared to other countries in the European region), environmental (high level of industrial pollution) certain regions, uncontrolled application of mineral fertilizers to agricultural land, radiation emissions associated with the Chernobyl disaster), natural (Covid-19 epidemic), military (active phase of the Russian-Ukrainian war in 2022). The demographic catastrophe in Ukraine, connected with the beginning of the Russian-Ukrainian war in 2022, deserves special attention. The huge direct and indirect losses suffered by the country are due to the direct deaths during the hostilities, as well as the mass migration of people abroad since the beginning of the war. The losses will be assessed by demographers and statistical services after the war, but it is already worth considering the directions of a comprehensive demographic policy in Ukraine in the postwar period, which will restore the country's demographic potential. This work requires the coordinated work of demographers, geographers, economists and government and local government representatives. The authors outlined only the most important vectors of the formation of a new demographic policy in postwar Ukraine. They plan to pay more attention to these aspects by continuing further research. Keywords: population reproduction, birth rate, mortality, natural movement, life expectancy

The author brings forth a range of information on forced migration of the Serb population from the Croatian part of the Independent State of Croatia in 1941 (NDH). Almost one third of the population were Serbs in the NDH. One of the methods of solving ?the Serbia issue? in the NDH was migrating the Serbs into Serbia. The other methods were forced conversions of the Serbian population, namely physical killings. The adopted legal provisions made the terror policy over Serbian population legitimate. A conference was held on June 4th in the German legation in Zagreb. At the meeting it was agreed that Slovenians from Styria were to be moved to NDH, and Serbs from the NDH to Serbia. Deportation was to be carried out in three waves. The first wave was to last from June 7th to July 5th and 5000 Slovenian intellectuals from Lower Styria were to be deported directly to Serbia, except for catholic priests who were to be deported to the NDH. Orthodox priests from the NDH were to be deported to Serbia together with their families. In the second wave, lasting from June 10th to August 30th, 25,000 Slovenians from Slovenia were to be deported to the NDH and NDH was to deport just as many Serbs. In the last wave (from September 15th to October 31st), 65,000 Slovenian peasants from the Gorenjska region (Upper Carniola region) were to be deported to the NDH, and NDH was to migrate just as many Serbs to Serbia, as well as 30,000 Serbs whose citizenship was not acknowledged by the NDH. The government of the NDH founded an office for this purpose under the name State Directorate for Renewal. The migration of the Serbs from NDH began in June of 1941. Volunteers from the Salonika Front were then moved from their properties in Slavonia and Srem. Their total number was about 28,000. Then the Orthodox priests were migrated. According to the lists made by the NDH authorities, 327 of them were migrated from the NDH. 104 priests from the Croatian part of NDH were moved away in an organized manner. One part of them managed to escape before they were arrested. The migration of priests was carried out through transit camps in Caprag and Pozega. Massive deportations of the Serbian population through transit camps in Caprag, Bjelovar and Pozega began with the arresting of Serbs in Zagreb in the first half of July 1941, and then continued in other districts of northern Croatia and Bosnia. The total number of migrations in an organized manner from the Croatian part of the NDH up to the beginning of September 1941, according to the name list drawn up in 2012, amounted to 9875 Serbs, although that number was not final since there were greater disparities for certain districts. By the end of September 1941, the Ustashas migrated 14,733 Serbs out of the NDH in a legal way. Croatians from Dalmatia, Herzegovina and the Croatian Zagorje as well as displaced Slovenians primarily originally from Styria, moved into their houses. The authorities of NDH confiscated the property of the forced out Serbs. Other forms of the Ustasha terror, like massive killings, caused intensive illegal emigration of Serbs from NDH to Serbia, which, according to German data, had already increased to around 180,000 relocated Serbs by the end of July, although it seems this number exceeded 200,000 by the end of September. Organized migration was ceased in October 1941 after the German authorities in Serbia forbid further immigration of Serbs from the NDH mainly because of the uprising in western Serbia. Part of the banished Serbs from the Pozega concentration camp were returned home to the districts of Osijek, Garesnica, Krizevac, Virovitica and Ludbreg. However, from the documentation of the Commissariat for Refugees in Belgrade, it is evident that the research on the migration of Serbs from Croatia and the whole of NDH was not finished in 1941, so the number of 200,000 of forced migrants who have left is not final.

Drugs, immigration, and border policy are intrinsically linked in the context of the United States-Mexico divide. However, there are often misunderstandings that border policy and immigration from Mexico are the root causes of a ‘drug epidemic’ in America. This paper dispels these misconceptions by exploring the diverse sources of illicit narcotics and examining the ideologies, government policies, and underlying domestic issues that comprise this epidemic.

In January 2019, the Trump Administration’s Department of Homeland Security (DHS) implemented the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP), colloquially known as the “Remain in Mexico” program. The MPP is a United States government immigration policy that requires that asylum seekers be returned to Mexico to wait as their claims pend in United States immigration court proceedings. Supporters of the program argued that the policy was a step to strengthen border security and prevent human smuggling and trafficking. However, journalists, human rights organizations, and academics exposed how the policy manufactured a humanitarian crisis and stranded over 70,000 asylum seekers in dangerous Mexican border cities. This article examines the impacts of the MPP on the United States asylum and immigration court system. It explores the implementation of and Trump administration justification for the MPP, analyzes government data and evaluation of the policy, reviews investigative documentation from public reporting by media and nonprofit organizations, and sets forth recommendations for Congress and the Biden Administration to begin to reverse and repair the harms imposed on asylum seekers. Over two years later, the MPP policy is known as one of the Trump Administration’s most damaging anti-asylum policies putting asylum seekers in harm’s way.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; margin: 0in 0.5in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">Recent proposals for a comprehensive immigration bill in the Senate may be based on political expediency.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>Sound bites about border security, worksite enforcement, <span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">and</span> the status of about 12 million people who are currently in the United States illegally are salient issues to many politicians and various ethnic groups.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>There are over 12 million immigrants who are in the United States illegally and the majority of them are from Mexico due to their connected borders, thus making it easier access. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp;</span>The government wants to form new policies and laws to control the immigration to the United States. The House of Congress passed a bill that would make illegal immigration a criminal offense and would also make it a crime to help illegal immigrants migrate to the United States. For years now, the government has been trying to form new ways to improve immigration laws and assist illegal immigrants on gaining citizenship in the United States.</span></span></p>

This review focuses on a monograph written by Jayne Persian, lecturer at the University of Southern Queensland (Australia). The work is the first complex study devoted to the adaptation of former “displaced persons” (more particularly, émigrés from the Soviet Union) in Australia between the 1940s and 1960s. The work refers to an extensive complex of documents from the National Archives of Australia, the National Archives (United Kingdom), the Noel Butlin Archives Centre, Australian National University, and interviews with former “displaced persons” residing in Australia. The study is very important because it provides new information on the second wave of Soviet emigration, which is seldom examined by contemporary Russian scholars. Persian demonstrates that political factors played an important role in how the Australian government granted immigration permission. Quite frequently, Australia preferred people who shared anti-communist positions. Therefore, many former collaborators of the World War II era came to Australia; this hindered cooperation between the USSR and Australia. Persian shows that “new Australians” had difficulty integrating into society. The government tried to assimilate them, which pushed the immigrants to seek isolation in their communities. This book helps us understand the controversial character of the state policy of historical memory, a problem that is also very important for contemporary Russia.

What drove an entire region in the Global South to significantly expand refugee protection in the early twenty-first century? In this paper, we test and build on political refugee theory via a mixed-methods approach to explain the liberalization of refugee legislation across Latin America. First, we use data from the new APLA Database, which measures legislative liberalization over a 30-year period, and test both general and region-specific immigration and refugee policy determinants through a series of nested Tobit and linear spatial panel-data regressions. Our models do not support some consistent predictors of policy liberalization identified by the literature such as immigrant and refugee stocks, democratization, and the number of emigrants, but they offer statistical evidence for the importance of leftist government ideology and regional integration. We then shed light on the causal mechanisms behind these correlations for two extreme but diverse cases: Argentina and Mexico. Based on process tracing and elite interviews, we suggest that the reason that leftist political ideology rather than institutional democratization and number of emigrants matters for policy liberalization is that Latin American executives embarked on symbolic human and migrant’s rights discourses that ultimately enabled legislative change.

Commonly, international human migration is blamed for corroding states sovereignty, especially stemming from policy circles, academic literature and citizens of the host countries. This has attracted the attention of the media highlighting hazards of being a migrant, with some countries viewing migrants as enemies; and, Cuba provides a vivid case. Yet in other countries, migrants are viewed as important contributors to social and economic development, with Mexico, the Dominican Republic and India serving as examples. This article locates migrants in the framework of human rights as guided by international law without prejudice to the demands of state sovereignty, but linking the two in the context of developing international standards. Migration is seen as a feature of human history dating back to primordial time. Nothing appears surprising in the movement of people across borders, defining a migrant through emigration and immigration while giving due respect to the sovereignty of states, both sending and receiving. The article discusses the nexus between migrants and state sovereignty in order to highlight the mutual benefit grounded in international law. It attempts to portray a more positive image of the migrant person in light of the global world, socio-economic development and human rights fundamentals. The main challenge remains that of implementing human rights, which appear to be at the crossroads of individual rights and state sovereignty. The paper reveals how the challenge can be overcome while maintaining the structure of rights and freedoms without infringement on states’ sovereignty. It concludes that migrants remain on the periphery of effective protection from the vagaries of the citizens, partly because the state has a tendency to confine certain rights to its citizenry. States possess discretionary authority to control the ingress of foreign nationals into their territories though sometimes they fail to do that as evidenced by hundreds of millions of irregular migrants around the world. The paper reveals that, the symbiotic relationship between migrants, regular or irregular, and state sovereignty should be strengthened.

For the development and implementation of a rational demographic policy, it is of great importance to reveal the regularities of the transformation of the number and structure of the population of Georgia. The object of our research is the population of the Kakheti region, which has undergone significant changes over the past centuries. The article discusses the main trends of population size and ethno-structural changes – issues of the ratio of the Georgian population and diasporas of Georgia, annexed by the Russian Empire, the Soviet Republic and the post-Soviet Kakheti region. During the considered period, the specific weight of the diasporas in the entire population continuously increased due to the permanent implementation of the intensive immigration policy in Georgia, which was under imperial rule. The same situation was in the population of the Kakheti region, where the contingent of national minorities increased. With active immigration policy, the number of Russian population increased rapidly. In 1926-1939 it became 7.2% of the population of Kakheti. A relatively fast numerical increase of the Armenian diaspora was noted in the 19th century, of the Ossetians - at the beginning of the 20th century. The most stable increase is characterized by the Muslim population. Thanks to its traditions of high natural increase, the number of Azerbaijanis and Kists increased from 6.4 thousand to 37.5 thousand in 1884-1989, by 2014 their share in the population of Kakheti region became 11.8%. In the post-Soviet period, significant changes took place in the number and ethnic structure of the population of the Kakheti region. In the period between the population censuses of 1989-2014, it decreased significantly. Both the number of the entire population and diasporas: Armenians 3 times, Russians - 7 times, Ossetians - 4.9 times, Ukrainians - 9.4 times. Diasporas of Muslim Azeris and Kists remained relative stability. In the conditions of a rapid decrease in the number of the population, the tendency of the transition from a poly-ethnic to a bi-ethnic structure was evident in the Kakheti region. The main reason for the decrease in the number of diasporas is the intensification of emigration processes. It was caused by the collapse of the Georgian economy in the post-Soviet period, ethno-political conflicts and the unprecedented deterioration of living conditions, unemployment, and the deepening of poverty. In addition to this, the intensity of emigration of national minorities was influenced by the fact that a significant part of the diaspora did not know the state language – Georgian and chose to return to their historical and cultural environment, to their homeland. Some emigrated to countries where the standard of living was much higher than in Georgia. The reduction of diasporas was partly caused by their integration into the Georgian population. In the conditions of long-term coexistence, nationalities culturally close to Georgians: Ossetians, Armenians integrated into the Georgian ethnos. Among them, inter-ethnic marriages were common. There were no inter-ethnic confrontations and ethnic conflicts in the Kakheti region. According to the 2014 census in the Kakheti region, it was revealed that in terms of religious confession, Christian Orthodoxy (85.7%) and Muslims (12.1%) dominate. The absolute majority of Muslims are Azerbaijanis, Kists, Hundzis and representatives of the older generation of eco-immigrant Georgian Adjarians. An important task of the government is to ensure decent socio-cultural development of national minorities in the region of Kakheti, characterized by tolerance; to establish an exemplary respect of the population for their customs; in Case of desire to help them in their civic integration, to create an exemplary environment for humane coexistence of nations. Keywords: Georgia, diaspora, Kakheti, national minority, ethnic structure, population. JEL Codes: Q56, R20, R23

Global cities’ economic development depends highly in innovation.Ther efore, the human capitalis the raw material of the Global Era and a successful city is the one that creates, attracts and retains its human capital. The first stepto create thehuman capital is to provide equal opportunities to quality education.However, because of insufficient taxes and large sudden immigration flows that come to global cities, most governments lack the infrastructure and capability to provide these opportunities to all children and, in addition, they consider low income and immigrant children as a high cost problem instead of as a great potential that requires investment. This is when civil organizations emerge to fill the government’s gaps by providing education and development opportunities. This research analyzes the public and private roles in education through a case study: Mexico City and Paris are considered opposite examples of educational systems in terms of government’s participation, whereas Chicago has managed to hold a balance among public, private and civil organizations contribution model that has helped the city upgrade in the education rankings. The best way to keep improving the education quality and equal opportunities is to create consensus, combining civil organizations’expertiseand ability to attract the media attention, with the political willof the government and the commitment of societyin order to generate chances for effective social policy makingin terms of education.

For seven months in 1999/2000, six-year old Cuban Elián González was embroiled in a family feud plotted along rival national and ideological lines, and relayed televisually as soap opera across the planet. In Miami, apparitions of the Virgin Mary were reported after Elián’s arrival; adherents of Afro-Cuban santería similarly regarded Elián as divinely touched. In Cuba, Elián’s “kidnapping” briefly reinvigorated a torpid revolutionary project. He was hailed by Fidel Castro as the symbolic descendant of José Martí and Che Guevara, and of the patriotic rigour they embodied. Cubans massed to demand his return. In the U.S.A., Elián’s case was arbitrated at every level of the juridical system. The “Save Elián” campaign generated widespread debate about godless versus godly family values, the contours of the American Dream, and consumerist excess. By the end of 2000 Elián had generated the second largest volume of TV news coverage to that date in U.S. history, surpassed only by the O. J. Simpson case (Fasulo). After Fidel Castro, and perhaps the geriatric music ensemble manufactured by Ry Cooder, the Buena Vista Social Club, Elián became the most famous Cuban of our era. Elián also emerged as the unlikeliest of popular-cultural icons, the focus and subject of cyber-sites, books, films, talk-back radio programs, art exhibits, murals, statues, documentaries, a South Park episode, poetry, songs, t-shirts, posters, newspaper editorials in dozens of languages, demonstrations, speeches, political cartoons, letters, legal writs, U.S. Congress records, opinion polls, prayers, and, on both sides of the Florida Strait, museums consecrated in his memory. Confronted by Elián’s extraordinary renown and historical impact, John Carlos Rowe suggests that the Elián story confirms the need for a post-national and transdisciplinary American Studies, one whose practitioners “will have to be attentive to the strange intersections of politics, law, mass media, popular folklore, literary rhetoric, history, and economics that allow such events to be understood.” (204). I share Rowe’s reading of Elián’s story and the clear challenges it presents to analysis of “America,” to which I would add “Cuba” as well. But Elián’s story is also significant for the ways it challenges critical understandings of fame and its construction. No longer, to paraphrase Leo Braudy (566), definable as an accidental hostage of the mass-mediated eye, Elián’s fame has no certain relation to the child at its discursive centre. Elián’s story is not about an individuated, conscious, performing, desiring, and ambivalently rewarded ego. Elián was never what P. David Marshall calls “part of the public sphere, essentially an actor or, … a player” in it (19). The living/breathing Elián is absent from what I call the virtualizing drives that famously reproduced him. As a result of this virtualization, while one Elián now attends school in Cuba, many other Eliáns continue to populate myriad popular-cultural texts and to proliferate away from the states that tried to contain him. According to Jerry Everard, “States are above all cultural artefacts” that emerge, virtually, “as information produced by and through practices of signification,” as bits, bites, networks, and flows (7). All of us, he claims, reside in “virtual states,” in “legal fictions” based on the elusive and contested capacity to generate national identities in an imaginary bounded space (152). Cuba, the origin of Elián, is a virtual case in point. To augment Nicole Stenger’s definition of cyberspace, Cuba, like “Cyberspace, is like Oz — it is, we get there, but it has no location” (53). As a no-place, Cuba emerges in signifying terms as an illusion with the potential to produce and host Cubanness, as well as rival ideals of nation that can be accessed intact, at will, and ready for ideological deployment. Crude dichotomies of antagonism — Cuba/U.S.A., home/exile, democracy/communism, freedom/tyranny, North/South, godlessness/blessedness, consumption/want — characterize the hegemonic struggle over the Cuban nowhere. Split and splintered, hypersensitive and labyrinthine, guarded and hysterical, and always active elsewhere, the Cuban cultural artefact — an “atmospheric depression in history” (Stenger 56) — very much conforms to the logics that guide the appeal, and danger, of cyberspace. Cuba occupies an inexhaustible “ontological time … that can be reintegrated at any time” (Stenger 55), but it is always haunted by the prospect of ontological stalling and proliferation. The cyber-like struggle over reintegration, of course, evokes the Elián González affair, which began on 25 November 1999, when five-year old Elián set foot on U.S. soil, and ended on 28 June 2000, when Elián, age six, returned to Cuba with his father. Elián left one Cuba and found himself in another Cuba, in the U.S.A., each national claimant asserting virtuously that its other was a no-place and therefore illegitimate. For many exiles, Elián’s arrival in Miami confirmed that Castro’s Cuba is on the point of collapse and hence on the virtual verge of reintegration into the democratic fold as determined by the true upholders of the nation, the exile community. It was also argued that Elián’s biological father could never be the boy’s true father because he was a mere emasculated puppet of Castro himself. The Cuban state, then, had forfeited its claims to generate and host Cubanness. Succoured by this logic, the “Save Elián” campaign began, with organizations like the Cuban American National Foundation (CANF) bankrolling protests, leaflet and poster production, and official “Elián” websites, providing financial assistance to and arranging employment for some of Elián’s Miami relatives, lobbying the U.S. Congress and the Florida legislature, and contributing funds to the legal challenges on behalf of Elián at state and federal levels. (Founded in 1981, the CANF is the largest and most powerful Cuban exile organization, and one that regards itself as the virtual government-in-waiting. CANF emerged with the backing of the Reagan administration and the C.I.A. as a “private sector initiative” to support U.S. efforts against its long-time ideological adversary across the Florida Strait [Arboleya 224-5].) While the “Save Elián” campaign failed, the result of a Cuban American misreading of public opinion and overestimation of the community’s lobbying power with the Clinton administration, the struggle continues in cyberspace. CANF.net.org registers its central role in this intense period with silence; but many of the “Save Elián” websites constructed after November 1999 continue to function as sad memento moris of Elián’s shipwreck in U.S. virtual space. (The CANF website does provide links to articles and opinion pieces about Elián from the U.S. media, but its own editorializing on the Elián affair has disappeared. Two keys to this silence were the election of George W. Bush, and the events of 11 Sep. 2001, which have enabled a revision of the Elián saga as a mere temporary setback on the Cuban-exile historical horizon. Indeed, since 9/11, the CANF website has altered the terms of its campaign against Castro, posting photos of Castro with Arab leaders and implicating him in a world-wide web of terrorism. Elián’s return to Cuba may thus be viewed retrospectively as an act that galvanized Cuban-exile support for the Republican Party and their disdain for the Democratic rival, and this support became pivotal in the Republican electoral victory in Florida and in the U.S.A. as a whole.) For many months after Elián’s return to Cuba, the official Liberty for Elián site, established in April 2000, was urging visitors to make a donation, volunteer for the Save Elián taskforce, send email petitions, and “invite a friend to help Elián.” (Since I last accessed “Liberty for Elián” in March 2004 it has become a gambling site.) Another site, Elian’s Home Page, still implores visitors to pray for Elián. Some of the links no longer function, and imperatives to “Click here” lead to that dead zone called “URL not found on this server.” A similar stalling of the exile aspirations invested in Elián is evident on most remaining Elián websites, official and unofficial, the latter including The Sad Saga of Elian Gonzalez, which exhorts “Cuban Exiles! Now You Can Save Elián!” In these sites, a U.S. resident Elián lives on as an archival curiosity, a sign of pathos, and a reminder of what was, for a time, a Cuban-exile PR disaster. If such cybersites confirm the shipwrecked coordinates of Elián’s fame, the “Save Elián” campaign also provided a focus for unrestrained criticism of the Cuban exile community’s imbrication in U.S. foreign policy initiatives and its embrace of American Dream logics. Within weeks of Elián’s arrival in Florida, cyberspace was hosting myriad Eliáns on sites unbeholden to Cuban-U.S. antagonisms, thus consolidating Elián’s function as a disputed icon of virtualized celebrity and focus for parody. A sense of this carnivalesque proliferation can be gained from the many doctored versions of the now iconic photograph of Elián’s seizure by the INS. Still posted, the jpegs and flashes — Elián and Michael Jackson, Elián and Homer Simpson, Elián and Darth Vader, among others (these and other doctored versions are archived on Hypercenter.com) — confirm the extraordinary domestication of Elián in local pop-cultural terms that also resonate as parodies of U.S. consumerist and voyeuristic excess. Indeed, the parodic responses to Elián’s fame set the virtual tone in cyberspace where ostensibly serious sites can themselves be approached as send ups. One example is Lois Rodden’s Astrodatabank, which, since early 2000, has asked visitors to assist in interpreting Elián’s astrological chart in order to confirm whether or not he will remain in the U.S.A. To this end the site provides Elián’s astro-biography and birth chart — a Sagittarius with a Virgo moon, Elián’s planetary alignments form a bucket — and conveys such information as “To the people of Little Havana [Miami], Elian has achieved mystical status as a ‘miracle child.’” (An aside: Elián and I share the same birthday.) Elián’s virtual reputation for divinely sanctioned “blessedness” within a Cuban exile-meets-American Dream typology provided Tom Tomorrow with the target in his 31 January 2000, cartoon, This Modern World, on Salon.com. Here, six-year old Arkansas resident Allen Consalis loses his mother on the New York subway. His relatives decide to take care of him since “New York has much more to offer him than Arkansas! I mean get real!” A custody battle ensues in which Allan’s heavily Arkansas-accented father requires translation, and the case inspires heated debate: “can we really condemn him to a life in Arkansas?” The cartoon ends with the relatives tempting Allan with the delights offered by the Disney Store, a sign of Elián’s contested insertion into an American Dreamscape that not only promises an endless supply of consumer goods but provides a purportedly safe venue for the alternative Cuban nation. The illusory virtuality of that nation also animates a futuristic scenario, written in Spanish by Camilo Hernández, and circulated via email in May 2000. In this text, Elián sparks a corporate battle between Firestone and Goodyear to claim credit for his inner-tubed survival. Cuban Americans regard Elián as the Messiah come to lead them to the promised land. His ability to walk on water is scientifically tested: he sinks and has to be rescued again. In the ensuing custody battle, Cuban state-run demonstrations allow mothers of lesbians and of children who fail maths to have their say on Elián. Andrew Lloyd Weber wins awards for “Elián the Musical,” and for the film version, Madonna plays the role of the dolphin that saved Elián. Laws are enacted to punish people who mispronounce “Elián” but these do not help Elián’s family. All legal avenues exhausted, the entire exile community moves to Canada, and then to North Dakota where a full-scale replica of Cuba has been built. Visa problems spark another migration; the exiles are welcomed by Israel, thus inspiring a new Intifada that impels their return to the U.S.A. Things settle down by 2014, when Elián, his wife and daughter celebrate his 21st birthday as guests of the Kennedys. The text ends in 2062, when the great-great-grandson of Ry Cooder encounters an elderly Elián in Wyoming, thus providing Elián with his second fifteen minutes of fame. Hernández’s text confirms the impatience with which the Cuban-exile community was regarded by other U.S. Latino sectors, and exemplifies the loss of control over Elián experienced by both sides in the righteous Cuban “moral crusade” to save or repatriate Elián (Fernández xv). (Many Chicanos, for example, were angered at Cuban-exile arguments that Elián should remain in the U.S.A. when, in 1999 alone, 8,000 Mexican children were repatriated to Mexico (Ramos 126), statistical confirmation of the favored status that Cubans enjoy, and Mexicans do not, vis-à-vis U.S. immigration policy. Tom Tomorrow’s cartoon and Camilo Hernández’s email text are part of what I call the “What-if?” sub-genre of Elián representations. Another example is “If Elián Gonzalez was Jewish,” archived on Lori’s Mishmash Humor page, in which Eliat Ginsburg is rescued after floating on a giant matzoh in the Florida Strait, and his Florida relatives fight to prevent his return to Israel, where “he had no freedom, no rights, no tennis lessons”.) Nonetheless, that “moral crusade” has continued in the Cuban state. During the custody battle, Elián was virtualized into a hero of national sovereignty, an embodied fix for a revolutionary project in strain due to the U.S. embargo, the collapse of Soviet socialism, and the symbolic threat posed by the virtual Cuban nation-in-waiting in Florida. Indeed, for the Castro regime, the exile wing of the national family is virtual precisely because it conveniently overlooks two facts: the continued survival of the Cuban state itself; and the exile community’s forty-plus-year slide into permanent U.S. residency as one migrant sector among many. Such rhetoric has not faded since Elián’s return. On December 5, 2003, Castro visited Cárdenas for Elián’s tenth birthday celebration and a quick tour of the Museo a la batalla de ideas (Museum for the Battle of Ideas), the museum dedicated to Elián’s “victory” over U.S. imperialism and opened by Castro on July 14, 2001. At Elián’s school Castro gave a speech in which he recalled the struggle to save “that little boy, whose absence caused everyone, and the whole people of Cuba, so much sorrow and such determination to struggle.” The conflation of Cuban state rhetoric and an Elián mnemonic in Cárdenas is repeated in Havana’s “Plaza de Elián,” or more formally Tribuna Anti-imperialista José Martí, where a statue of José Martí, the nineteenth-century Cuban nationalist, holds Elián in his arms while pointing to Florida. Meanwhile, in Little Havana, Miami, a sun-faded set of photographs and hand-painted signs, which insist God will save Elián yet, hang along the front fence of the house — now also a museum and site of pilgrimage — where Elián once lived in a state of siege. While Elián’s centrality in a struggle between virtuality and virtue continues on both sides of the Florida Strait, the Cuban nowhere could not contain Elián. During his U.S. sojourn many commentators noted that his travails were relayed in serial fashion to an international audience that also claimed intimate knowledge of the boy. Coming after the O.J. Simpson saga and the Clinton-Lewinsky affair, the Elián story confirmed journalist Rick Kushman’s identification of a ceaseless, restless U.S. media attention shift from one story to the next, generating an “übercoverage” that engulfs the country “in mini-hysteria” (Calvert 107). But In Elián’s case, the voyeuristic media-machine attained unprecedented intensity because it met and worked with the virtualities of the Cuban nowhere, part of it in the U.S.A. Thus, a transnational surfeit of Elián-narrative options was guaranteed for participants, audiences and commentators alike, wherever they resided. In Cuba, Elián was hailed as the child-hero of the Revolution. In Miami he was a savior sent by God, the proof supplied by the dolphins that saved him from sharks, and the Virgins who appeared in Little Havana after his arrival (De La Torre 3-5). Along the U.S.A.-Mexico border in 2000, Elián’s name was given to hundreds of Mexican babies whose parents thought the gesture would guarantee their sons a U.S. future. Day by day, Elián’s story was propelled across the globe by melodramatic plot devices familiar to viewers of soap opera: doubtful paternities; familial crimes; identity secrets and their revelation; conflicts of good over evil; the reuniting of long-lost relatives; and the operations of chance and its attendant “hand of Destiny, arcane and vaguely supernatural, transcending probability of doubt” (Welsh 22). Those devices were also favored by the amateur author, whose narratives confirm that the delirious parameters of cyberspace are easily matched in the worldly text. In Michael John’s self-published “history,” Betrayal of Elian Gonzalez, Elián is cast as the victim of a conspiracy traceable back to the hydra-headed monster of Castro-Clinton and the world media: “Elian’s case was MANIPULATED to achieve THEIR OVER-ALL AGENDA. Only time will bear that out” (143). His book is now out of print, and the last time I looked (August 2004) one copy was being offered on Amazon.com for US$186.30 (original price, $9.95). Guyana-born, Canadian-resident Frank Senauth’s eccentric novel, A Cry for Help: The Fantastic Adventures of Elian Gonzalez, joins his other ventures into vanity publishing: To Save the Titanic from Disaster I and II; To Save Flight 608 From Disaster; A Wish to Die – A Will to Live; A Time to Live, A Time to Die; and A Day of Terror: The Sagas of 11th September, 2001. In A Cry for Help, Rachel, a white witch and student of writing, travels back in time in order to save Elián’s mother and her fellow travelers from drowning in the Florida Strait. As Senauth says, “I was only able to write this dramatic story because of my gift for seeing things as they really are and sharing my mystic imagination with you the public” (25). As such texts confirm, Elián González is an aberrant addition to the traditional U.S.-sponsored celebrity roll-call. He had no ontological capacity to take advantage of, intervene in, comment on, or be known outside, the parallel narrative universe into which he was cast and remade. He was cast adrift as a mere proper name that impelled numerous authors to supply the boy with the biography he purportedly lacked. Resident of an “atmospheric depression in history” (Stenger 56), Elián was battled over by virtualized national rivals, mass-mediated, and laid bare for endless signification. Even before his return to Cuba, one commentator noted that Elián had been consumed, denied corporeality, and condemned to “live out his life in hyper-space” (Buzachero). That space includes the infamous episode of South Park from May 2000, in which Kenny, simulating Elián, is killed off as per the show’s episodic protocols. Symptomatic of Elián’s narrative dispersal, the Kenny-Elián simulation keeps on living and dying whenever the episode is re-broadcast on TV sets across the world. Appropriated and relocated to strange and estranging narrative terrain, one Elián now lives out his multiple existences in the Cuban-U.S. “atmosphere in history,” and the Elián icon continues to proliferate virtually anywhere. References Arboleya, Jesús. The Cuban Counter-Revolution. Trans. Rafael Betancourt. Research in International Studies, Latin America Series no. 33. Athens, OH: Ohio Center for International Studies, 2000. Braudy, Leo. The Frenzy of Renown: Fame and Its History. New York and Oxford: Oxford UP, 1986. Buzachero, Chris. “Elian Gonzalez in Hyper-Space.” Ctheory.net 24 May 2000. 19 Aug. 2004: http://www.ctheory.net/text_file.asp?pick=222>. Calvert, Clay. Voyeur Nation: Media, Privacy, and Peering in Modern Culture. Boulder: Westview, 2000. 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Victoria, Canada: Trafford, 2000. Stenger, Nicole. “Mind Is a Leaking Rainbow.” Cyberspace: First Steps. Ed. Michael Benedikt. Cambridge, MA: MIT P, 1991. 49-58. Welsh, Alexander. George Eliot and Blackmail. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1985. Citation reference for this article MLA Style Allatson, Paul. "The Virtualization of Elián González." M/C Journal 7.5 (2004). echo date('d M. Y'); ?> <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0411/16-allatson.php>. APA Style Allatson, P. (Nov. 2004) "The Virtualization of Elián González," M/C Journal, 7(5). Retrieved echo date('d M. Y'); ?> from <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0411/16-allatson.php>.