U.S. Coast Guard photographs of Haitians at sea, 1981. Source:Caribbean Sea Migration Collection, David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Duke University.
Please, refer to the readings and video for the week, but more information isfound in the readings byJean-François,McBride, and the video "Strangers from a strange land"(https://www.nytimes.com/video/world/americas/100000000733274/deportees.html).
POST 1
Chooseone questionto answer:
- Comment on whether or not deporting Haitians who had already served sentences in the United States is the equivalent of cruel and unusual punishment (video "Strangers from a strange land")
- Comment on the 1996 Immigration (IIRIRA) reform debate
- How do you compare U.S. responses to refugees from Cuban, Haiti, Nicaragua, El Salvador, and Guatemala?
- Comment on the U.S. interdiction at sea andrefoulement(return)policies toward Haitians.
O: Service Bureau Jobs#52-92_ Published by Blackwell Publishers Ltd., 108 Cowley Road, Oxford OX4 1JF, UK, and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA. © 1999 IOM International Migration Vol. 37 (1) 1999 ISSN 0020-7985 Migrants and Asylum Seekers: Policy Responses in the United States to Immigrants and Refugees from Central America and the Caribbean Michael J. McBride* ABSTRACT Although the 1990s have witnessed unprecedented immigration and refugee flows, many receiving countries in the West, including the US, have begun to apply more restrictionist policies as a result of perceived threats to their economies and cultural homogeneity. US immigration policy has generally responded to economic concerns and domestic pressures, while US refugee policy has reflected foreign policy concerns, especially the desire to embarrass communist systems during the Cold War. These policies have resulted in extensive immigration from Mexico and large numbers of refugees from Cuba and Nicaragua, but limited accept- ance of asylum seekers from Haiti, El Salvador and Guatemala. The Welfare Reform Act and Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigration Responsibility Act (IIRIRA) of 1996 and Proposition 187 movement in California (1994), which were meant to limit assistance to legal immigrants, reduce illegal immigration, and improve the efficiency of asylum process, were influenced significantly by American public opinion which viewed large numbers of immigrants as a threat to the American lifestyle. This legislation also led to revisions in the Immigration and Naturalization Service’s (INS) procedures including the “expedited removal” process and new guidelines on deportation and detention which many observers believe may lead to arbitrary decisions and possible violations of international guidelines. These policies present special problems for immigrants and refugees from Central America and the Caribbean who make up a large proportion of these cases. * Political Science Department, Whittier College, California. 290 McBride Since US policy results from a complex matrix of actors including the President, executive branch departments, Congress, the courts, state governors and legislatures and numerous interest groups, and is heavily influenced by perceptions of the American public, any attempt to modify these policies will require an extensive outreach programme on the part of UNHCR and other interested organizations. In addition, US policy makers must be encouraged to integrate immigration and refugee policy into its overall long-term planning and to participate in efforts at regional cooperation (such as the Puebla process) in order to address the complex problems raised by current and future migration and refugee flows and ensure a more consistent and more humane response to the needs of immigrants, refugees and asylum seekers. INTRODUCTION The 1990s have witnessed unprecedented immigration and refugee flows. While international organizations such as the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) view these situations from a humanitarian perspective, nation states, especially receiving countries, tend to view them through a combination of humanitarian, domestic and foreign policy considerations. More recently, government officials and the public at large, in particular in Europe and the US, have reflected concerns about the impact of immigrants on their economies and cultural homogeneity and, in some cases, have displayed signs of xenophobia. While the right of sovereign states to determine who may, and may not, enter their territory is not being questioned, these governments have begun to apply more restrictionist policies which are inconsistent with international guidelines established by the 1951 Refugee Convention and the 1967 Protocol, and present new obstacles to those seeking asylum and protection from refoulement. UNHCR has expressed its concerns about these actions (United Nations, 1998: 27-28), which have been the subject of several recent studies comparing refugee and immigration policies in, among other countries, Germany, Japan and the US (Bade and Weiner, 1997; Kubat, 1993; Münz and Weiner, 1997; Teitelbaum and Weiner, 1995; Weiner and Hanami, 1998). A restrictionist approach has not always been the norm in US policy. In 1991 a Ford Foundation report on migration noted: America is deeply implicated in the migration flow and its destiny. American employers fuel the immigration, American foreign policy embraces it, and Ameri- can family values maintain it ... As a nation, we have been there before. America thrives on its immigrant heritage. Part history, part ideology, immigration embodies the theme of national renewal, rebirth, hope. Uprooted 291Migrants and asylum seekers: policy responses in the United States abroad, newcomers have become transplants in a land that promises oppor- tunity (Papademetriou, 1991: 303). Papademetriou suggests that managing the “delicate tensions” that underlie immigration and refugee interests is at the root of a sound immigration and refugee policy. Yet those tensions have now escalated to a point where US immigration and refugee policies are in disarray and threaten to undermine the humanitarian values and international agreements to which the US publicly subscribes. This article analyses the complex political environment in which these tensions exist, especially with regard to Central America and the Caribbean, and offers recommendations for managing them more effectively in the future. HISTORICAL PATTERNS IN IMMIGRATION AND REFUGEE POLICY Immigration policy The US, other than its indigenous peoples, is a land of immigrants and refugees. Over 18 million persons immigrated between 1946 and 1992, with an average of approximately 700,000 during the last ten years of that period. But as the US immigrant population increased and began to strain government budgets, or was perceived as a threat to cultural homogeneity, public pressure led Congress to place restrictions on immigration. This was not the first time that restrictions had been applied. Limits on Chinese immigration existed in the 1880s. Other Asians were restricted through the Immigration Act of 1917, and general limits were placed on all immigrants during the 1920s (Russell, 1995: 61). The Immigration Act of 1952 not only reduced restrictions on Asians (Russell, 1995: 61-62), it also removed racial and sexual bars to immigration and naturalization and established preferred categories of immigrants: those with high levels of education, relatives of US citizens, and spouses and children of permanent resident aliens (Diaz-Briquets, 1995: 163-164). The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 eliminated national origin quotas and “embraced an immigration selection system based on family reunification and needed skills”. However, the Act did place a ceiling for the first time on immigration from the Western Hemisphere while promoting immigration from Asia (Diaz-Briquets, 1995: 166-167). Since the 1940s, the major source of immigrants to the US has been Mexico. A long, porous border, economic opportunities, a desire for “good neighbour” relations, and the need for cheap labour have all contributed to this movement (Castillo, 1994; Hamilton and Chinchilla, 1996; Mitchell, 1997a; 292 McBride Papademetriou, 1991,1992; Russell, 1995). From 1941 to 1964, the Bracero Programme for Mexican farm workers helped many immigrate, and an economic recession in Mexico in the 1970s provided additional incentives. Between 1946 and 1992, over 4.3 million legal immigrants arrived from Mexico; hundreds of thousands more came illegally (Russell, 1995: 69). Concerns about huge numbers of illegal immigrants led to passage of the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986, the major components of which provided for legalization of over 3 million undocumented aliens (including 1.8 million Mexicans), established sanctions against employers who hired illegal aliens, and, supposedly, improved border control (Diaz-Briquets, 1995: 169-171; Keely, 1993: 74-77; Papademetriou, 1992: 317-322). The Immigration Act of 1990 increased the annual ceiling on immigration to 675,000 and reformulated the preference system into family-based and independent migration categories, the latter including a diversity component to provide for immigration from under-represented countries. In addition, the Act gave the attorney general the authority to grant Temporary Protection Status (TPS) to “citizens of countries facing natural or human made crisis” (Diaz-Briquets, 1995: 172). This status was extended to approximately 187,000 Salvadorans. When their grant expired at the end of 1992, they were given “deferred enforcement departure” (DED) through 31 December 1994, since their return home was considered a potential threat to the Salvadoran economy (Russell, 1995: 52). The 1990 Act remained in effect until pressures for change led to immigration reform legislation in 1996. That legislation was influenced in part by an increase in the number of refugees coming from Central America and the Caribbean. Refugee policy The US participated in the establishment of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, and welcomed thousands of refugees. Unlike US immigration policy, which often rested on economic concerns and domestic pressures, the initial response to refugee flows reflected humanitarian and foreign policy considerations. The US viewed the refugee situation as symbolic of the problems of living under communism and saw the departure of refugees as a means of weakening communist regimes. A 1953 National Security Council memorandum cited the 1953 Refugee Act as a way to “encourage defection of all USSR nations and ‘key’ personnel from the satellite countries’ in order to ‘inflict a psychological blow on communism’ and ... material loss to the Soviet Union” (Zolberg, 1995: 123-124). The 1948 Displaced Persons Act provided for 205,000 (later raised to 415,000) refugees, and the Refugee Relief Act of 1953 admitted another 214,000. The Refugee Escapee Act of 1957 (following the Hungarian Revolution) accepted several hundred thousand more and included a provision to admit as refugees 293Migrants and asylum seekers: policy responses in the United States “persons fleeing persecution in communist countries or the Middle East” (Russell, 1995: 47; Zolberg, 1995: 125), setting a pattern which continued throughout the next two decades. In the 1960s approximately 130,000 Cubans were granted permanent resident status, while the 1970s saw a huge intake from Vietnam and other parts of Indochina. From 1971 to 1980, 96.8 per cent of all refugees entering the US came from communist or Middle Eastern countries. The Refugee Act of 1980 established “the first permanent and systematic procedures for the admission and effective resettlement of refugees of special humanitarian concern to the US” (Russell, 1995: 49). Despite this attempt to provide a more balanced refugee approach, between 1980 and 1990, 94.6 per cent of refugees still came from communist or Middle Eastern countries, in part because the Bush and Reagan Administrations applied the phrase “of humanitarian concern” to those from communist systems, in particular Soviet Jews (Zolberg, 1995: 139). In the latter part of the decade there was a major shift in the primary source of refugees; from 1984 to 1990 over 60 per cent came from the Caribbean and Central America, in particular Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, El Salvador, and Guatemala (Russell, 1995: 49-51). This shift in source of refugees presented the US with a new challenge (Keely, 1993: 73). For refugees from the Caribbean and Central America, the US was often the country of first asylum, and so had to revise its refugee policy to deal with those on its doorstep rather than an ocean away. Two other factors contributed to the need for revision: first, increasing pressures to limit immigration from a public