The inexorable decline of global fertility rates will just as inexorably lead to more migration of the world’s people.
Low Fertility and Labor Shortages Might Save the World
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immigration
African Migrants and the Israeli Apartheid Debate
The name of the neighborhood could not have been more symbolic. Located in southern Tel Aviv, the impoverished Hatikva quarter has always born the stigma of sharing a name with Israel’s national anthem, while playing home to some of the poorest, most marginalized Jews in the country—as well as a growing population of African asylum seekers, mostly from Eritrea and South Sudan.
Deporting Adult Adoptees
Excited about turning 18 during a presidential election year, Jenna Johnson registered to vote with her high school classmates and cast her first ballot. She canvassed her local Minnesota neighborhood as a volunteer signing up voters. Then four years later, while sharing stories with other Korean adoptees who remembered their naturalization ceremonies, Jenna couldn’t recall ever experiencing her own. A few days later, she phoned what was then the Immigration and Naturalization Service to check on her status and was shocked to learn that she was not a U.S. citizen. Her green card, which she kept as a memento from her adoption as a 2-year old, had expired.
Europe’s Dilemma: Immigration and the Arab Spring
Much of the West voiced great support for the Arab Spring. However, the European Union in particular soon curbed its enthusiastic reaction when residents of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) began streaming into Europe after turmoil from the Arab Spring left many MENA civilians unable to remain in the region. Immigration from the Middle East and North Africa to the European Union surged over the past year, causing the leaders of many EU countries to speak out against the growing influx of Arab immigrants seeking refuge within their borders.
Shedding Light on Immigration
Huong, a Vietnamese-American artist and activist, seeks to capture the magnitude of America’s immigration debate in her latest mural project, “Immigration – The Wall of Borders.” In a recent visit to FPIF, Huong was keen to emphasize the scale of the mural: eight feet high and over 200 feet long, with a planned expansion to some 400 feet by the time the mural is unveiled in Miami in January 2012.
Tengo un Dream
On August 26, just three blocks from San Francisco’s iconic City Hall, the veil was lowered from a 100-foot-wide, 30-foot-tall mural on the wall of the city’s Quaker Meetinghouse. Declaring “No Human Being is Illegal, y Cada Uno Tiene un Sueño” (and each one has a dream), the piece is the work of an immigrant-rights youth group called “67 Sueños” (67 Dreams) whose mission is to raise awareness of the plight faced by the estimated 67 percent of migrant youth who would not benefit from the provisions of the DREAM Act.
Riding “The Beast”
From July 25 to August 2 of this year, hundreds of Central American migrants, their family members, and activists participated in the Caravan “Step by Step for Peace” to demand respect for immigrant rights. Part I (here) of this article details the goals of the Caravan, especially its protest of the kidnappings of migrants who cross Mexico. Part 2, presented below, chronicles the travels by freight train across Mexico.
Most Asylum Seekers Are Not Cheaters
Allegations have surfaced that the Guinean woman who accused the former executive director of the IMF, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, of sexual assault had lied during her asylum proceedings. This story has fed into a larger narrative that desperate immigrants, assisted by unscrupulous enablers, cheat their way through the system to gain asylum. Some media outlets played their part to further advance this impression.
Development and Migration: The Missing Link
Although Obama’s attempt to reframe the debate moved discussion back into economics, he left out any structural explanation of what pushes migration in a globalized world. He portrayed U.S. companies that employ undocumented labor as rogue rule-breakers, and simultaneously exalted migrants as valuable assets while still describing them as global interlopers.
The Sisyphus of Europe?
In Greek mythology, King Sisyphus was sentenced to eternal senseless labor as a punishment for insulting the gods. Until the end of time, he must push an enormous stone up the hill only to have it roll back over and over again. Turkey was granted candidate status in December 1999 — 50 years after it first applied for membership — but has managed 12 years later to close only one chapter of the accession negotiations. Despite uphill movement by Ankara, the stone keeps rolling back down again to block Turkey’s entrance to the EU.