Latin American Immigration to America: An Endless Firestorm
In the United States, as in other countries, immigration is the subject of intense public debate. Disagreements persist on many components of policy, including levels of enforcement, treatment of entrants to the destination country, and levels of acceptable immigration, notably by quotas. However, what is perhaps most unique about the United States immigration system, and the way that debates surrounding it are structured, is the extent to which immigrants are viewed in extremes. They are often viewed as either the hardest-working newcomers, coming to secure stability from the misfortune suffered before (i.e. war, long-term poverty, impact of disease, etc.), or as lazy, greedy people whose goal it is to undermine the culture and institutions of their new countries, replacing it with "their own culture" and reveling in the demise of the "original culture." Within this often fiery debate, Americans take a variety of stances on this issue. However, the views that drive the debate forward are the views that migrants from underdeveloped countries are either guilty of stealing jobs and threatening American values or the saving grace for economic prosperity. As a result, they view immigration debate not as a debate, but as a war, and thus lose sight of the many nuances that come with immigration policy, regardless of their stance on the issue.
Over the last 50 years, America has experienced a surge in immigration, from increasingly diverse regions of the world. For Americans, immigration which is discussed with perhaps the most zeal is immigration from Latin America, especially Mexico, which borders the United States to the south. In the case of Mexico, tensions often arise between the American and Mexican governments over the proper way to handle immigration. Since the 1980s, America has pressured Mexico to deport immigrants headed for the United States. For example, from 1983-1984, the U.S. pressured Mexico into deporting Central American refugees who arrived in Mexico by threatening to carry out its own deportations. Mexico, examining its own economic condition, and facing a debt crisis in 1982, succumbed to U.S. pressure (Minian, 2022). Ironically, as Mexico increased its level of deportations, even exceeding those of the United States in 1989, smugglers found new ways to smuggle migrants and refugees across Mexico. These smugglers, as well as certain Mexican citizens, capitalized on their lack of documentation by robbing and harassing them. This situation continues today, with migrants and refugees often being subject to abuse by Mexican and American customs officials, as well as smugglers (Minian, 2022).
The immigration situation in the United States is complex. The fact that socioeconomic factors are making life for the average citizen brutal, as they have been for a long time, makes the problem even more complex to solve. For example, economic and political instability has been a longstanding issue in Latin America, due in large part to the tough decision of each newly formed country to borrow money from a colonizer's political rival upon gaining independence to finance their development in the 1860s, approximately 40 years after many countries in the region became independent. For example, Mexico gained independence in 1821, but in 1861, England, Spain, and France launched a failed invasion against Juárez's forces in 1863. (Presidencia de la República, 2022). However, victory was bittersweet because it wasn't the last time that foreign powers intervened in Mexico's internal affairs. (The Veterans Museum at Balboa Park).
These conflicts, internally and externally, caused political and economic instability. However, the 1980s proved to be a particularly chaotic era for the region. At this time, globalization was rapidly gaining ground all over the world. With globalization came increased dependence on contact with the outside world and especially with American financial institutions. The economic shock felt throughout the world in the wake of the oil crisis of 1979 (not to be confused with carried over to the 1980s. This event is not to be confused with the more severe 1973 crisis, due to the OPEC-led oil embargo. However, Latin America was not affected very much due to its own oil supply (based in Brazil and Venezuela). What made it damaging for the region, especially in 1981, was that the interest rates charged by private lenders for Latin American countries to buy U.S. dollars increased sharply, due to decreasing prospects of debt repayment and interest rate increases by the Federal Reserve, America's central bank. This discouraged American financial institutions and other businesses to continue to lend money to Latin American economies. Paradoxically, this made them more dependent on foreign loans, all the while foreign banks refused to extend any loans (Pagnotta, 2014). And so, Latin America suffered a loss of exports because doing business in Latin America only became more and more risky. Facing increased levels of foreign debt as well, Latin American governments were forced to privatize government services such as agencies overseeing health care, on loan conditions from the International Monetary Fund, an intergovernmental organization that lends money to damaged national economies.
Because economic and political instability (Pagnotta, 2014) were making life harder for ordinary people in Latin America, more and more people made the journey: on foot, by car, and by any other means necessary. It is important to note that coyotes, or human smugglers, extorted money from people in exchange for sneaking them across borders, including the U.S.-Mexico border (Pagnotta, 2014). No matter by which means they used to reach the United States, they were, and still are, reminded of their pain, especially when they reach the border. In the 1980s, the Reagan administration instituted quotas on agricultural workers and tried to punish American businesses who hired undocumented foreign workers under the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 (Pagnotta, 2014). However, that law also imposed harsher border controls, a manifestation of the U.S.'s policy to limit immigration, adopted only a few years before the law was passed. Ever since then, the U.S. has mainly sought to make its border ever more impermeable as time goes on. In February 2022, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, an agency within the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (which replaced the Immigration and Naturalization Service in 2002), was reported to have tested "'robot dogs' - more aptly described as four-legged drones - for deployment to the U.S.-Mexico border, [which leads to] wasteful spending…[and] undermine[s] privacy rights of border residents (Drake, 2022)." Under the administration of former president George W. Bush, and continuing with the administration of former president Barack Obama and his successors, immigration authorities in the U.S. have granted substantial amounts of money for use on monitoring and hardening the U.S. border, often amplifying the threats of immigration-based dangers like arms and drug-smuggling in bad faith to justify these measures. The result is an artificial humanitarian crisis where not only Latin American, but also Caribbean (notably Haitian, after the August 2021 earthquake) immigrants face harsh treatment by top government officials from a distance, but also from CBP agents on the ground (Center for Disaster Philanthropy, 2021) .
In the United States, both American politicians and individuals, regardless of political affiliation, treat the immigration crisis as a war to protect or attack immigrants. However, all sides lose sight of the fact that immigration problems today are complex, and they have a long, and complex history. Rarely do policymakers and individuals take into account the long history of political violence and economic instability within Latin America, nor the history of foreign, and especially American, intervention in governance in the region. Thus, all sides recommend misguided policy solutions to this crisis. The result of this debate is the dehumanization of migrants who are facing major problems in their individual lives, and if America is to be part of the solution, it must address the historical context in which large waves of migration occur and prevent misconceptions from clouding their judgment.
Works Cited
Center for Disaster Philanthropy. (2021, August 14). 2021 Haiti earthquake and tropical storm Grace. [White paper]. https://disasterphilanthropy.org/disaster/2021-haiti-earthquake-and-tropical-storm-grace/
Drake, S. (2022, March 9). 'Robot dogs' at the border are expensive, ineffective civil rights violations- Opinion. Newsweek. https://www.newsweek.com/robot-dogs-border-are-expensive-ineffective-civil-rights-violations-opinion-1686028
Minian, A.R. (2022, March 14). The long history of the U.S. immigration crisis. Foreign Affairs. https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/mexico/2022-03-14/long-history-us-immigration-crisis
Pagnotta, C. (2014). Latin American migration within the continent between 1980 and 2000: a historical perspective. Nuevo Mundo Mundos Nuevos. https://journals.openedition.org/nuevomundo/67174
Presidencia de la República. (2022). Historia del pueblo mexicano. Gobierno de México. https://www.gob.mx/presidencia/documentos/historia-del-pueblo-mexicano
The Veterans Museum at Balboa Park. (n.d.) United States Interventions in Mexico: 1914-1917. https://veteranmuseum.net/research-united-states-interventions-in-mexico/#:~:text=During%20the%20Mexican%20Revolution%20
