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MIGRATION: Undocumented Immigrants Won't Be Home for Christmas
By Diego Cevallos
MEXICO CITY, Dec 2 (IPS) - Every year, around two million Mexican and
Central American immigrants living in the United States head back to their
home countries for the holidays. But many millions more cannot even dream of
spending Christmas and New Year's with their loved ones, because once they
cross the Rio Grande, they might not be able to make it back again.
Those who are able to make the trip south almost always come "loaded down
with gifts and money, to help meet the many needs of the people here," said
Eduardo Quintero, a Catholic priest and deputy director of the Casa del
Migrante (Immigrant House) in Guatemala City.
The Casa del Migrante is a Catholic church-sponsored non-governmental
organisation devoted to defending the rights of migrants.
"Some of them are almost like tourists when they come back, because they
hardly know their own countries anymore," Quintero told IPS.
In fact, some have had to wait many years before making this journey home.
In order to leave U.S. territory with the hope of returning, Latin American
immigrants must be living in the United States legally, with all the
relevant paperwork in order.
For the millions of undocumented immigrants living there, leaving is far too
great a risk to take. In order to go back, they would have to cross the
border illegally, something that is becoming increasingly difficult thanks
to the tightened security measures adopted by the U.S. government since the
Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington.
There are 39.9 million people of Latin American birth or descent living in
the United States, out of a total population of 290.8 million, and it is
estimated that roughly five million of them are undocumented immigrants.
Those who have their papers in order, and are thus able to travel to their
homelands, are welcomed with open arms: not only by their families and
friends, but also by the region's authorities.
"The governments know that emigrants who come home for the holidays bring a
lot of dollars, which is good for the economy, so there are programmes
designed to help them," said Quintero in a telephone interview from his
office in Guatemala City.
"They come back like Santa Claus fattened up by Uncle Sam," he commented.
Every year, Latin American immigrants send around 30 billion dollars to
their countries of birth, and a large part of that money is sent in
December.
For countries like Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala and the Dominican
Republic, remittances sent home by emigrants represent between 10 and 14
percent of their total gross domestic product.
The most well-developed programme to welcome back émigrés for the Christmas
holidays is the one implemented in Mexico.
This year, around 1.7 million Mexican-Americans are expected to arrive
between late November and December and return to the United States in early
January.
They will be received at Mexico's airports, seaports and border crossings by
a veritable army of white-clad officials and billboards proclaiming
"Bienvenidos paisanos" (Welcome compatriots).
Both form part of the Paisano Programme, aimed at ensuring the safe and
orderly arrival of emigrés, many of whom complain about being asked for
bribes or even robbed by Mexican customs officials.
In El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, additional staff will be assigned to
customs and immigration posts to deal with the greater influx of visitors.
There will also be a heightened police presence on roads and highways to
prevent assaults and robberies of travellers.
"When our compatriots come home, they're welcomed with big celebrations, and
that's only natural, since they come loaded down with appliances, shoes,
clothes, and everything imaginable," said Beatriz Amaya, director of S.O.S.
Immigrants, a Salvadoran non-governmental organisation.
Salvadorans living in the United States typically bring gifts for almost
everyone in the communities they come from, Amaya told IPS. "They really are
like Santa Claus," she said.
"Some of them come back very 'Americanised' and their relatives are kind of
taken aback, but others continue to be very Salvadoran, and they feel deeply
attached to their communities," she added.
Between December 1 and January 15, the Salvadoran authorities allow visitors
to bring up to 3,000 dollars worth of merchandise each into the country,
which is 2,000 dollars more than during the rest of the year.
The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) has stated that money transfers
from emigrants are "vital" to the Central American nations.
If this money was to stop flowing in, the region's economies would collapse
in a matter of three months, the agency claims.
A report on migration released by the U.N. Department of Economic and Social
Affairs (DESA) on Monday agrees that migrant remittances are an important
source of income for the countries that receive them.
The report also stresses that immigrants do not take away jobs or bring down
salaries in destination countries.
In fact, destination countries benefit just as much as the home countries of
migrants, yet immigration policies are becoming increasingly strict around
the world.
The result is "a tremendous loss of efficiency," said José Antonio Ocampo,
the under-secretary-general of DESA.
"The number of governments adopting measures to restrict migration has
increased significantly in recent decades: in 2003, one-third of all
countries had policies to lower immigration, compared with only seven
percent in 1976," according to the U.N. report.
And one of the countries with the tightest restrictions is the United
States, the primary destination for Latin American immigrants.
(END/2004)
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