SOUTH AMERICA: Argentine Crisis Spawns Shift in Immigration Trends

By Mario Osava Reprint | | Print |

Mario Osava

RIO DE JANEIRO, Jun 5 2002 (IPS) - Argentina, for decades the main destination of immigrants in Latin America, has now become a source of emigrants. But neighbouring Brazil, the largest country in the region, lacks the economic or legal conditions to welcome surplus labour power from other South American countries.

The number of requests placed by Argentine immigrants for assistance from the Catholic Church’s Pastoral Service for Migrants in Sao Paulo has increased since December, when the crisis in that Southern Cone country peaked in looting, protests and the downfall of two presidents within two weeks.

Nevertheless, the number has not been significant, social worker Mario Xavier Steinhoff, at the Pastoral Service for Migrants, told IPS.

He said the biggest growth in the inflow of immigrants to Brazil has been seen in the number of Bolivians and Paraguayans who were living in Argentina and lost their jobs there or saw their earnings dwindle due to the devaluation of the Argentine peso and the freeze on bank withdrawals.

The largest proportion of immigrants in Brazil are in the greater Sao Paulo, a city of 17 million. However, no precise statistics are available, since a majority are undocumented, despite the amnesties granted in 1998 and 2000 allowing foreign nationals living in Brazil illegally to normalise their situation.

Estimates on the number of foreigners who have come to Brazil in search of work or better living conditions range from 100,000 to one million, said Steinhoff.

But the number of immigrants in this country of 162 million is still far lower than could be expected, given the profound economic, social and political crisis in Argentina, which has had a direct effect on neighbouring countries, say authorities and activists who provide assistance to foreigners.

In 1991, 807,000 Latin American immigrants were living in Argentina, a country of 36 million, seven times more than the number of immigrants in Brazil, according to the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC).

But experts say that number must have grown, given the expansion of the Argentine economy up to the start of a four-year recession in 1998.

The convertibility plan or currency board scheme that fixed the Argentine peso at par with the dollar from 1991 to last January also helped draw immigrants to that country, since the overvalued peso increased the buying power of remittances sent home by immigrants.

But that tendency has been turned around by the recession in Argentina, although its effects were neutralised by the critical situation of the economies of Bolivia, Paraguay and Peru, the sources of most of the immigrants to Argentina.

However, the collapse of the economy and the subsequent floating of the peso in January dealt the final blow to the image of Argentina as a “promised land,” destroying the hopes of immigrants and triggering a veritable exodus of Bolivians, Paraguayans and Peruvians as well as Argentines.

At least 150,000 Argentines have fled their country in the past two years, mainly to Spain and Italy, taking advantage of the right to dual nationality that is offered to the descendants of immigrants of both southern European countries.

Some 15,000 Bolivians, 10,000 Paraguayans and 5,000 Peruvians, most of them undocumented, have also left Argentina, returning to their countries of origin, according to data from the consulates of those countries.

Brazil could thus become an alternative destination for new waves of Latin American migrants, although this country “is not prepared to receive those people, due to legislation restricting immigration, and the stagnation of the economy,” said Steinhoff.

The Pastoral Service for Migrants, created in 1977 when Chileans comprised the biggest group of those seeking political asylum from that country’s 1973-90 dictatorship or jobs in Brazil, is drafting a request for another amnesty for undocumented immigrants, as well as measures that would make it easier for foreigners to earn residency status.

The policy of the government of President Fernando Henrique Cardoso, however, is aimed at impeding a flow of labourers from Argentina. This country is only interested in highly skilled workers and professionals, according to Labour Ministry provisions.

Foreigners wishing to gain residency in Brazil must have a work visa and job contract, which effectively closes the door to all but a handful of technicians or managers hired by large companies.

Although it is not difficult for Bolivians and Peruvians, most of whom seek work in the informal economy, in garment sweatshops or craft industries, to install themselves in Brazil, Chileans and Argentines, who tend to look for semi-skilled or skilled jobs in industry or the services sector, have a hard time living as undocumented workers in this country, said Steinhoff.

Gabriela Palomas, a Uruguayan who works at the aid centre of the Pastoral Service for Migrants in the southern city of Porto Alegre, said Argentines have not yet shown up seeking assistance.

But in another indication that many wealthier families are leaving Argentina, people from that country have been emigrating to the neighbouring state of Santa Catarina, which generally draws tourists from across the border, and where many Argentines own houses and businesses, said Palomas.

For now, Uruguayans constitute the greatest portion of the nearly 1,000 immigrants who have sought help at the Pastoral Service for Migrants in Porto Alegre, the capital of the state of Río Grande do Sul, said Palomas, who has been living in that city with her parents for the past 10 years.