Immigration
Immigration is the entry into a country or region of people who were born or come from another country or region. It represents one of the two options or alternatives of the term migration, which is applied to the movements of people from one place to another and these movements entail a temporary or permanent change of residence. The two options of these migratory movements are: emigration, which is the departure of people from a certain country, to go to a different one; and immigration, which is the entry into a given country from another. So that an emigration carries as a posterior counterpart an immigration in the country of arrival. And with respect to this last idea, it must be clarified that until an emigrant arrives in a new country, they should not be considered an immigrant, something that has been happening in recent years, with the great migratory crisis in Europe, since hundreds and even Thousands of people have been emigrating from conflict-affected countries in Africa and the Middle East and have died in shipwrecks and other accidents before arriving as immigrants in European countries.
Individual perception of immigration
Migratory processes are typical of the human species and many other species. Said processes are born from the instinct of conservation of the species more than of the individual, and are always due to a comparative evaluation of the environment where one lives in terms of the resources and possibilities available, and of a different environment, in which there is a perception that those resources and possibilities can be greater and better. This comparison between daily life in one country and another is currently caused by the great ease of moving from one place to another, making it increasingly easier to find out what life is like in other countries. It acts in a double sense: when there is a favorable perception of their own country and when this perception is unfavorable, which is the reason that explains immigration in the first case and the one that describes the reasons for emigration in the second case, such as can be seen in an article by Axel Capriles in the Caracas newspaper El Universal on September 24, 2009 (). Obviously, when it comes to evaluating the standard of living that exists between different countries, it can not only be achieved through a trip abroad, but through a multitude of ways and procedures that today have been made possible by the technological development of communications and means of transport: communication with relatives in the country of possible entry, references from third parties, tourist advertising or other economic activities, etc.
In the country of origin
In the country of origin of the immigrant there are usually certain legal problems for emigration, largely created by the respective government, which tries to prevent the departure of emigrants, especially since the vast majority of them tend to be young adults in age to work and contribute to the development of the country or to the objectives established by the government itself. In particular, fascist, communist or anti-democratic governments in general have always tried to hinder emigration, as can be seen in the article on Italian emigration on Wikipedia in this language. Thus, although in the latter case the reasons Mussolini's government had for restricting emigration were not very clear, the truth is that it practically disappeared between 1929 and the end of the Second World War, as indicated below:
L'emigrazione nelle Americhe fu enormous nella seconda metà dell'Ottocento e nei primi decenni del Novecento. Quasi si esourì durante il Fascismo, ma ebbe una piccola ripresa subito dopo la fines della seconda guerra mondialeEmigration to America was enormous in the second half of the nineteenth century and in the first decades of the twentieth century. He almost disappeared during fascism but had a small rebound at the end of the Second World War.L'Emigrazione italiano
However, it is in the Italian Wikipedia itself where we find criticism of government policies opposed to emigration:
Cosa intende per Nazione, Minister? Is he a massa di infelici? Piantiamo grano ma non mangiamo pane bianco. Coltiviamo la vite, ma non beviamo il vino. Alleviamo animali, ma non mangiamo carne. Ciò nonostante voi ci consigliate di non abbandonare la nostra Patria? Ma è una Patria la terra dove non si riesce a vivere del proprio lavoro?What do you understand by nation, Mr. Minister? Is it a dough of unhappy? We sow wheat but don't eat white bread. We cultivate the vine but don't drink wine. We raise cattle but we don't eat meat. However, you advise us not to leave our homeland. But is a Homeland the place where someone can't live from their own work?Anonymous response to an Italian minister, 19th century ()
The example of Italian emigration is very clear in this sense and perhaps emblematic because their emigration had to be to countries with a different language, mainly the United States, Argentina, Brazil, Venezuela after the Second World War and to other European countries in recent times. And the descendants of the Italians who emigrated during the XX century are more than 60 million, which means as much or more than the current Italian population, although we must bear in mind that it is difficult to obtain precise figures in this regard. Something different happened in France, where its inhabitants were always quite reluctant to leave the country, with some exceptions with the former colonies (Quebec, for example).
In the country of immigration
In each country, the obstacles to the entry of immigrants are much clearer and have multiple facets, both on the part of the respective governments and on the part of the country's own inhabitants and even other immigrants already established, especially if they come from different countries. A simple explanation of the rejection of immigrants in the country of entry is offered by William F. Ogburn and Meyer F. Nimkoff in their book Sociology
Individuals are not always cordial to the changes made in the group to which they belong, but are often hostile to innovations suggested by outside people or even by newcomers to the group...These distinctions are better understood from the point of view of the theory of extra-group and intra-group relationships, which can be said to arise when groups acting on one another feel strange or hostile to each other. Under such circumstances, all members of the same group constitute an intragroup or a "us" as opposed to an extra group or a "them".
However, there are times when this immigration is favored by governments in order to find people who are experts in certain jobs, as can be inferred from the composition of the population by age and sex in the oil-producing countries of the Persian Gulf, where young adults abound, especially men, while children and the older population are very scarce. The population pyramids of these Persian Gulf countries are very similar to the demographic pyramid of the immigrant population in Spain, which can be seen in this article.
The territorial dispersal of human beings
The first human migrations
Migrations are as old as humanity and appear in the oldest relationships of almost all religions and cultures that exist. In the case of the Judeo-Christian tradition, the expulsion of man by the Creator after original sin constitutes the first reference to a kind of forced migration. Other examples can be found in the Exodus or Flight from Egypt, the 40 years of life in the Sinai desert, the settlement in Canaan, etc. In the Islamic tradition we can cite the flight or transfer of Muhammad from Mecca to Medina, a process known as the Hegira, which can be translated as emigration.
The same theory of evolution and the discovery of very old fossil remains in Africa give us reason to believe that human beings had a common origin from where they migrated in different directions to settle in increasingly remote places.
In general, it can be said that technological development has always given rise to a territorial expansion of peoples and the establishment of new human groups in increasingly remote places: the discovery of fire, for example, allowed human beings to settle in places that were much colder. The same can be said of the discovery of agriculture (the Neolithic Revolution), of livestock and animal domestication, of metallurgy, of sailing boats, of the Industrial Revolution, of the railway, of the internal combustion engine (which put to use desert regions where there was oil and where the majority of people from other parts settled) and many other examples.
A migration that became known thousands of years after it occurred
Chronologically, the settlement of peoples from the Asian mainland who crossed the Behring Strait during the Pleistocene, when the great continental glaciers that covered large areas of North America and Europe had caused a drop in sea level of more than of 100 m that gave rise to the development of a kind of bridge between Eurasia and America, constitutes a milestone of great importance in the history of humanity. Thus, Pleistocene glaciers, as well as their influence on the appearance and territorial expansion of human beings in America, is explained in Gwen Schultz's book Glaciers and the ice age. Earth and its inhabitants during the Pleistocene.
Schultz points out that the great glaciers of northern Europe and North America had, during their maximum extension in the Pleistocene, a western limit that did not coincide exactly with mountain ranges or seas, ending progressively in the chain of lakes that surround that maximum extension on the west side, a chain that includes in Europe, the lakes, Ladoga, Onega, Malar, Peipus, the Masurian lakes, and others; while in North America, the edge of the Great Laurentian Glacier (a name taken from the Saint Lawrence River, which occupies the natural drainage path of the ancient glacier) was formed by the Great Lakes (Superior, Michigan, Huron, Erie and Ontario) in the southwest, while to the northwest, the edge of the glacier ended in the current route formed by the Mackenzie River and which includes the lakes of Winipeg, Great Bear Lake, Great Slave Lake and many others.
The Neolithic Revolution
Alvin Toffler, in his famous work The Third Wave points out the occurrence of three great revolutions in time that completely transformed the history of humanity. The first refers to the Neolithic Revolution, the invention and development of agriculture, which gave rise to the sedentarization of human beings. Gordon Childe refers to this Revolution as the stage he calls The Origins of Civilization: in reality, the stable settlement of human beings around increasingly large agricultural towns constitutes a gigantic step in the history of civilization since we must not forget that the term civilization comes from city (civitas in Latin) and the first cities were agricultural settlements.
The Industrial Revolution
The second wave was the industrial revolution, which brought with it the development of mass production of industrial products, the development of the railway and other inventions, which allowed the growth of cities to an extent never seen before in history. In turn, this growth of cities brought with it an enormous process of rural exodus, first in the most industrialized countries and later throughout the world. Both the Neolithic Revolution less than 10,000 years ago, and the Industrial Revolution that began some two centuries ago, brought with them enormous displacements of millions of people and enormous changes in human activities and ways or styles of life: from nomadic to sedentary and from rural to urban. And the Third Wave, the gigantic development of technology in the second half of the 20th century and early XXI, has given rise to gigantic movements of billions of people, both spatially and temporally.
Migrations have always been very important. Historically, migrations have completely changed the appearance of countries, influencing their racial, linguistic and cultural composition, as well as other important changes with great repercussions.
For thousands of years, human beings were expanding into new territories, as the population increased and they needed new spaces in which to obtain resources, especially food. We could not then speak of true immigration, since this term refers to the name of newcomers to a place by those who already resided in that place. The populated centers were very small and were surrounded by the lands from which they obtained their subsistence.
We can say that the concepts related to immigration arose in the Ancient Age with the foundation and development of colonies in the Mediterranean, by the Phoenician, Greek, Carthaginian and Roman cities, although in the latter case, the process of The occupation of the territory acquired a different meaning, since there was the formation of a political-territorial institution much more similar to that of the national states that emerged in the Modern Age which, by the way, were largely inspired by the legal legacy and form of government of the Roman Empire (for example, the Carolingian Empire and the Holy Roman Empire). At the time of the Roman Empire one could already speak of immigration as we understand it now: Mérida, for example, with the name of Emerita Augusta, was founded with soldiers discharged from the Roman army (hence the name Emerita since the Roman name for the demobilized soldiers was that of emeritus or retirees). But since the city already existed before, its inhabitants accepted this "immigration" in exchange for receiving the title of "citizens" romans.
Fifteen hundred years ago, in what we now know as Moscow, there was not a single Russian, in New York, not an American, in Dubai there were no Emiratis or Arabs, in Hungary there was not a single Hungarian, in Turkey there were no Turks, Spain was beginning to be Visigothic, only indigenous people lived in America, only Polynesians and Melanesians in Australia, Albanians lived in a minority in the Kosovo region, France and Germany only had Romans, which makes the term even more complex since the historical point of view.
And the barbarian invasions, which mark the end of the Ancient Age and the beginning of the Middle Ages, were a good example to explain the rejection of the native population of one place to people coming from other places, mainly because of the fact that it is not a true immigration but a process of invasion and conquest.
The medieval period (S. V - S. XV) is the feudal period, in which migratory flows were minimized by the closed and self-sufficient life of the fiefdoms. Relations between different peoples or groups were military, conquest and forced displacement of entire groups and peoples. In the ten centuries that it lasted, in addition to the barbarian invasions, the Arab conquest in the Mediterranean, the Reconquest in the Iberian Peninsula, the establishment of the Normans in the territory of present-day France, the development of feudalism in the Asian continent stand out., with the invasions of the Mongolian peoples and the slow but continuous expansion and settlement of the American peoples (descendants of Asians who crossed the Behring Strait in the last glacial period) throughout the entire continent.
In the past, large flows of immigrants made American countries prosperous and active. The United States is the one that traditionally received (and continues to receive) immigrants from all over the world.
Currently, it is noted that immigration processes have acquired different characteristics, such as greater border controls and restrictive policies on the part of the nation-states, as well as changes in sociodemographic profiles where the greater participation of women stands out. and other actors involved during mobility and settlement.
Only four countries currently promote immigration (Australia, Canada, Israel and New Zealand), in the case of Israel to any Jew who is in the diaspora, in the others, limiting it to those interested who demonstrate their ' employability' potential and an adequate level of adaptation to local cultures.
Other countries allow it in special circumstances, for example to fill positions where local supply is scarce, for investors, in case of marriage, or political asylum, or under multilateral agreements such as in the European Union.
Wage gaps can be so large that undocumented immigration can become a major 'industry'. Other reasons driving migration flows include political persecution and family reunification.
Many businesses (legitimate or illegitimate) have developed as a response to the presence of immigrant communities: money transfers, telephone booths, typical restaurants, and specialties typical of the cuisine of the distant country.
Some economists claim that a free global labor market, with no restrictions on immigration, would contribute in the long run to boosting general prosperity, having a more beneficial effect than the free movement of goods and capital. Others disagree, pointing out that such a situation would negatively affect wages and unionization of workers, and would skyrocket the immigrant population to unsustainable levels. In favor of this last idea is the fact that technological development is leaving millions of people unemployed each year, both in developed and underdeveloped countries. And another idea that must be taken into account is that of the ghost of overproduction, both of agricultural and industrial products, despite the fact that more and more millions of people exist outside the minimum levels of consumption.
In addition to the countries that encourage immigration, probably typical countries of immigrants are Germany, Australia, Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Costa Rica, the United States, France, Mexico, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, Venezuela, among others; being in them where we can study the phenomenon of foreigners who go to work. Likewise, the typical countries that now have a high percentage of emigration would be Albania, Bulgaria, China, Colombia, Cuba, Ecuador, India, Morocco, Mexico, Nicaragua, Peru, Romania, Turkey, Uruguay and Venezuela, among others, which register rates of negative net migration, thus constituting themselves as expelling regions or protagonists of large migratory movements, with Latin America, Eastern Europe, Asia and Africa being the main expelling regions of emigrants to the more developed world.
Many countries and regions have gone through various stages or cycles with respect to migration and from being nations of strong emigration (such as Spain before 1960) have become recipients of immigrants. The reasons are usually economic, political (dictatorial or militaristic regimes), wars, etc. The inverse case has also happened very frequently: Argentina was during the first third of the XX century (and even before) a country Receiver of millions of immigrants mainly from Italy, Spain, England, France and other parts of Europe, today it continues to be a receiving country but from neighboring countries, Paraguay, Bolivia, Uruguay, Peru, and other Latin American countries, highlighting Venezuela, Colombia, from Africa, the Asian continent (Korea, China, Lebanon), and from some European countries, but with migratory trickle since 1973.
As of 2009, Argentina has more than 1.5 million foreigners, mostly concentrated in the City of Buenos Aires, and the provinces of Buenos Aires, Santa Fe, Córdoba, and the rest scattered in other provinces.
In Central America and the Caribbean, two countries stand out; Belize and Costa Rica, which are the main percentage recipients of immigrants in the region and have one of the highest per capita migration rates in the world. In the case of Belize, almost 15% of its population is made up of immigrants, mainly from Honduras, Guatemala, Mexico and the United States. This makes the country one of the largest percentage recipients of immigrants in the American continent. Meanwhile, Costa Rica is emerging as the largest percentage recipient of immigrants in Latin America, and the main migratory destination of the entire isthmus, with between 9% and 11% of immigrants in its population and close to half a million foreigners. residing in the country, the highest number in Central America. Immigration in Costa Rica is made up mainly of Latin Americans (Nicaragua, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, among many others), but thousands of Americans also live in the country, Canadians, Afro-Antilleans, Europeans (United Kingdom, Italy, France, Spain and Germany), Africans (Ghana, Morocco and Egypt) and Asians (Lebanon, United Arab Emirates, China, Taiwan and Hong Kong). These migratory flows have been maintained since the XIX century, since then Costa Rica has been the traditional, main and most popular Central American destination for Italians, Spanish, French, Lebanese and Chinese.
Similarly, in Mexico there have always been important foreign communities since the XIX century, but since 2000 there has been an exponential growth of the immigrant population compared to previous decades; In the country there is a significant population of Americans, given the proximity, during the 2014 census there were 1,010,103 Americans living in Mexico, making it the country where more Americans live outside the United States in the world, a considerable rate also stands out immigration from Spain, Guatemala, Colombia, Italy, Canada, Argentina, Germany, Australia, Japan, Cuba, Venezuela and South Korea. Also during the XX century, a rate of South American migration to Mexico stands out due to problems that some South American countries had at that time. Today Mexico faces certain problems of illegal or uncontrolled immigration that enters its territory, whose origin is mainly Latin American, Caribbean and Asian countries.
Today, the American countries with the greatest ethnic and cultural diversity are: the United States, Canada, Argentina, Brazil, Costa Rica, Mexico, Puerto Rico, Uruguay, and Venezuela.
Far from the political persecution and economic crises of this period, the majority of Argentines emigrated to countries of the American Continent and other nations such as Spain, Italy, the United Kingdom, Australia and Israel, the first two countries of which Many of the people who emigrated to Argentina in the last century left.
Until 2008, the number of immigrants increased due to the need for workers from developed economies and the lower price of international tickets.
Immigration during recent times of economic crisis
The unemployment rate for immigrants is rising faster than that of native workers. Immigrants are canceling their plans to move and governments are lowering immigrant fees.
Recent population flows give rise to both a legal differentiation on the part of each State (Spain, Italy, Germany, etc.), and a social one on the part of the native population with respect to the rights of immigrants. And it is not only immigrants, but also former emigrants "returned" who, although probably with greater advantages than immigrants themselves, do not have all the rights and benefits of long-time resident nationals.
Immigration in the different continents
America
After the Europeans arrived in America, a part of the original indigenous peoples were displaced or decimated by the Europeans and another large part also ended up mixing with them, giving rise to miscegenation, which mainly forms in Spanish America, most of the current population. Among the European peoples who actively participated in these massive emigrations to America, in addition to the Spanish, we can mention the English, Portuguese, French, German, Italian, Danish, and Dutch. Due to the shortage of labor, especially in the work of the so-called plantations, black African slaves were imported from the countries of the Gulf of Guinea, which again changed the composition of the population and new racial mixtures: mulattoes, zambos, and other denominations that are no longer used. The descendants, increasingly mixed with the other racial groups, predominated in the regions with a warm climate near the coast, where they constituted the workforce of the main haciendas or plantations of sugar cane, cocoa and cotton, among other crops.
In the Caribbean islands, where the impact of the Conquest decimated the indigenous population very quickly (mainly due to the introduction of unknown diseases in the American continent), the Europeans replaced the work of the indigenous people with that of slaves Therefore, the African impact on the population was, in some coastal regions, more important than the indigenous one: we could say that, while the Andes have always been Indo-American, the Antilles became Afro-American. Also the southeastern United States received large numbers of slaves as laborers to work on cotton plantations.
The coasts of the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean (for example, in Mexico and Nicaragua) also received a significant immigration of slaves of African origin and in the latter country, they settled on the so-called Mosquito Coast, an inappropriate name derived from the Miskito Indians who inhabited the area. And in the 19th century, many Jamaican peasants, fleeing from slavery, escaped from the island to settle in this coastal region de los Mosquitos as reminded by the existence of populations with Anglo-Saxon names, as is the case of Bluefields, the most important city and port in the Caribbean zone of Nicaragua. And the settlement with African slaves in the coastal regions of Brazil for work on the plantations was also very important.
The countries of South America also received a large amount of immigration over time, Argentina being an emblematic case since around the year 1900 fifty percent of the population was made up of recent arrivals. There is a large number of immigrant communities in the country such as the Basque, Polish, Russian and many others. For example, Japanese immigration in Argentina began in the XIX century with some individual arrivals, and in 1908 with the contingent who arrived in Brazil on the ship Kasato Maru, from which a group continues to Argentina. Soon Japanese ventures such as dry cleaners, crops, including coffees such as the historic Café El Japonés and Bar Yokohama arose. In Patagonia, the case of the Welsh colony of Gaiman is notorious. The Welsh colonization in Argentina in the name and authorization of the Argentine government, took some of the initial steps in the settlement of Argentine Patagonia.
Europe
In addition to those mentioned above, Europe has undergone major population changes in the 20th century, when millions of Germans they were expelled from East Prussia after World War II and transferred to Germany from the territory it was reduced to after the war. Thus, the old Königsberg was renamed Kaliningrad and this city is only inhabited by Russians, when Germans lived before. The Poles were pushed into Pomerania and all of the former eastern territory left by the Germans, and the area ceded by Poland to the Soviet Union was in turn populated by Russians (mainly White Russians) and Ukrainians.
In Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania there was a strong immigration of Russians. The Turks were expelled from Bulgaria and other Balkan countries. Germans living in other European countries were expelled, such as Czechoslovakia, to Germany, and many others were forcibly taken to Kazakhstan and other Central Asian republics. More recently, many South Americans, Africans, and Asians, as well as Eastern Europeans, migrate to Western Europe. In Spain, there is a strong immigration of Latin Americans, especially Ecuadorians and Colombians. In the European Union the Blue Card has been created.
Oceania
In Australia and New Zealand, Aboriginal Australians and Maori were displaced by whites of European origin (see: White Australia). Oceania is an island continent on Earth made up of the continental shelf of Australia, the islands of New Guinea, New Zealand, and the coral and volcanic archipelagos of Micronesia, Polynesia, and Melanesia. A sector of experts considers that Insulindia is also part of Oceania. All these islands are distributed by the Pacific Ocean. With an area of 9,008,458 km², it is the smallest continent on the planet. In other continental models, for example in the English-speaking ones, Australia (continent) is used instead of Oceania, but in this case its definition does not include the Pacific islands.
Africa
Africa is the third continent in the world by land area. It is bordered to the north by the Mediterranean Sea, to the west by the Atlantic Ocean, to the south by the junction of the Atlantic and Indian Oceans, and to the east by the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean. Although it has a total area of 30,272,922 km² (621,600 in island mass), which represents 32% of the land total, the population is one billion inhabitants, less than 15%. The continent is organized into 54 countries, all of them members of the African Union.
After the Second World War, a process of decolonization began, in which the countries that had arrived on that continent and entered beyond the coasts until occupying practically all its territory, such as France, the United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, Spain and Portugal, granted their independence after mutual agreements or wars. In the years after this, the inhabitants of the new republics, faced with the difficulties they witnessed in their countries, decided to emigrate mainly to Europe, especially to those countries with which they had had cultural ties during the colony.
Problem
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Migrations present different problems: those who leave have an effect similar to that of the decrease in the birth rate, which for countries with high birth rates will be a relief. On the other hand, in the country of reception of immigrants, the composition of the population undergoes substantial changes, as can be seen in the pyramid of the immigrant population of Spain, in which both men and women of working age abound, while that the proportion of population under 20 years of age or over 65 is much lower than the national one. Those who come have to integrate into the new country, first labor with legal permits, identification, social security and education; at the same time culturally, by the new language when it is different from their own, and in any case they must assume the new customs and ways of life. The values will be of different intensity, for example the concept of friendship, community service, free time, schedules, meals, family, folklore, artistic tastes; These new or modified values must be superimposed or interspersed with their original ones to avoid useless problems and although cultural, language and religious diversity can be enriching at times, it can also create serious conflicts in other cases. In any case, these issues will not be the main problems, unless there is strong discrimination by nationals or by other groups of emigrants.
The most serious problems and of different intensity depending on the country revolve around obtaining legal identity documents and/or legal work permits. To survive, adults and their families need to work, unless they are retired and come for family reunification. The problems of many immigrants are due to the fact that the State where they come from does not always give them the necessary guidance, so those who are determined to leave their countries sometimes fall into the hands of real human trafficking mafias, who offer them marriage., stability but in reality that is not the case, rather they end up being kidnapped, acting as sex slaves for drug dealers, mules or prostitutes, and this causes problems of identification and assistance in the host country that are added to the labor problems although just come to work in a job rejected by the natives: as the emigrants themselves claim: we only come to work in jobs that the nationals do not want to do, although in many cases, the older immigrants abandon those jobs and are replaced by new immigrants. Migrants often work in jobs that have a high risk of injury or illness. For example, Hispanic immigrants suffer a disproportionate burden of fatal occupational injuries in the United States. In addition to the physical hazards at work, the choice to emigrate often involves work-induced lifestyle changes that affect physical health, mental health and social health.
Among other problems that the displacement that immigrants make to other countries brings with it due to the poverty in which they find themselves and that their countries are at war, is that many die in the attempt, as are the cases where migrants they die in the waters of the Mediterranean, or in the case of those who die due to the high temperatures to which they are exposed during the journey. Similar horrors occur in the displacement that immigrants must carry out, which must be carried out as stowaways on freight trains, and to avoid being found, they must climb on the roofs or jump from the moving train, which causes many to lose their limbs falling on the tracks and others suffocated to death by the heat of the carriages. However, those migrants who survive suffer many consequences such as being captured by the group called "Zetas", which are drug cartels. The latter make illegal immigrants work for it and later release them, while others are killed.
Among other consequences is the fact that the same previous victims are extorted by corrupt officials who make them collect very high bribes to let them pass, since if they do not, they are handed over to the authorities. Also, those women who decide to cross the borders are victims of sexual abuse by thugs, kidnappers, drug cartels...etc. In addition, the so-called "coyotes" warn women to avoid pregnancies by the rapists. The final balance, the attitude of some (native population) and others (immigrants) varies considerably depending on the country and in general, immigration is enriching, since the birth of practically all countries has been due to immigration movements or processes.
In most cases for various reasons ranging from hunger and misery to the dream of their own land to farm and aspirations for social advancement. The colonization of America by Europeans had this motivation for several centuries. At present, with the new realities in many countries, things have been reversed, it is the young people from the countries that were formerly colonies who leave for the more developed countries with the hope of seeing their dreams come true. Some politicians complain that immigrants are competing with locals for jobs and increasing the cost of public health and education programs.
Stances on immigration
Immigration is one of the world's most controversial phenomena. All developed nations (and a good part of the underdeveloped ones) strongly restrict immigration, economically justifying this policy based on the unfair competition that low-cost labor would represent for citizens and the burden that immigrants would represent on social services of a public. Despite the reasons given, the border closure policy poses serious problems of respect for human rights and there is a clear violation of article 13 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which reads as follows:
1. Every person has the right to move freely and to choose their residence in the territory of a State.
2. Everyone has the right to leave any country, including their own, and to return to their country.
Regarding the effects on the receiving economies, taking into account the difficulty involved in the study due to the number of variables to be taken into account, they vary depending on their characteristics and the immigration to be assimilated. In the studies consulted, relating to receiving countries that assume in a more or less orderly manner these migratory flows on the arrival of immigration, it could be affirmed that it translates into increases in the productive capacity of the receiving economy, by stimulating investment and promoting specialization. productive, hardly affecting the employment opportunities of native workers.
On the other hand, having a greater impact on the subjective perception of immigration, in this case of the Spanish population, according to the CIS Study 3019. 67% of Spaniards agree or strongly agree that immigrants lower wages by accepting lower wages. 48.5% agree quite or very much with the statement that immigrants take jobs away from Spaniards. But these claims are highly debatable and far from empirical and scientific demonstration based on data and studies known to date.
Regarding the link between unemployment and crime with emigrants, see: Xenophobia. Due to the increase in immigration, many people whose language is different from the local one use public services. In principle, all people should have access to these services, since in many cases equal access is required by law. Likewise, good communication is important so that they can provide effective help to those who use them. In this sense, communication problems can lead to wrong decisions and poor results, so communications that are adapted to people with limited language skills in the country in which they reside should be offered.
A systematic review of four comparative studies examined the effectiveness of communication aids between public services and immigrants. These aids were divided into three categories:
- Oral or direct communication.
- Written communication.
- Wider help.
The results suggest that there are no clear indications as to whether any particular interpretation approach works better than another. On the other hand, one study suggests that an ESL course that integrates parental knowledge and behavior was more effective than a standard course. Given the small number of studies, these findings may not be reliable.
Children migrating unaccompanied by adults
The Conference held in 2014 in Managua described the increase in children migrating unaccompanied by adults as a humanitarian crisis. Likewise, the urgent need to protect the rights of children and adolescents when they return to their countries of origin was noted and guarantee family reunification. The "Extraordinary Declaration of Managua" expressed concern about the violation of the rights of children and adolescents who migrate alone. According to the Declaration, the interest of the child is a priority and for this the use and also increase of resources destined to the protection of unaccompanied minors is imperative.
It also points out the importance of eradicating illicit smuggling and human trafficking. To achieve the latter, there has to be international cooperation and commitment. Only in this way can networks of traffickers and traffickers be detected, as well as crimes related to illicit trafficking and trafficking of unaccompanied minors and adolescents. Cooperation is also necessary insofar as it makes it possible to allocate sufficient resources to the development of programs for the reintegration of children in their countries and communities of origin.
Feminization of migrations
Thanks to globalization, in the XXI century, there is a growing feminization of migrations. Unlike centuries In previous years, in this century, women constitute the vanguard of the migratory phenomenon and are the first to arrive in the country of destination. The phenomenon of the growing feminization of migrations constitutes an important change in gender roles and creates new challenges for public policies. The change from earlier times is that more and more women are migrating independently in search of work, rather than following or joining their husbands who migrated earlier. Women, who have less control over material resources, are those sent to work abroad to send money to their family in their country of origin. In the cases in which they migrate in search of better job and economic opportunities, they often do so to be able to send money to their children. In 1970, women who migrated alone represented 2% of all migrants in the world, while in In the year 2000, 48% of the world's 175 million migrants were women. In the XXI century, the model of a male immigrant, young and of working age who leaves his country in search of economic opportunities has given rise to women migrating alone, that is, to a feminization of migrations. The reasons for the increase and feminization of migrations They are, fundamentally, gender inequality and fleeing situations of extreme violence.
Immigration Policy
In different European countries, policies against immigration have hardened, especially with regard to irregular immigration, as is the case of Italy, which managed to approve a law in the Chamber of Deputies that facilitates the expulsion of immigrants irregular and also obliges public employees to denounce them; They would be punished with penalties between 5,000 and 10,000 euros, and contemplates imprisonment for up to 3 years for those who rent to irregular immigrants. More than 36,000 immigrants arrived in Italy in 2008. On the other hand, in Greece, on July 12, 2009, a camp for irregular immigrants in the city of Patras was destroyed with bulldozers.