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International Migration News - Volume #8 | |
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Latin America
The North American Free Trade Agreement encouraged many US and Canadian firms to shift factories from the Caribbean to Mexico. In May 2000, the US granted Caribbean goods easier access to the US, but foreign-owned firms are not reopening the factories they closed in the Caribbean. Caribbean agriculture suffered a major hit when the US took the side of major US food firms, including Dole Food Co., Chiquita Brands International Inc. and Fresh Del Monte Produce Inc, and argued that the EU's preferential treatment of bananas from its Caribbean dependencies violates international trade agreements. The EU may free up trade from the world's 50 poorest countries, which some in the Caribbean believe would reduce sugar exports. In the meantime, tourism in the Caribbean is declining. Calypso singer Winston "Gypsy" Peters gave up his dual U.S. citizenship to run for Trinidad and Tobago's Parliament in December 2000 elections. The Trinidadian constitution bars dual citizens from holding legislative seats. Haiti. Jean-Bertrand Aristide was re-elected president of Haiti in November 2000, with many observers saying that fewer than 50 percent of Haiti's four million registered voters cast ballots. Many Haitians were bitter about the re-election of Aristide, saying that after billions of dollars of aid, Operation Restore Democracy in 1994 had only substituted one dictatorship for another in the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. If aid is withdrawn in the wake of the flawed November 2000 election, Haiti's economic crisis is likely to worsen and migration may increase. The exodus of 60,000 Haitians, who set out for Florida in small boats in summer 1994, preceded the U.S. military intervention of the same year. Emmanuel "Toto" Constant, a Haitian paramilitary leader who helped to terrorize Haitians in the early 1990s as a leader of the Front for the Advancement and Progress of Haiti, or FRAPH, has been living in New York City since 1996. Haitian leaders in New York City want him extradited, as Haiti requested, but the US State Department says his extradition would be "destabilizing." Dominican Republic. With the help of their consulates, dozens of Dominicans are voluntarily returning home after living without documentation in the US and Puerto Rico. According to immigration officers at the Santo Domingo Las Americas International Airport, 1,590 undocumented Dominicans voluntarily returned to the country in 2000. About 45 percent of those returning said that they traveled to the US with legal visas, but stayed on after they expired. About 35 percent traveled by boat illegally to the US and 20 percent used false documentation. South America. South Americans are swamping embassies from Argentina to Colombia as residents try to flee the region's economic and political crises. There has been a 52 percent increase in the requests for tourist visas in Peru, up from 85,000 in 1999 to 130,000 in 2000. The Colombian American Service Association, a Miami-base aid organization, estimates that 120,000 have fled Colombia to the US on tourist visas during the past year. In Ecuador, an estimated 500,000 people, four percent of the population, have left over the past two years, with many going to Spain to work in agriculture. Remittances are projected to reach $1 billion in 2000, second only to oil exports as a source of foreign capital. The Spanish government has denied resident visas to about 70,000 Ecuadorians and is currently processing another 40,000 applications. In order to stabilize the economy, the International Monetary Fund in December 2000 provided a $20-billion to $25-billion bailout for Argentina to avoid a debt default in 2001 that might reverberate throughout the hemisphere and increase emigration. In 1991, Argentina switched to "dollar convertibility," meaning each peso in circulation was backed by one U.S. dollar in reserve.
"Dozens of undocumented
Dominicans return from US, Puerto Rico," Agencia EFE, December 1,
2000. | |
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