As Latino people comprise an increasing proportion of the United States population, it is more and more pressing that non-Latino people understand who these people are, where they come from, and what role they play in our modern society. Latinos make up the largest minority group in the U.S. at around 58 million people, or 18% of the country’s population.
Since the start of the Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuela, the country has been seeing mass migration that has astounded many. A late-2017 survey compiled by the group Consultores 21 discovered that more than four million Venezuelans have left the country since the start of the revolution in 1999, with another 51 percent of young adults still living there stating that they had hopes of also emigrating (La Patilla 2018).
The rhetoric and reality behind the immigration policy is something that has been widely debated. In particular, the Diversity Visa Program, is aspect of the immigration policy that has notoriously gained negative rhetoric through the Trump administration. However, I argue that the reality behind this program contrasts the negative rhetoric that has been attributed to this program.
United States immigration policies have complex and nuanced justifications; determining who qualifies to be permitted in any given country is no easy task. Of grounds for inadmissibility for individuals with leprosy, however, the reason is surprisingly simple: theology. In the bible, leprosy was “considered a curse of God, often associated with sin” and its codification within domestic immigration policy bloodies any ethical discussion of what legal immigration to the United States could possibly mean (Gillens 2007).
Last Tuesday January 9th, 2018, the Trump administration delivered another blow to recipients of Temporary Protected Status (TPS), this time to over 200,000 Salvadorians living and working in the U.S.
The body of Alonso Guillén, a missing 31-year-old Mexican immigrant living in Texas under the DACA program, was found on Sunday, September 3, in the floodwaters and wreckage left behind by Hurricane Harvey that week in Spring, Texas.
On May 11th, the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) and the International Labor Organization (ILO), released their joint report on the evolution of the situation of employment in Latin America and the Caribbean in 2016. According to this publication, during last year the region “endured its largest jump in urban unemployment for two decades.”
One of the motivations for international migration is often to save enough from work abroad to purchase a housing lot and/or construct a dwelling or to acquire other assets such as consumer durables. But who owns the assets acquired with remittances? The migrant who sends them, the remittance manager in the country of origin, or both together? And does the gender of the remitter or remittance manager matter?
There is no doubt that President Trump’s actions in the past week have shaken up the immigrant community. After all, much of his campaign promises to undo Obama’s immigration legacies are coming to life. On January 27, 2017, Trump placed a “Muslim” ban on travelers— including those with green cards and dual nationalities—entering the United States. The executive order affected many individuals who live and study in the U.S. and were returning from vacation.
