Why Do Migrants Face Obstacles?

1. Why Do Migrants Face Obstacles? • Two Major Difficulties: • Permission to enter a new country. • Attitudes of citizens once they’ve entered country. • Immigration Policies – two policies to control foreigners seeking work. • 1. Quota System • 2. Temporary Migration for work.

2. Immigration Policies • US Quota Laws – Quota Act of 1921 and National Origins Act of 1924. • Designed to assure most immigrants to the US continued to be Europeans. • Hemisphere Quotas to Global Quotas. • Brain Drain – large-scale emigration by talented people. • More education, ¼ of all legal immigrants to the US have attended graduate school.

3. Temporary Migration for Work • Guest Workers – Europe and Middle East. • Foreign-born workers = ½ of labor force in Luxembourg, 1/6 in Switzerland, 1/10 in Austria, Belgium, and Germany. • Useful role in Western Europe – low-status and low-skilled jobs that locals won’t accept. • UK = restrictions of foreigners to obtain permits. • Guest Workers – N.Africa, Middle East, E.Europe, and Asia

4. Time-Contract Workers • 19c. – Asian migration to work in mines and plantations. • 29+ million ethnic Chinese live permanently in other countries, most in Asia. • Illegal immigration to Asia for work. • Taiwan – 20-70 thousand, most are Filipinos, Thais, Malaysians.

5. Economic Migrants vs. Refugees • US, Canada, and W.Europe treat the two groups differently. • Economic Migrants – not admitted unless they possess special skills or have a close relative there, and must still compete with applicants. • Refugees – receive special priority in admission.

6. Emigrants • Cuba emigrants = political refugees. • 1959+, 600,000 to US; 2nd influx after 1980. • Haiti emigrants = 1980 boatlift from Cuba, several thousand Haitians to US due to economic advancement. • US says NO!! Haiti sues. US flops! • We invade Haiti in 1994 to reinstate president.

7. Emigrants • Vietnam emigration – 1975; evacuation of Saigon. • 2nd surge in 1980s by boat. • Int. agreement – most were judged refugees and transferred other places. • Most, considered economic migrants, placed in detention camps until 1996, camps were closed and people sent back to Vietnam. • Major source of immigrants to US, with pull of economic opportunity and push of political persecution.

8. Cultural Problems • Politicians – Immigration = scapegoats • American Attitudes – denial of education, health clinics, day cares, public services. • European Attitudes – guest workers suffer from poor social conditions. • Middle East – possible political unrest within Islamic customs.

9. Why Migrate Within A Country? • Internal = less destructive than international. • Two types – interregional and intraregional. • In US, interregional migration popular in the past due to farming. • Large-scale internal migration = opening of American West.

10. Center of Population • Average location of everyone in the country, the “center of population gravity.” • Move West over last 200 years. • 1790 – population center was in Chesapeake Bay, east of Baltimore. • 1830 – West Virginia; 1830+ - moved rapidly to just West of Cincinnati in 1880. • Western pioneers passed through interior on their way to California.

11. Center of Population • Most of 19c. Continuous westward advance of settlement stopped at the 98th meridian. • Interior = physical environment not for familiar agriculture. • Maps = Great American Desert

12. Settlement of Great Plains • Center migrated West at much slower pace after 1880. • Large-scale migration to East Coast • Fill in area b/w 98th meridian and California. • 1950-1980 – center moved farther west. • 1980 – crossed Mississippi River; 2000 – south-central Missouri.

13. Recent Growth of the South • 1990s – first time, more migrated out of the West than into the West. • Population center moved southward sharply. • Immigrating into the South – job opportunities and environmental reasons. • Interregional migration has slowed. • Net migration b/w each pair of regions is now close to zero.

14. Migration in Regions • More people move within the same region – intraregional migration. • Less than 5% of world’s people in 1800 lived in urban areas, compared to almost ½ today. • Urbanization begins in 1800s, in Europe and N.America undergoing rapid industrialization. • Migration from rural to urban areas has shot up in LDCs of Africa, Asia, and L.America.

15. Migration in Regions • MDCs = intraregional migration from central cities out to suburbs. • Result of suburbanization, territory occupied by urban areas has rapidly expanded.

16. Migration – Metropolitan to Non • Late 20c. – W.Europe and N.America have new trend. • More people immigrated into rural areas than emigrated out of them. • Net migration from urban to rural = counterurbanization. • Many are retired people. • Has stopped in the US b/c of poor economic conditions.