Immigration News: April, 2004 - Volume #11

Latin America

The Inter-American Development Bank reported that remittances to Latin America and the Caribbean totaled $38 billion in 2003, up from $32 billion in 2002. Some $31 billion or 82 percent came from migrants in the US and $3 billion from Japan. Mexico received $13.7 billion; Brazil $5.2 billion; Colombia $3 billion; the Dominican Republic $2.3 billion; and El Salvador $2.2 billion in remittances.

About 10 million Latino-US residents regularly send money to their countries of origin, with 78 percent using wire transfer companies like Western Union and MoneyGram to make a total of 150 million transactions a year. The average cost of sending $200 from the United States to Latin America was 7.9 percent, or $15.80.

Latin America is getting poorer and more indebted. There were at least 20 million more poor people in 2002 than in 1997, and the overall debt-to-GDP ratio rose to 51 percent of GDP in 2002 from 37 percent in 1997. Foreign investment fell by 20 percent, and the unemployment rate rose to 15 percent in 2002 from 10 percent in 1997. Peruvian economist Hernando de Soto argues that Latin American governments continue to keep poor people in the informal sector, which limits savings and taxes even though making it easier to formalize small businesses, and giving squatters title to their land, could set off an economic boom.

Haiti. Haiti's turmoil in February 2004 ended with the forced resignation of Jean-Bertrand Aristide and the arrival of US troops. Aristide, Haiti's first popularly elected president in 1990, replaced the Duvaliers who ruled as dictators; Aristide was removed by the military seven months later. In 1994, 23,000 US troops restored Aristide to power to discourage Haitians from migrating in small boats to Florida; 70,000 Haitians were intercepted between 1991 and 1994.

US troops remained in Haiti until 1996, and a UN force remained until 2000. Haiti is mired in economic stagnation, in part because of the US-backed decision to freeze $500 million in international loans to Haiti after disputed legislative elections in 2000. Haiti disbanded its military in 1994, and the Haitian National Police has only 3,000 men. In a country in which unemployment tops 50 percent, it proved to be relatively easy for disgruntled out-of-power leaders to create militias of young men to battle police and force Aristide's removal.

Throughout February 2004, the US government emphasized that Haitians interdicted en route to Florida would be returned to Haiti or detained in Guantanamo. Aid is expected to be about $55 million in 2004, but most estimates are that about $300 million is needed to stabilize Haiti.

El Salvador. Under a controversial new policy, police in El Salvador are arresting gang members deported from the US, even if they committed no crimes in El Salvador. Many so-called maras, named after marabuntas, a species of swarming ants, have terrorized Central America's cities since large-scale removals from the US began in the mid-1990s.

The Central American Free Trade Agreement will come before Congress in summer 2004, and Democrats are demanding that Cafta include explicit guarantees of the internationally recognized labor rights to organize unions and to prohibit child labor. If such provisions were included in Cafta, employers violating these fundamental labor rights could have their exports to the US blocked. Those who want labor law protections in trade agreements argue that, under current conditions, "trade laws provide better protection for the label of a garment than the worker who sews it on." President Bush countered that Cafta already has the strongest labor and environmental protections found in an international trade agreement.

There are 87,000 workers in Salvadoran maquila factories, most owned by foreigners who pay no taxes. These workers consider themselves lucky to earn the $150 a month minimum wage, since unemployment is over 40 percent.

Brazil. Nearly half of Brazil's 178 million people are descendants of blacks from Africa, but people with lighter skin have most of the wealth and power despite the official claim that Brazil is a "racial democracy." Unlike the English colonists, Portuguese settlers generally did not bring women with them, and the offspring that resulted from their mating with indigenous women and slaves from Africa created the racial diversity visible in Brazil today. Any white blood generally makes a person "white." Only six percent of Brazilians in the last census considered themselves to be Black, although the government says that 46 percent of residents are black or mulatto.

Elizabeth Becker, "Central American Deal Ignites a Trade Debate," New York Times, April 6, 2004. Lydia Polgreen and Tim Weiner, "Foreign Troops Move Into Haiti After Aristide Flees," New York Times, March 1, 2004.

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