What are the current patterns of immigration?
- 2013, there were 41.3 million immigrants living in the USA
- 13% of the total population
- Main contributors: Mexico (28%), India (5%), China (5%)
- Main reasons for immigration: wage differentials + opportunities to send remittances, importance of family reunification in migration policy, possibility of obtaining green card, educational opportunities
What are the current patterns of emigration?
- 2013, 2.98 million US citizens living abroad
- Main destinations: Canada, UK, Germany, Puerto Rico
- Main reasons: return of migrants, such as Mexican and other Latin American families and their american born children, a number of highly skilled workers in education, IT and communications have migrated to countries with political, economic and historical ties such as Canada, UK and other EU countries
Key migration policies
Annual worldwide limit of 675,000 permanent immigrants
- Family reunification - 480,000 visas available
- Admission of migrants with skills valuable to the US economy - 140,000 visas available for highly skilled workers, normally sponsored by an employer for a specific job offer
- Protecting refugees - number of admissions decided each year, 2013 ceiling was 70,000
- Promoting diversity - Diversity Immigrant Visa Program makes 50,000 visas available annually, drawn by random selection of individuals from countries with low rates of immigration to the USA
Examples of interdependence through migration
- 2013, over 11.5 million Mexicans lived in the USA and 1 million Americans in Mexico, each of the two countries has its largest diaspora living in the other
- Low-skilled Mexicans contribute to US economy by working in agriculture, construction, etc, wages are much higher than in Mexico, providing opportunities for remittances, amounted to $22 billion in 2013, 2% of Mexico GDP
- Since formation of NAFTA, USA and Mexico bi-lateral trade has grown significantly, reciprocal merchandise trad alone accounts for $1.4 billion per day
- Increased political co-operation over common issues, such as border security, drug trade, human trafficking, there is also joint management over the Colorado River Basin
Opportunities/ benefits of international migration
- Immigrant populations take many of the low paid jobs which native-born Americans find unattractive, eg. 2013, main employment of Mexican immigrants was in services (31%) and in construction and manufacturing (25%), providing significant contributions to GDP and US economic growth
- US immigration policy also aims to attract highly skilled professionals, ‘Persons of extraordinary ability’ in the arts, science, business. athletics’ encouraged to immigrate, eg. 2013, main employment of immigrants from both China (51%) and India (73%) was in business and science
- Most immigrants are young working age, fills population gap in county where birth rate falling (1.64) and aging population (average 39)
Challenges as a result of international migration
- Estimated 11.5 million unauthorised immigrants (6 million Mexican) live in the USA, has meant that US Department of Homeland Security has tightened its southern maritime, southern land and west coast borders with more border patrol agents
- December 2015, Congress passed new immigration bills strengthening the legal mechanisms for Refugee Security Screening and Counter-Terrorism, political issue + economic as these immigrants cannot formally contribute to economy
- Where immigrant populations are particularly concentrated, supply of resources and services has become an issue, eg. adding to demand for water supply in southern California
