Exploring Volunteering

In Prensa Libre yesterday you might have seen this interesting juxtaposition of views on emigration from Guatemala to the US. The article was about a message from the Guatemalan Foreign Ministry urging Guatemalans not to emigrate. However, over in the right-hand column of the website was an advert from USAFIS calling all would-be emigrants to register and spend their money in the green card lottery. According to its website USAFIS is: “a privately held company and is not an official US agency. We are not affiliated with any official US government department”.

The contradiction is not literal: both messages were talking about emigrating to the US with papers, and not 'mojado'. Both options are a lottery. Both options are expensive. But reading the subtext the page made for quite a paradox: one side of the screen was saying emigration to the US is not worth it, while the other side was saying it was.

Figure 1. Net Emigration from Guatemala per Year, 1990 to August 2005 (Source: Migration Information Source/ International Organization for Migration)

A rapid look at some top line figures shown in this graph:

The point is that the USAFIS option, the legal option, is just a drop in the ocean: according to the results of the last green card lottery just 43 Guatemalans got a permanent residents visa.

The paradox is beyond the figures, it's in our own attitude- and the snapshot of Prensa Libre yesterday provided a graphic illustration of it. The real paradox is the doublespeak of governments around the world on the migration issue.

In the case of the US and Guatemala, while US companies profit from cheap imported labour and US banks profit from disproportionately expensive charges on remittances, Guatemalan society picks up the pieces of fragmented communities due to the absence of family members and deported criminal gang members. Of course, the costs and benefits goes way beyond these few examples alluded to here, but you get the point.

Politicians in the UK and US would have us believe that immigrants are a burden on our societies, however the reality is that the net burden is born by emigrant sending countries like Guatemala. The real contradiction is not in the pages of Prensa Libre, it is with us outsiders* and our attitudes to immigration (and what we're allowing our governments to do and say in our name).

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* Anyone living outside Guatemala- but involved in the debate of emigration from Guatemala in some way

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Background resources

Guatemala: ten years after peace accords, key provisions benefiting the displaced remain unimplemented – Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre

Regional and Country Figures -  International Organisation for Migration

“Youth Gangs in Central America, Mexico and Washington D.C.:  A Transnational Examination” – WOLA

“Deportaciones masivas, un problema estructural que se agrava” – Inforpress (via Albedrio) This article includes the statistic that during 2006 18,305 undocumented Guatemalans were deported from the US (and around 180,000 Central Americans were deported from Mexico). It also probes what a diplomatic solution might mean for Guatemala, and how the US is using the issue as leverage to influence the Central American states' foreign policy.

Video: There's an interesting episode of 'Entremosle a Guate' where they look at the issue of migration to the US from the point of view of a Guatemalan family who've migrated to the US. And also from the point of view of a family who've returned to Guatemala after living in the US. As an aside the documentary features Indiantown in the US- where Berger visited (17-02-07).