United Nations' refugee agency (UNHCR) - Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association

Facing an Unprecedented Migration Crisis in Latin America and the Caribbean

Axel van Trotsenburg — Mon, 11 Oct 2021 06:06:28 +0000

The Simón Bolívar International Bridge linking Venezuela and Colombia has long ceased to be a mere bridge. For months, the thousands who cross this bridge daily have transformed it into a symbol of the Venezuelan exodus. Many kilometers to the north of the Latin American region, human caravans from Central America’s Northern Triangle once again placed the spotlight on another longstanding migration issue.

Although they come from different places, those embarking on these journeys face the same situation—they are leaving their homes because of a lack of opportunities, violence, or even food shortages. Occurring at a hitherto unseen speed and magnitude, this phenomenon has created an unprecedented migration crisis for Latin America and the Caribbean. What are the characteristics of each?

Migration from Venezuela involves one of the biggest and most rapid flows of vulnerable persons globally. According to the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR), as of February 2019, the country’s economic and social crisis had led to the exodus of 3.4 million persons. Most have left in the past 12 months and have gone to Colombia, Peru, Ecuador and Chile, the main receiving countries. The magnitude of this crisis makes it the second biggest globally after the Syrian crisis.

The movement of persons from the Northern Triangle to the United States has been taking place for a much longer time. Between 1980 and 2015, the number of migrants from this subregion who were living in the United States increased by an annual average of 8 percent and in 2017, their total number in the United States stood at close to 3 million. Most persons leave because of the shortage of good jobs, high rates of crime and violence, and the desire to be reunited with their families. Remittances to Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador, which amounted to almost US$20 billion in 2017, have become one of the main pillars of their economies, accounting for nearly 15 percent of their combined GDPs.

With the movement of persons come challenges and opportunities for both the source and destination areas, as I mentioned last week at the conference “Migration and Cities. The Path to Inclusive Integration,” held in Madrid.

According to a World Bank report published last November, the cost of additional education, health, water, early childhood, humanitarian, employment, and institution building services resulting from migration from Venezuela is estimated at between 0.2 percent and 0.4 percent of Colombia’s GDP, a figure that will certainly increase given the growing number of persons leaving Venezuela. Despite this, the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean have opened their doors to migrants in a gesture of solidarity commensurate with the magnitude of the crisis. In terms of opportunities, migration can create economic growth when it is well managed.

As happens in other regions, Northern Triangle migration breaks family and community ties and disrupts the support networks in the originating countries. It can, however, contribute to poverty reduction, human capital improvement, and greater investment as a result of the transfer of remittances. El Salvador provides the most compelling evidence of this, where it is estimated that in 2014 the poverty rate would have been 12 percent higher without those remittances. Another analysis conducted in Guatemala using data from that same year demonstrated that the likelihood that a family would face food insecurity decreases by 40 percent when it receives remittances.

At the World Bank, we are supporting the region using the experience gained in other areas of the world such as the Horn of Africa or the Middle East. We are assisting Colombia by analyzing the effects of migration and short- and medium-term response strategies. Similar studies involving Peru and Ecuador are also being carried out. In addition, we recently announced Colombia’s eligibility for funding from the Global Concessional Financing Facility, a platform that supports countries hosting large numbers of refugees. Furthermore, the refugee issue will be one of the main topics discussed at the upcoming Spring Meetings of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, to take place in less than three weeks. Going forward, we will continue our commitment by providing technical and financial assistance to migrant-receiving countries.

In the Northern Triangle, we are helping to improve access to health and education, boost the competitiveness and productivity of small producers, and enhance food security in areas impacted by drought and climate change such as the Dry Corridor, while at the same time assisting with crime and violence prevention and conducting analyses of key issues such as job creation. The aim of all these activities is to provide persons seeking a brighter future with options other than fleeing to another country.

Our efforts complement the work being done by other development organizations, governments, and civil society, although they will have to be redoubled given the projected continuation of these migration flows. The only way we will be able to tackle what is likely the greatest humanitarian crisis facing Latin America and the Caribbean today is through commitment and genuine solidarity with persons facing the dual vulnerabilities of poverty and migration.

*Axel van Trotsenburg is the World Bank Vice President for Latin America and the Caribbean

Source: https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/opinion/2019/03/29/america-latina-y-el-caribe-frente-a-una-crisis-migratoria-sin-precedentes

[Disclaimer]

The post Facing an Unprecedented Migration Crisis in Latin America and the Caribbean first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

Syrian refugees leaving Germany over family reunification policy

Deutsche Welle — Thu, 12 Apr 2018 06:00:14 +0000

Syrians granted limited asylum but denied the right to fetch relatives are departing Germany for Turkey by using smugglers, say German media. The cases, if confirmed, bizarrely reverse the “Balkan route” drama of 2015.

Thousands of Syrian refugees are attempting to leave Germany despite being legally entitled to stay, according to a report to be aired Thursday on German public broadcaster ARD.

Stuck in Germany without close relatives because of Berlin’s all but refusal to allow family reunions, the refugees were said to be using traffickers to reach their families in Turkey, saying “we’d rather die together than live apart.”

The journey, now in reverse, retraces the same risky routes they used from the outset of Syria’s six-year war, reported “Panorama,” a Hamburg-based investigative program and its offshoot channel Strg_F.

The reports coincided Thursday with a European Court of Justice (ECJ) ruling in favor of family reunions for juvenile refugees entering adulthood.

One smuggler told reporters he was guiding 50 individuals, mostly Syrians with right of residency in Germany, from EU member Greece into Turkey across the border river Evros to be reunited with family members in a Turkish refuge.

The crossing cost about 200 euros ($247), he said. Without visas, they were entering Turkey, with whom the EU struck a multibillion-euro refugee deal in 2016 to close sea routes leading into Balkan nations such as Serbia.

Syrians were exchanging information of “reverse escapes” on social media, said “Panorama” and Strg_F, the German equivalent of the computer keyboard combination of Control F.

One young Syrian told of failing to get a foothold in Germany and feeling embarrassed because he had ended up living in Frankfurt’s red-light district. “Bye-bye Frankfurt,” he tells the camera team, filming a nighttime scene with him from a high-rise platform overlooking Germany’s financial hub.

‘Dramatic consequence’ of German policy

The trend was the “dramatic consequence of the catastrophic error of [Germany’s] coalition government (against) family reunions, said Günter Burkhardt, director of Pro Asyl, a Frankfurt-based pro-refugee network backed by churches, unions and rights groups.

Burkhardt was referring to a limited asylum, based on a 2011 EU directive and instituted in German asylum law in 2016, called “subsidiary protection,” which offers lesser protection than awarded via the 1951 Geneva refugee convention.

Under the coalition deal binding Chancellor Angela Merkel’s new three-party government, Germany only admits 1,000 close relatives of “subsidiary protection” refugees on “humanitarian grounds” each month.

Dominik Bartsch, the representative in Germany for the refugee agency UNHCR, was quoted by Panorama as saying he had heard of cases of Syrians leaving for Turkey, but he could not quantify them.

‘Absurd’ twist, say Greens

The Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF) said it did not collate data on such departures, because foreigners with valid residency permits could travel into foreign territory beyond Europe.

The Greens’ parliamentary group spokeswoman on refugee issues in Germany’s Bundestag, Luise Amtsberg, described the situation as “absurd,” given the EU’s deal with Turkey.

The young Syrian man who failed to get a foothold in Germany and ended up in Frankfurt’s red-light district was interviewed by Strg_F.

‘Bye-bye Frankfurt’

The Strg-F team said Facebook entries showed that the young Syrian man it filmed, and identified as Basel, was far from being alone in departing Germany — in his case after three years residence.

“His girlfriend is in Syria. He hopes to fetch her to Turkey as fast as possible,” say the documentary makers, adding that the couple’s plan for Germany has imploded.

Before getting asylum in Germany, Basel’s bid to reach Europe had involved three traumatic boat capsizes.

“We check the Facebook group. Basel is not the only one who’s leaving Germany on this day. There are hundreds.”

From Thessaloniki in Greece, Syrians such as Basel were then crossing the river Evros at night into Turkey, but without a visa, the reporter narrates.

ipj/ng (epd, dpa, AFP, KNA)

Source: http://www.dw.com/en/syrian-refugees-leaving-germany-over-family-reunification-policy/a-43358055

[Disclaimer]

The post Syrian refugees leaving Germany over family reunification policy first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

Netanyahu scraps deal on residency for African migrants

Deutsche Welle — Tue, 03 Apr 2018 03:49:58 +0000

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has canceled a deal that could have seen thousands of African migrants relocated to Europe and Canada. Under the agreement, thousands more migrants would stay in Israel.

Netanyahu said on Tuesday that he had met with Israeli residents in Tel Aviv and decided to cancel the agreement.

The Israeli prime minister, who suspended the deal on Monday, spoke to disgruntled Israelis living in and near “Little Africa” – the part of Tel Aviv that has attracted the largest migrant community in Israel.

The decision followed complaints from nationalist members of Netanyahu’s government, who had said the deal was “bad for Israel.”

“I have listened carefully to the many comments on the agreement. As a result, and after I again weighed the advantages and disadvantages, I decided to cancel the deal,” a statement from the prime minister’s office quoted Netanyahu as saying at the session.

The fate of some 37,000 Africans in Israel has presented a moral dilemma for Israel, a state that was founded to provide a haven for Jews after the Second World War. Israel’s right-wing government has found itself under pressure from the right to expel the migrants.

Short-lived agreement

The deal struck with United Nations’ refugee agency UNHCR would have seen about half of the migrants — mostly from Eritrea and Sudan — be relocated to countries in the West. The rest would have stayed in Israel, to be granted residency. Among the countries mentioned as possible locations by Israel were Germany, Italy and Canada.

Officials in both Germany and Italy said they had been taken by surprise by Netanyahu’s announcement. Similarly, UNHCR spokesman William Spindler told DW TV that his organization had not received advanced notification from Israel.

“No, we have just learned about this decision a few minutes ago. But we are still hopeful that a solution will be found for these asylum seekers, who are in a very precarious situation in Israel,” Spindler told DW. “It’s estimated that there’s about 39,000 of them, most of them from Eritrea and Sudan, and they are not able to return to these countries, because they fear persecution.”

Netanyahu put the deal on hold shortly after its agreement had been announced on Monday.

Naftali Bennett, who is the leader of the nationalist Jewish Home party, tweeted shortly before Netanyahu’s statement to say that the agreement as it stood was “bad for Israel.”

“Its approval would cause generations of crying and determine a precedent in Israel granting residency for illegal infiltrators,” Bennett said.

rc/msh (AFP, AP, dpa)

Source: http://www.dw.com/en/netanyahu-scraps-deal-on-residency-for-african-migrants/a-43234389

[Disclaimer]

The post Netanyahu scraps deal on residency for African migrants first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.