A Global Trek to Poor Nations, From Poorer Ones

They typically start poorer than migrants to rich countries, earn less money and are more likely to travel illegally, which raises the odds of abuse. They usually move to countries that offer migrants less legal protection and fewer services than wealthy nations do. Yet their earnings help sustain some of the poorest people on the globe.

There are 74 million “south to south” migrants, according to the World Bank, which uses the term to describe anyone moving from one developing country to another, regardless of geography. The bank estimates that they send home $18 billion to $55 billion a year. (The bank also estimates that 82 million migrants have moved “south to north,” or from poor countries to rich ones.)

Nicaraguans build Costa Rican buildings. Paraguayans pick Argentine crops. Nepalis dig Indian mines. Indonesians clean Malaysian homes. Farm hands from Burkina Faso tend the fields in Ivory Coast. Some save for more expensive journeys north, while others find the move from one poor land to another all they will ever afford. With rich countries tightening their borders, migration within the developing world is likely to grow.”*

• The Utah Forensics Team is hosting a debate Thursday centered around the issue of immigration reform in Utah. – The event, titled “Broken Borders: Debating the State of Immigration,” will feature Tony Yapias, the former director of the Utah State Office of Hispanic Affairs; Utah Reps. Mike Noel and Chris Herrod; and Dee Rowland, a government liaison for the Utah Catholic Diocese
• Facing a group of presidents loudly critical of Washington, the U.S. government’s Voice of America broadcast is expanding its audience in Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador and Nicaragua, VOA officials say.
• From a group calling themselves Electronic Civil Disobedience comes the Transborder Immigrant Tool, a simple mobile application intended to aid and abet border-crossers from Mexico to the United States by mapping the safest routes to take. – This GPS app is built to work on the cheapest cell phones available.
• Turtles Are Casualties of Warming in Costa Rica
• The Center for American Progress applauds Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano’s push to move forward with the congressional debate.
• Statement on Sec. Napolitano’s First Speech on Immigration Reform
• Business groups in the Mexican border city of Ciudad Juarez said Wednesday they are calling for United Nations peacekeepers to quell the drug-related violence that has given their city one of the highest homicide rates in the world.
• PMDG Launches Regional Mexico Marketing Initiative
• Mexico, U.S. Blame Each Other After Border Crackdown Fails
• U.S. officials wrong in celebrating fall of the Berlin Wall as work continues on our own border wall
• Native American corporations, particularly an array of Alaska Native Corporations, have become major defense and homeland security contractors – responsible for a wide range of national security operations, including electronic surveillance on the border, running immigrant detention centers, and supplying security and other services in U.S. overseas wars and energy exploitation.
• A third woman has filed a paternity claim against Paraguay’s Roman Catholic bishop-turned- president, her lawyer confirmed Thursday – President Fernando Lugo
• Native Americans Profit from Abusive Immigrant Detention and Billions of Dollars in National Security Contracts
• A soldier every 3 feet on the US/Mexico border = 6,930,880 soldiers – Immigration Anecdotes
• More than 200 bodies recovered at Arizona/Sonora border
• Rights activists in the northern Mexican border city of Tijuana have hung 5,100 small white crosses on the fence straddling the U.S. frontier to commemorate migrants who have died trying to cross.
• Remembrance at the border: Migrants killed while crossing remembered – About 200 attended the vigil hosted by the Border Network for Human Rights to honor the memory of undocumented immigrants who have died while trying to cross the border.
• Mexicans Fleeing Violence Spur a Boom in El Paso – Spike in Murder Rate in Juárez Is Among the Factors Boosting Nightlife and Home Sales in U.S. Border City
• Dole Foods is withdrawing a defamation lawsuit against a Swedish filmmaker after complaints in Sweden that it was trying to limit free speech – filmmaker Fredrik Gertten for showing the documentary “Bananas!”
• Texas Dr. Antonio Falcon: We’re Facing A Catastrophic Situation On The Border