why do migrants face obstacles? two major difficulties: -permission to enter a new country....

Why Do Migrants Face Obstacles?

• Two Major Difficulties:- Permission to

enter a new country.

- Attitudes of citizens once they’ve entered country.

• Immigration Policies – two policies to control foreigners seeking work.

• 1. Quota System• 2. Temporary

Migration for work.

Immigration Policies

• US Quota Laws – Quota Act of 1921 and National Origins Act of 1924.

• Designed to assure most immigrants to the US continued to be Europeans.

• Hemisphere Quotas to Global Quotas.• Brain Drain – large-scale emigration

by talented people. • More education, ¼ of all legal

immigrants to the US have attended graduate school.

Temporary Migration for Work

• Guest Workers – Europe and Middle East.• Foreign-born workers = ½ of labor force

in Luxembourg, 1/6 in Switzerland, 1/10 in Austria, Belgium, and Germany.

• Useful role in Western Europe – low-status and low-skilled jobs that locals won’t accept.

• UK = restrictions of foreigners to obtain permits.

• Guest Workers – N.Africa, Middle East, E.Europe, and Asia

Time-Contract Workers

• 19c. – Asian migration to work in mines and plantations.

• 29+ million ethnic Chinese live permanently in other countries, most in Asia.

• Illegal immigration to Asia for work.

• Taiwan – 20-70 thousand, most are Filipinos, Thais, Malaysians.

Economic Migrants vs. Refugees

• US, Canada, and W.Europe treat the two groups differently.

• Economic Migrants – not admitted unless they possess special skills or have a close relative there, and must still compete with applicants.

• Refugees – receive special priority in admission.

Emigrants

• Cuba emigrants = political refugees.• 1959+, 600,000 to US; 2nd influx

after 1980.• Haiti emigrants = 1980 boatlift from

Cuba, several thousand Haitians to US due to economic advancement.

• US says NO!! Haiti sues. US flops!• We invade Haiti in 1994 to reinstate

president.

Emigrants

• Vietnam emigration – 1975; evacuation of Saigon.

• 2nd surge in 1980s by boat.• Int. agreement – most were judged

refugees and transferred other places.• Most, considered economic migrants,

placed in detention camps until 1996, camps were closed and people sent back to Vietnam.

• Major source of immigrants to US, with pull of economic opportunity and push of political persecution.

Cultural Problems

• Politicians – Immigration = scapegoats

• American Attitudes – denial of education, health clinics, day cares, public services.

• European Attitudes – guest workers suffer from poor social conditions.

• Middle East – possible political unrest within Islamic customs.

Why Migrate Within A Country?

• Internal = less destructive than international.

• Two types – interregional and intraregional.

• In US, interregional migration popular in the past due to farming.

• Large-scale internal migration = opening of American West.

Center of Population

• Average location of everyone in the country, the “center of population gravity.”

• Move West over last 200 years.• 1790 – population center was in

Chesapeake Bay, east of Baltimore.• 1830 – West Virginia; 1830+ - moved

rapidly to just West of Cincinnati in 1880.

• Western pioneers passed through interior on their way to California.

Center of Population

• Most of 19c. Continuous westward advance of settlement stopped at the 98th meridian.

• Interior = physical environment not for familiar agriculture.

• Maps = Great American Desert

Settlement of Great Plains

• Center migrated West at much slower pace after 1880.

• Large-scale migration to East Coast

• Fill in area b/w 98th meridian and California.

• 1950-1980 – center moved farther west.

• 1980 – crossed Mississippi River; 2000 – south-central Missouri.

Recent Growth of the South

• 1990s – first time, more migrated out of the West than into the West.

• Population center moved southward sharply.

• Immigrating into the South – job opportunities and environmental reasons.

• Interregional migration has slowed.• Net migration b/w each pair of regions

is now close to zero.

Migration in Regions

• More people move within the same region – intraregional migration.

• Less than 5% of world’s people in 1800 lived in urban areas, compared to almost ½ today.

• Urbanization begins in 1800s, in Europe and N.America undergoing rapid industrialization.

• Migration from rural to urban areas has shot up in LDCs of Africa, Asia, and L.America.

Migration in Regions

• MDCs = intraregional migration from central cities out to suburbs.

• Result of suburbanization, territory occupied by urban areas has rapidly expanded.

Migration – Metropolitan to Non

• Late 20c. – W.Europe and N.America have new trend.

• More people immigrated into rural areas than emigrated out of them.

• Net migration from urban to rural = counterurbanization.

• Many are retired people.• Has stopped in the US b/c of poor

economic conditions.