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LATIN AMERICA: "Foreign Direct Investment in Latin America Hit Record Highs in 2011" report

LATIN AMERICA: "Foreign Direct Investment in Latin America Hit Record Highs in 2011" report. 70-page report by Council of Foreign Relations.

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backLATINtalk February, 2012

Migrants’ New Paths Reshaping Latin America

Throughout Mexico and much of Latin America, the old migratory patterns are changing.

The mobile and restless are now casting themselves across a wider range of cities and countries in the region, pitting old residents against new, increasing pressure to create jobs and prompting nations to rewrite their immigration laws.

The United States is simply not the magnet it once was, and arrests at the United States’ southwest border in 2011 fell to their lowest level since 1972, confirming that illegal immigration, especially from Mexico, has reached what experts now describe as either a significant pause or the end of an era.

This is not a shift in volume as much as direction, as the migrants are just not always going where they used to go. All of this movement is reshaping Latin America, making it less like a compass pointing north and more like a hub with many spokes.

“It’s like a river changing course,” said Gabino Cué Monteagudo, the governor of Oaxaca, Mexico. “It’s the process of development — it’s inevitable.”

For the United States, the collective shift means fewer migrants crossing the border illegally and possibly more debate over whether the expanded budgets for immigration enforcement still make sense.

Still, the greatest impacts are being felt in fast-growing towns like Santa María Atzompa, where thousands of mostly poor, rural families have chosen to seek their fortunes. Other regional poles are experiencing similar growth, particularly Mexico’s coastal and exurban areas have expanded. This is partly because of the Mexican government’s efforts to decentralize development, often with incentives for international businesses.

Likewise in South America, free trade agreements have contributed to more regional movement, as have steadily growing economies and new laws encouraging migration or protecting migrants’ rights in several countries. Improvements in technology and infrastructure have also made it easier to discover and reach jobs in new places.

Source: GLOBALITY - GAI

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