Latin American Countries Doing the Work that the U.S. Refuses to Do: Restrict Immigration
Jose Nino
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Christy Shaw, the Member Services Manager for immigration restriction group NumbersUSA, recently penned a piece highlighting Latin American countries latest moves to restrict migration.
She alluded to a piece by Andrew Selee, President of The Migration Policy Institute, discussing how mass migration is changing in the Caribbean and Latin America.
One of the most notable mass migration waves has been the one coming from Venezuela. Thanks to economic destabilization brought about by its government’s socialist policies, Venezuela has experienced an unprecedented refugee crisis. So far, 4.5 million Venezuelans have escaped to neighbors in South America. Additionally, thousands of Nicaraguans are fleeing their country due to economic insatiability and political repression.
Selee noted the following in his articles:
As a result of these shifts, many Latin American and Caribbean countries find themselves having to develop coherent immigration policies to respond to significant inflows… increasingly, governments have started imposing tighter requirements for entry.
It is interesting how foreign governments can casually implement immigration restriction, but the U.S. immediately gets attacked when it even floats the idea of attempting to control its borders. In her piece Shaw argued “that similar efforts to reform and tighten our own U.S. immigration system is completely demonized. Bottomline, a responsible U.S. immigration system sets a powerfully positive example for other countries to follow, and many countries have stricter immigration laws than the United States!”
Although there are legitimate causes for people to pursue refugee status, countries ultimately have national interests and constraints. They simply can’t accept everyone and allow for destabilizing levels of migrants to come in.
Countries like Colombia and Chile have already had to make immigration reforms because of the large influx of Venezuelans and other migrant groups to their respective countries. The U.S. should take note and actually begin to restrict migration given how its promoted mass migration since 1965.
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