Migrants: Where to and where from

If you ever wondered why there is a better selection of tortillas in your local store or why getting good garam masala is suddenly much easier, the Pew Research Group has a quick way to look at immigration and emigration.

The Pew Group has a GREAT interactive graphic to look at immigrant and emigrant movements during the past 25 years at Origins and Destinations of the World’s Migrants, from 1990-2015

Along with an interactive map, the Pew Group added a table so you can see with real numbers migration movement.

I’ll let the Pew Group explain what its wonderful graphic depicts:

The figures in this interactive feature refer to the total number (or cumulative “stocks”) of migrants living around the world as of 1990, 2000, 2010 or 2015 rather than to the annual rate of migration (or current “flows”) in a given year. Since migrants have both an origin and a destination, international migrants can be viewed from two directions – as an emigrant (leaving an origin country) or as an immigrant (entering a destination country).

According to the United Nations Population Division, an international migrant is someone who has been living for one year or longer in a country other than the one in which he or she was born. This means that many foreign workers and international students are counted as migrants. Additionally, the UN considers refugees and, in some cases, their descendants (such as Palestinians born in refugee camps outside of the Palestinian territories) to be international migrants. For the purposes of this interactive feature, estimates of the number of unauthorized immigrants living in various countries also are included in the total counts. On the other hand, tourists, foreign-aid workers, temporary workers employed abroad for less than a year and overseas military personnel typically are not counted as migrants.

And for those wondering, the total number of migrants living in the United States in 2015 came from:

1. Mexico – 12 million
2. China – 2.1 million
3. India – 1.9 million
4. Philippines – 1.7 million
5. Puerto Rico – 1.7 million
6. Viet Nam – 1.3 million
7. El Salvador – 1.2 million
8. Cuba – 1.1 million
9. South Korea – 1.1 million
10. Dominican Republic – 940,000
11. Guatemala – 880,000

Remember, this is the TOTAL number of people from these countries living in the United States, NOT the number arriving in 2015. And I would personally put the migration from Puerto Rico to the U.S. mainland as internal migration rather than international. (That is why I have a Top 11, rather than Top 10). Seems the United Nations has its own way of looking at these things.

And in case you are wondering, in 2015 there were 180,000 people from Iraqi living in the United States and 70,000 from Syria, both up from 40,000 each in 1990.

Local reporters can follow-up on this information for a local angle by using material from the U.S. Census Bureau.

For example, I know from the American FactFinder, there are a lot of Ethiopian restaurants in Fairfax County, Virginia (population 1.1 million) because Ethiopian immigrants are the largest African group in Fairfax – 6,000 out of 31,000 African native-born residents.

You can get good papusas because Salvadorans make up the largest single group of Latin American residents — 32,000 out of 102,000 from Latin America.

We all know Annandale, Va., is known as Little Seoul. Well, the Census numbers bear that out, of the 170,000 people born in Asia in Fairfax County, 30,000 are from Korea. But what should be evident to anyone paying attention, the Indian and Vietnamese presence is also big. Fairfax has 29,000 people who were born in Indian and 23,000 born in Vietnam.

Not to leave out Europe, but let’s face it, the numbers are weak compared to the rest of the world. Fairfax has 25,000 people born in Europe. The single largest group are the Germans with 3,600.

Bottom line, if you are looking for a foreign story, start in your own neighborhood.

Freedom House Looks at Threats in Mexico

Freedom House, one of the top human rights organizations in the world, has a program helping journalists in Mexico. Below is an introduction and link to a story about that program.

Mexico’s Embattled Journalists: An Interview with Mariclaire Acosta

One of the most dangerous countries in the world for journalists is Mexico, where 11 reporters have been murdered since 2014. Mariclaire Acosta directs Freedom House’s program in Mexico City to improve journalists’ professionalism and safety. Acosta, Mexico’s former Deputy Secretary for Human Rights and Democracy, talks here about the interconnected crises of security, press freedom, and accountability.

Full report, click here.

Mexican Journalist Kidnapped; War Against Journalists Continues

The latest victim in attacks against journalists in Mexico is Anabel Flores Salazar, a reporter in Veracruz.

Mexican authorities say they are searching for her after reports she was dragged from her home by armed men and hasn’t been seen since.

Salazar was taken Monday morning from her home near the city of Orizaba, where she worked for several newspapers.

Unfortunately, kidnapping and killing journalists is not uncommon in Mexico. Since 2010 15 journalists have been killed in Veracruz alone.

According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, 24 journalists have been killed in Mexico because of their jobs since 2010. A vast majority — 77 percent — of the reporters killed covered the crime beat, just like Salazar.

Threats against journalists come not only from the gangs but also corrupt public officials. The BBC reports there are strained relations between the Veracruz governor and the media. The governor has gone as far as warning journalists to “behave” or bad things might happen to them.

Understandably journalists in the area saw the comment as a veiled threat.

Veracruz prosecutors say they will investigate everything about Salazar to see why she was kidnapped.

The office said a few years ago she was seen with a leader of the local branch of the Zetas drug cartel.

And here in lies the problem.

For reporters to do their job, they have to develop sources across the board. If a cartel leader doesn’t like a story, threats are made and carried out against journalists. Likewise, if a local political figure is identified as being in the hip pocket of a cartel, the journalist receives threats from or is intimidated by the local government.

And then, there are a few bad apples in the journalism profession. Some have used their position as reporter or commentator to extort money from people in exchange for their silence on the air or in print. And because of the few unethical journalists, it becomes easier for governments and gangs to frame honest journalists, because the public is already to accept corruption within the media exists, just as it exists in the rest of society.

And to be clear, the situation described above is not unique to Mexico. Journalists throughout the Western Hemisphere face similar threats from gangs and rogue government officials.

This item was originally posted at Journalism and the World, the site of the International Journalism Community of the Society of Professional Journalists.

Mexican media still threatened by gangs

Washington Post reporter Dana Priest has an excellent piece on the threats Mexican journalists face everyday: Censor or die: The death of Mexican news in the age of drug cartels

For anyone who has paid attention to what is going on in Mexico, this is not news, but confirmation that the war against the cartels is not going so well in Mexico.

The Mexican media was just getting out from under the thumb of the oddly named Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI)  that ran Mexico for most of its 100+ years. A breakdown in the control PRI had meant journalists could start actually being journalists instead of stenographers for the government.

Then the cartels started gaining strength — with the help of corrupt national and local officials.

Suddenly the threats to free and independent journalism was no longer the loss of a job, but death.

As Priest notes:

Submitting to cartel demands is the only way to survive, said Hildebrando “Brando” Deandar Ayala, 39, editor in chief of El Mañana, one of the oldest and largest newspapers in the region with a print circulation of 30,000. “You do it or you die, and nobody wants to die,” he said. “Auto censura — self-censorship — that’s our shield.”

Just some items from the past 10 years:

• Social media picking up slack in Mexico war zones
• NYT: The Most Dangerous Beat: Juárez, Mexico
• ‘Caught in the middle’: Journalists seeking asylum often stuck in limbo

In Mexico, as in El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, the issue is not government censorship but death threats from criminal cartels. The inability of the governments to address the issue speaks volumes about the corruption and weak legal systems in these countries.

To be clear though, it does not mean the governments have a policy of media repression. Too many observers of Latin America see any attacks on journalists — or civic society activists — as being ordered by the local or national government. Unfortunately the threats are essentially from the “private sector” — the cartels. The law enforcement systems in these countries are so weak that the threats against journalists — and civic society activists — either are not investigated or such a weak case is built against the murderers that they go free.

This impunity cartels enjoy can only be stopped if the governments are provided enough support and help to fight back. That is why cutting support to programs that seek to build stronger legal systems is not the way to go. (But tell that to a handful of Congress critters and US-based activists.)

Nepal Turns Down Help From Taiwan. Beijing Factor?

Really? More than 3,000 people are dead with the number rising, and Nepal turns down help from Taiwan?

Nepal turns down Taiwan’s offer of quake assistance

Too often when a country turns down anything from Taiwan it is because that country is afraid of pissing off Beijing. The article mentioned above does explain why Nepal turned down the offer. but the implied reason is clear to anyone who has spent time paying attention to the China-Taiwan history.

It would be nice to know if the rejection is because of Nepal’s fear of China or for some other reason.

Just as the mere mention of Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton now gets Tea Partiers frothing at the mouth, for many years any mention of Taiwan doing anything would send Beijing into apocalyptic fits. The leadership in Zhongnanhai would start threatening governments who played nice with Taiwan and claimed any acceptance of Taiwanese help “hurt the feelings of Chinese everywhere.”

In recent years, the relationship has gotten more civilized, but Beijing is ever wary of Taiwan making too many friends.

A bit of background:

Ever since the Kuomingdan government was tossed off the mainland and onto the island of Taiwan in 1949, the Communist leaders in China have seen Taiwan, under the name Republic of China, as wayward province that needs to be reintegrated into the China fold. And the 1949 government of Taiwan saw itself as the real leaders of all of China.

That is were it all sat until the 1970s — with the US siding with Taiwan — when Nixon went to Beijing and Taiwan was booted out of the United Nations as the Chinese delegation and replaced with Beijing.

Now Taiwan is recognized by about a dozen countries, mostly because of the large amount of development aid (and other funds) the Taipei government has been able to spend on those countries.

By the early 1990s Taiwan moved toward democracy. (Although in 1992, the government still referred to China as “the Mainland” rather than China.)

By 2000 Taiwan had free and open elections, bringing about the first peaceful change in government leadership in China’s 5,000 year history.

At the same time China and Taiwan came to a tacit agreement to stop the public sniping at each other. That is unless Taiwan wanted into international organizations.

During the 2003 SARS scare in south China, Taiwan had a lot to offer the World Health Organization but was refused entrance by China. After a few more years of leaning on the door and engaging in lots of diplomacy, Taiwan was finally invited to observer status in the WHO in 2009.

What has been clear over the years that even though the level of the rhetoric has eased in the past few years, other countries are still fearful of facing Beijing’s wrath if they do anything with Taiwan. That fear may be why Nepal turned down expert help.

And turning down help in a natural disaster is not something any good government should do. (Just as the PRI in Mexico how that worked out for them following the 1985 earthquake. — They lost their monopoly status as the ruling party in Mexico shortly after the earthquake.)