The Malaysian state's response to migration

This paper aims to provide a profile of migration trends in Malaysia since 1970 and to analyze public policy on migration in the context of economic growth and the labor market. The discussion centers on the impact of the Asian financial crisis. There is long history of immigration to Malaysia. The development strategy of the 1970s and 1980s was to create more jobs and restructure employment to meet equity goals. Labor shortages on plantations and construction booms led to a more organized, sustained effort to import labor. Recession in the mid-1980s led to unemployment, but many Malaysians were unwilling to work on plantations, in construction, or in low paying jobs. Economic growth during 1987-96 was very high, and labor shortages spread to service and manufacturing sectors. Migration policy has shifted over the decades. Both the market and the government's promotion of export-based industrialization require access to low cost migrant labor. Public and official recognition of the large number of migrants was not made until 1995. The financial crisis in 1998 led to enforcement of a new migration policy on illegal migrants and greater outflow of migrants. The economic crisis has increased job and income inequities in the region; this encourages continued migration. It is argued that it would be best for Malaysia to maximize short-term gains while minimizing long-term economic, social, and political costs.     

From Limited to Active Engagement: Mexico’s Emigration Policies from a Foreign Policy Perspective (2000–2006)

Mexico’s emigration policies – including the state’s engagement with the diaspora, the discourse in relation to emigrants, the responses to U.S. migration policies and legislation, and the priority given to the issue in the national and bilateral agendas – have undergone a process of transformation since the late 1980s and particularly after 2000. From a history of generally limited engagement in terms of responding to U.S. policies and a traditional interpretation of consular protection activities, Mexico has gradually developed more active policies in relation to the diaspora and began a process of redefining its position on emigration. In addition to the processes of political change in Mexico and the growing impact of migrants’ transnational activities, changes in Mexico’s emigration policies are also a result of transformations in foreign policy principles and strategies, mainly as a result of the evolution of U.S.‐Mexico relations since the late 1980s and particularly since NAFTA. These findings demonstrate the significance of international factors – namely host state – sending state relations and foreign policy interests, discourse, and traditions – in the design and implementation of migration policies and the need to develop multi‐level analyses to explain states’ objectives, interests, and capacities in the management of migration.     

Invited Article: “You are Not Welcome Here!” Understanding News Coverage of Central American Migrant Families in Trump’s America

ABSTRACT

The influx of Central American families fleeing gang violence in the countries of El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras has captured the attention of the government, citizens, and the media and has created a crisis of its own leading to strong rhetoric and policy changes from the current U.S. administration led by Donald Trump. This study conducts a textual analysis of 35 stories published by The New York Times about the Central American migrant crisis between January of 2016 and mid-May of 2019 and identifies four categories of content: New kinds of migrants at the U.S. border, the Central American migrant crisis, the Trump administration’s approach to the crisis, and critique of Trump policy. Sub-categories were also developed for three of these categories. The findings indicate that there has been a shift in the type of migrant who tries to cross the border or seek asylum in the United States. Instead of undocumented single men migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border, there are now Central American migrant families displaced by the gang violence in Central America. The stories analyzed in this study highlight the changes to U.S. border and immigration policy partly in response to changes in migration patterns caused by this crisis.     

The framing of return from above and below in Ecuadorian migration: a project,a myth,or a political device?

Although return migration is a significant topic in current policy, the competing interests of sending and destination countries in promoting it and the prospects of making return strategies ‘from above’ a viable and desirable option for migrants are relatively neglected topics. In this article, I explore the distinct agendas, meanings and expectations underlying the prospects of return migration from Ecuador to Italy. I approach this recent migration flow through ethnography and an institutional analysis of the policy strategies and discourses emerging in the source country. The Ecuadorian government has recently developed a Plan Retorno aimed at facilitating emigrants’ return and economic reintegration. The narratives of Ecuadorian migrants generally reveal a deep‐rooted expectation to return home. While initially hoping to return home ‘soon’, however, migrants systematically tend to postpone their homecoming. When it does take place in the short term, it is likely to be through migration ‘failure’ rather than an actual accomplishment of their earlier objectives. Given the distinct interests and expectations driving them, it is possible to assess the relationship between the two approaches to return. I conclude that return migration, irrespective of its actual accomplishment, is relevant to a better understanding of emigrant policies and of immigrant life trajectories overseas.     

Health Status of Temporary Migrants in Urban Areas in Vietnam1

The rapid economic growth after economic reform, known in Viet Nam as “Doi Moi”, and the growing scope of urban migration raise specific questions for social policy, including migration and health policies. This paper compares issues of health status and its determinants as they affect temporary urban migrants versus permanent urban migrants and non‐migrants. The analyses utilize multivariate logistic regression and data from the 1997 Vietnam Migration and Health Survey. The results show that temporary migrants staying in guest houses are most vulnerable to health problems. Though most of them are initially healthier, their reported health deteriorates faster than other groups of urban residents. The findings also present important implications for the current migration and health policies in Vietnam: 1) A special attention should be given to temporary migrants in guest houses; 2) Different priorities in health policy should be applied to different groups of migrants and non‐migrants; 3) The current population management policy by registration system needs to be reviewed; 4) Providing clean water is one of the most important ways to improve health of temporary migrants; 5) Targeting educational investments and reducing unemployment would likely to improve overall health; 6) A higher priority on health policies targeting women would likely pay dividends, and; 7) Improving management and collaboration between government offices and interested partners is important to improving health status and reducing inequity.     

State of Control: Unknown Migrant Children

Recently, crises seem to predominate migration policymaking. They are commonly seen as critical junctures which precipitate major policy change. However, rather than creation of something new, crises can instead be vehicles for restoring the order of the past. This article examines the case of asylum-seeking unaccompanied minors in Sweden, where drastic changes have been made in the aftermath of the perceived “migration crisis” of 2015. Employing historical institutionalist theory, it examines decades of Swedish migration policymaking through analysis of state inquiries, law proposals and court rulings. It argues that the changes introduced 2015 were not qualitatively new, but rather a result of long-simmering tensions. These tensions lie between state attempts to control migration, particularly of “unidentifiable” individuals, and the rights accorded to migrants. The article shows that Sweden's migration framework of bounded universalism has gradually been altered by tools that categorize migrants, with implications for migration policy as a whole.     

The Migration–Development Nexus: Evidence and Policy Options

Migration and development are linked in many ways – through the livelihood and survival strategies of individuals, households, and communities; through large and often well–targeted remittances; through investments and advocacy by migrants, refugees, diasporas and their transnational communities; and through international mobility associated with global integration, inequality, and insecurity. Until now, migration and development have constituted separate policy fields. Differing policy approaches that hinder national coordination and international cooperation mark these fields. For migration authorities, the control of migration flows to the European Union and other OECD countries are a high priority issue, as is the integration of migrants into the labour market and wider society. On the other hand, development agencies may fear that the development policy objectives are jeopardized if migration is taken into consideration. Can long–term goals of global poverty reduction be achieved if short–term migration policy interests are to be met? Can partnership with developing countries be real if preventing further migration is the principal European migration policy goal? While there may be good reasons to keep some policies separate, conflicting policies are costly and counter–productive. More importantly, there is unused potential in mutually supportive policies, that is, the constructive use of activities and interventions that are common to both fields and which may have positive effects on poverty reduction, development, prevention of violent conflicts, and international mobility. This paper focuses on positive dimensions and possibilities in the migration–development nexus. It highlights the links between migration, development, and conflict from the premise that to align policies on migration and development, migrant and refugee diasporas must be acknowledged as a development resource.     

Thailand's responses to transnational migration during economic growth and economic downturn

This paper gives an historical overview of immigration to Thailand since the 1970s and emigration since the 1960s. It describes migration policies since the 1930s. Final discussion focuses on the impact of economic contraction on migration. Immigration to Thailand dates back to the 1760s when a huge wave of Chinese emigrated to Thailand. The flow continued until about 1850 and resumed during 1905-17. The next big waves of immigrants were after 1975, when refugees fled Indochina, and in the 1990s, when migrants flocked from neighboring countries drawn to the booming economy. Thai professionals left in the 1960s for the USA. During the 1980s, many left for work in the Middle East. During the 1990s, Thai migrants moved within the East and Southeastern Asian countries and the USA or Europe, and they included many women and illegal migrants. Emigrants leave as arranged by the government, by employers, by recruitment agencies, and as trainees. The first official act was in 1950 and revised in 1979. Many work permits were approved in the 1990s, especially for unskilled labor. There are supports for Thai migrants abroad, but little is offered to foreigners at home. By 1997, the country's recession led to nonrenewal of many work permits. The 1998 economic crisis led to a new labor policy that deported illegal and unskilled migrant workers in order to create jobs for Thais. Policy encouraged Thais to seek work overseas.     

Filipino workers in the Middle East: social profile and policy implications

The characteristics of international labor migrants from the Philippines are examined. "Based on an analysis of a sample of 495 Middle East workers and 1983 worker placements, this paper presents a profile of Filipino workers in the Middle East with reference to such variables as occupation, gender, age and work experience, civil status, education, Philippine residence, household size and number of dependents." (summary in FRE, SPA)     

Migration,the Urban Informal Sector,and Earnings in the Philippines*

This study investigates several issues pertaining to the urban informal sector and cityward migration in Philippine cities. The analysis of cross-sectional national demographic data reveals the four major patterns. First, the pattern of migrants' participation in the urban labor market varies greatly between male and female migrants. The widely held notion that migrants tend to enter the urban occupational structure through the informal sector seems to apply mainly to female migrants. Second, the informal sector must not be identified with urban poverty. Our data suggest that informal economies provide a wide range of income opportunities and that there is a great deal of overlap between formal- and informal-sector workers' incomes. Third, the effects of rural background and informal sector involvement seem to vary between Manila and the secondary cities. Fourth, sectoral boundaries do not seem to constitute a significant mobility barrier, but, due to the general lack of occupational mobility opportunities in Philippine cities, only a small proportion of those working in the informal sector are likely, to move out of it.     

NeoLiberalism and the Challenges of Managing Labour Migration in Urban Malaysia

Labour migration into Malaysia has increased rapidly in recent decades and this has affected Malaysia's government policy in managing migrants’ movement. Interestingly, Malaysia has attracted a high degree of unskilled labour, accompanied by unabated rise of undocumented migrant workers. Mitigating undocumented migration is the main aim of Malaysia's labour migration policy and therefore the focus of Malaysian government. This has impacted on how enforcement agencies work out strategies. These agencies are the forefront of Malaysia's labour migration policy but they faced a number of challenges, such as documentation, finance and manpower capability, and political intervention, which impede their ability to optimize their capabilities in enforcing the Malaysian government labour migration policy. Resolving these challenges and moving towards a long‐term labour migration policy will benefit the Malaysian state, its citizens and the labour migrants.     

The Securitization of Migration: A Racial Discourse1

As we enter the informational economy, freedom of human mobility has nearly disappeared. Instead, powerful words are travelling the globe unhindered: risk and security. They are being strung together with the present “migration phenomena”, leaving migrants bound by the chain of the new security discourse: the securitization of migration. This discourse is racism's most modern form. Discursive practices, as seen through the press portrayal of 599 migrants reaching Canada's western coast, have transformed migrants into agents which threaten “human security” How discourse informs government policy is illustrated through an examination of Canada's new immigration legislation.     

Impact of Modern Information and Communication Tools on International Migration

Observing the dramatic increase in the flow of migrants since the 2000s, one can hypothesise that emergent access to the Internet and mobile communications has contributed to it. Indeed, information and communication technologies (ICTs) help potential migrants to overcome the strongest barrier to migration – incomplete information. In a number of studies, ICTs are found to assist migration decision-making. An alternative view suggests that ICTs enhance the capacities to maintain working and family life across long distances. Empirical evidence for 191 countries, for the period 1995–2015, confirms the negative link between changes in ICT development and migration intensity. In the medium- and long-term, the migration growth rate is lower in countries with a higher ICT growth rate. The negative link may also be attributed to immigration policy developing to face the challenges of the increased availability of information needed for undertaking migration, and to mitigate the risk of uncontrolled migration.     

Family reunification and Philippine migration to the United States: the immigrants' perspective

This article focuses on the impact of the family reunification provisions in the US immigration policy for legal immigration from the Philippines. Immigration and Naturalization Service data on the changing pattern of Philippine immigration to the US between 1971 and 1984 show an increase of nearly 2 1/2 times in the number of immediate family members exempt from numerical limitations, a doubling in the number of immigrants entering under family preference categories, but a marked decline in the number of occupational preference immigrants. Immigration-related plans, behavior, and characteristics from the immigrants' perspective are also analyzed. A family unification policy-based typology has been constructed to categorize intended and actual immigrants to the US. Using this typology, systematic differences are reported for out-migration plans, family contacts, the immigration process, and the characteristics of intended and actual immigrants. While political and economic system competition and inequality are contextual factors for international migration, from the immigrants' perspective, joining family members by means of the family reunification provisions of the US immigration policy is the dominant explanation for legal immigration to the US in a sample of 1340 adults in Philippine households in 1982.     

Locational Choices of the Legal and Illegal: The Case of Mexican Agricultural Workers in the U.S.1

This paper examines relationships between legal and illegal farmworker migration from Mexico and state‐level labor market, agricultural, demographic, and public policy variables. The study uses a nationally representative farmworker survey providing direct legal status data. Consistent with previous literature, results indicate that personal and community networks are primary determinants of locational choices. Conversely, border enforcement is negatively related to migration to certain areas. Results are strongest for California migrants and for those with previous migration experience. Potential welfare and education program values are uncorrelated with locations of recent Mexican agricultural workers.     

Philippine Women on the Move: Marriage across Borders

This paper discusses how Philippine transnational marriage migration is intertwined in complex and paradoxical ways with global, local and personal matters. My argument will blur the artificial and still dominant analytical division between marriage migrants (wives or "mail order" brides) and labour migrants (workers – mainly domestic workers). Focusing on the life histories of different Filipina women, the paper illustrates the intersections and multiplicity of their roles as wives, mistresses, workers, mothers, daughters and citizens in a transnational migratory space.
Furthermore, I go along with those scholars who argue that women do not only marry in order to migrate, but that they also migrate in order to marry, as marriage is seen as an important aspect of social fulfilment. By carefully investigating these emerging transnational or even global marriage-scapes, I analyze the different motives, logics and desires that come into play. While women from the Philippines may look for "modern husbands" and "modern marriages" because of local constraints on their marriage opportunities, many western men turn to Asia and the Philippines for "traditional" wives whom they imagine to be more "conservative" and "less demanding." Both often discover that their gender stereotypes are more imagined than real.
The stories illustrate how Filipina migrants use different socio-cultural and socio-economic situations across transnational space – and at times against local gender constructions – in order to renegotiate and reclaim a respectable and desired marital status. On the one hand, these women are subject to manifold localised, legal and religious-moral definitions as women and wives. On the other hand, they creatively and actively utilise structural differences and new opportunities across transnational space to redefine themselves. The stories thus show both the women's agency and the importance of structural factors.     

Factoring Turbulence Out: Diaspora Regulatory Mechanism and Migration Development Bank

The ongoing economic crisis has shifted much of the policy debate to problems of financial sector regulation, productive capacity collapse, among others. However, this leaves unattended the real situation with labour migration, which directly impacts social and economic inner components of being of millions of individual families across the world. The somewhat ad hoc nature of the process poses several policy issues for the home and host economies alike. Immediate concerns relate to streamlining migrants and remittances flows. This involves sensitive aspects of inequality in migrant workers’ labour efforts vis‐à‐vis domestic workers; migrants’ social and legal status; and less obvious, but still profound, unproductive misallocation of labour resources. Derived from this premise and recognizing the need for an institutional approach, this paper offers alternative policy solutions to temporary labour migration regulation. This research’s original propositions include a Diaspora Regulatory Mechanism and a Migration Development Bank, both operating within a state‐managed temporary labour migration regime. Fiscal action, including multilateral agreements, is crucial. The functionality of these mechanisms will directly impact infrastructure, human capital and entrepreneurial projects development in both home and host economies. Discussion is inspired by the analysis of actual circumstances in the economies of the Commonwealth of Independent States, where migration is a social, economic, and increasingly political issue. In the interlinked world, diasporas become dominant actors across all society strata. The development plateau of the post‐socialist states offers a rich economic and social soil to conduct responsible policy with future outlook. Moreover, conditions of ongoing economic crisis offer a unique opportunity for daring research to propose and for a motivated decisionmaker to implement original, proactive, and beneficial policy solutions aimed at streamlining the (temporary) labour migration process. This paper contributes to the emerging literature on topics of diaspora, labour migration, and remittance flows.     

A Global Labor Market: Factors Motivating the Sponsorship and Temporary Migration of Skilled Workers to Australia1

The recruitment of skilled foreign workers is becoming increasingly important to many industrialized countries. This paper examines the factors motivating the sponsorship and temporary migration of skilled workers to Australia under the temporary business entry program, a new development in Australia's migration policy. The importance of labor demand in the destination country in stimulating skilled temporary migration is clearly demonstrated by the reasons given by employers in the study while the reasons indicated by skilled temporary migrants for coming to work in Australia show the importance of both economic and non‐economic factors in motivating skilled labor migration.     

Legitimating the Philippines as a language learning space: Transnational Korean youth's experiences and evaluations

This paper examines how a peripheral English‐speaking country is constructed as a legitimate language learning space in the global English language teaching (ELT) industry by investigating South Koreans’ recent engagement in Philippine English education. It focuses on a short‐term English study abroad program, in which the Philippines serves as a transit place prior to students’ moving to a Western English‐speaking country. Drawing data from ethnographic research on South Korean youth studying English abroad, the article analyzes why Korean students seek Philippine English education in spite of their apparent pursuit of authentic English, and how they evaluate their learning experience in the Philippines. This paper finds that the Philippines holds a niche market in the global ELT industry by separating a space for English learning from other public and everyday spaces of English use and offering pedagogically intensive but emotionally supportive environments to English learners.