MIGRATION TREATMENT IN THE SOUTH AMERICAN SUBREGION INTEGRATION SPACES: GOOD

PRACTICES BEING TESTED

Jorge Martínez Pizarro, with the collaboration of María Fernanda Stang

CELADE-CEPALJune 2005

Latin America and the Caribbean: migrant population according to origin Censuses of 1970-2000a

Censuses Annual growth rates Origin

1970 1980 1990 2000 1970-1980

1980-1990

1990-2000

Overseas 3873420 3411426 2350441 1895075 -1,3 -3,7 -2,1 Percentage 76,1 63,1 51,2 41,3 Inter-regional Migration

1218990 1995149 2242268 2694603 4,8 1,2 1,8

Percentage 23,9 36,9 48,8 58,7 Total 5092410 5406575 4592709 4589678 0,6 -1,6 0,0 Percentage 100,0 100,0 100,0 100,0 Source: CELADE IMILA PROJECT a By 1970, 16 countries are included; by 1980, 1990, and 2000, these figures are 14, 13, and 11, respectively.

Intraregional Migration

• In 2000, the accumulated stock was slightly higher than that observed in 1990, reaching 2.7 million people

• In the main receiving countries, the number of regional immigrants grew in the last decade (Argentina and Venezuela)

• In Costa Rica, it increased significantly. Chile also experienced an increase that is worth mentioning.

Questions and issues

• How do South American countries approach the issue of integration and migration?

• Examples where the two integration dimensions meet: – That related to the insertion of migrants, and

– That related to the regional and sub-regional integration

Two large South American blocks

• Andean Community of Nations (CAN) and the South American Common Market (MERCOSUR)

• Insistence on reaching a deeper integration

• Migration treatment: interest in social cohesion

• (History of discontinuities)

Migration and social aspects of regional integration

• They include a wide and undefined spectrum of topics

• It is understood that they continue being a diffuse matter, but not just formal

• Simultaneously, both international organizations and the civil society as well as researchers and academicians, have been alerting about the importance of including the issue of migration as a fundamental component of the negotiations about regional integration

Agreed-on suggestion

• Regional integration demands the adoption of measures aimed at integrating migrants, both from a labor point of view and a citizenship perspective

Andean Community

• Simon Rodríguez Agreement and Andean Document of Labor Migration or Decision 116 (1977)

• It defined provisions and institutional mechanisms about procedures to hire Andean workers and to protect the workers and their families

Andean Community

• The creation of the Andean Common Market fosters the reformulation of Document Decision 545 (2003)

• It aims at establishing regulations that allow the free mobilization and residence of Andean citizens in the subregion for labor purposes and under a dependence relationship on a gradual and progressive manner

Andean Community

• Decision 503, approved in June 2001, acknowledges the national identification documents as the only requirement for nationals and foreigners residing in the member countries to travel in the subregion as tourists

Andean Community

• Community’s regulation to accept academic diplomas and national demands

• Decision 584 or Andean Document about Safety and Health on the Job

• Decision 583 or Andean Document of Social Security, approved in Ecuador in May 2004

MERCOSUR

• Consideration of migration and social aspects in MERCOSUR clearly comes later and is more diffuse

• However, there is a milestone: the Agreement on Residence for Nationals of the Member States of MERCOSUR, Bolivia, and Chile (2002 in a forum of Ministers of the Interior held in Brasilia)

MERCOSUR

• The implementation of a policy for the free mobilization of people is essential to strengthen and deepen the integration process

• Need to fight against human trafficking for labor exploitation and other situations that bring about a degradation of the human dignity

MERCOSUR

• Civil, social, cultural, and economic rights and freedoms of migrants equal to those of nationals

• Right for family reunification and to freely transfer to their countries of origin their personal income and savings

• Member states commit to analyze the feasibility of subscribing reciprocity conventions about previsions

A particular case: the Migration Law of Argentina

• The new regulation Nº 25.871 grants special consideration to the integration process in the country by establishing a privileged situation for the residence of migrants from the expanded MERCOSUR countries

A particular case: the Migration Law of Argentina

• The Law was passed in December 2003 and officially published in January 2004

• Long creation process with the active participation of the civil society

• It broke away from the awful regulation of the dictatorship

• Migration is associated to development, decreases the social control about people mobilization, and

the right to migrate is considered as an essential and inalienable right based on equality and universality