Martin Savidge hosts David Rayside and Rachel Tiven on LGBT politics and gay asylum. We begin the conversation with Jamaica, which makes up 17 of the 55 U.S. asylum cases won by Immigration Equality last year alone. We examine the metastasizing colonial and slave culture, entrenched poverty and rampant violence in Jamaica.

In 1994, former U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno expanded asylum law to include persecution based on sexual orientation. Sexual orientation has been increasingly used as grounds for asylum. We also discuss how to begin the process of applying for gay asylum in the U.S.

From human rights abuses to political progress, the gay rights movement is at different stages throughout the world. We take a comparative look at the progress of LGBT politics and the gay rights movement in different countries, including the best and worst places to be gay.

A Greek gay rights parade. Photo: Megan Thompson

• Read about one gay Jamaican’s story of asylum: Gay men in Jamaica must lead two separate lives
• Watch signature videos from Jamaica: Violence and venom force gay Jamaicans to hide and Gays in Jamaica worship in underground church
• Watch our signature video from Greece: Ancient Greek values clash with modern treatment of gays

GUESTS:

David Rayside is a political science professor at the University of Toronto. His latest book “Queer Inclusions, Continental Divisions” is a comparative analysis of Canadian and  American political recognition of same-sex relationships, the extension of parenting rights to same-sex couples and the response to sexual diversity in public schooling. For over thirty years, he has also been an activist on issues related to sexual diversity and gender within academic institutions and beyond.

Rachel B. Tiven is the executive director of Immigration Equality, a national organization fighting for equal immigration rights for the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and HIV-positive community. Under her leadership, Immigration Equality has doubled in size, quadrupled client services and opened a policy office in Washington, D.C.

Credits:
Host: Martin Savidge
Producers: Lisa Biagiotti and Ben Piven
Researcher: Geneva Sands-Sadowitz

For more information on homophobia and HIV in Jamaica, visit The Glass Closet, a multimedia project produced in partnership with the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting.

In light of the highly-publicized murder of a pregnant Egyptian woman in Germany, Gustin discusses Muslim immigration in France, Germany and the United Kingdom with Daljit Dhaliwal.

The debate continues about whether immigrants or host governments should try harder to achieve better integration.

Should immigrants do more to fit into their new countries? Or should host countries do more to make immigrants feel welcomed?

Nadim Baba of Al Jazeera English reports from Dresden, Germany.

Tell us what you think in the comments section below. Please remember to be respectful and on-point in your comments. Malicious or offensive comments will be deleted and repeat offenders will be banned.

Remittances of 2.5 billion dollars make up Afghanistan’s entire national budget.

Richard O’Regan reports from Tehran.

A French Muslim woman wears a niqab in Paris.

Six years ago, I was looking for an apartment in the French capital. Searching for the 5-A buzzer, an American friend and I came across an old French man who thought we were trespassing.

“Vous allez faire un kamikaze?” he shouted, wondering whether we were about to blow up his building.

“Avez-vous un tapis de priere?” he asked in a southern French accent, assuming that we were Moroccans who carry prayer rugs.

We responded that we were just American students, despite our relatively swarthy complexions, and then he proceeded with an extremist anti-Arab rant.

This was my first exposure to virulent French racism and cultural insensitivity. His tirade echoed the xenophobia of the far-right Front National party, which had received 17 percent of the vote in France’s 2002 presidential election.

Today, France is still wracked by intolerance and Islamophobia, despite a long tradition of democracy and dissent. As France struggles to integrate second-generation North Africans who are largely clustered in poor neighborhoods on the outskirts of cities, the Islamic dress controversy continues to rage.

In July, a report by French newspaper Le Monde revealed that just 367 women wear the full Islamic veil in France. The figure makes French President Nicholas Sarkozy seem heavy-handed in his recent declaration that the niqab was “not welcome.” This piece of hard evidence, supplied by data from two domestic intelligence agencies, makes it unlikely that the center-right Sarkozy would pursue an absolute ban. The hyperactive leader is known for his pragmatism, and he doesn’t want to appear too extremist.

The report comes amid a French legislative commission’s investigation on the use of the full veil in public places. The panel seeks to address the style’s popularity, and it will make a recommendation about the usefulness of a ban.

But there is linguistic confusion about the full veil. The Islamic article of clothing in question is actually the niqab (originally from Saudi Arabia), rather than the burka (popular in Afghanistan). An explanatory diagram in Le Point shows the differences between the three primary types of Muslim veil.

An Egyptian woman in Alexandria wearing a Burqini.

The evolution of conservative Islamic fashion does not stop there. In mid-August controversy erupted at a Paris pool surrounding the “burqini,” a bathing suit designed by Australian company Ahiida to uphold the modesty of Muslim women.

An editorial accompanying the niqab statistic in left-leaning Le Monde criticized the need to “legislate for an exception” and further stigmatize French Islam. Declaring the niqab to be a phénomène ultraminoritaire (very rare phenomenon), the editorial recognizes that the several hundred women who wear the niqab are not sufficiently integrated into French culture.

The French are fierce defenders of their secular republic and will defend women’s rights against fundamentalist religious customs such as the veil. But there are disagreements about whether it would be helpful to legislate religious expression in the public sphere.

“We cannot accept that women be prisoners behind a screen, cut off from all social life, deprived of all identity,” said the French president in June, frustrating many cultural commentators such as a blogger at “Moor Next Door“:

The trouble the French may want to worry about is not the burqa as it is worn in France today, but that such a ban, as the headscarf ban has done, will make the garment a greater symbol of Muslim identity and sign of cultural defiance. France has done a good job at finding ways of alienating racial and religious minorities. Indeed, among Western nations it is a leader in this field. This is a quality that does little to further the assimilationist cause the French so actively pursue.

The Le Monde report indeed suggests that most of the 367 women in question are under 30 and wear the niqab to make an explicit political point to defy French society — and in some cases, rebel against their own families. The vast majority of French Muslims reject the full body veils, according to the French intelligence reports. Moreover, according to the French Council of Muslim Worship, wearing the niqab is a personal, cultural choice.

But, unlike the U.S., France values secularism even more than the right to free expression of religion. A “burka ban” would never pass muster in the U.S. But French politicians insist that they will not fight a second battle to separate church from the French state. The first church-state battle was with the Catholic church, from which the government legally separated in 1905.

In 2004, France received much criticism after banning the headscarf in public schools. The law was one of many factors that led to more than a month of civil unrest by minority youths across France in November 2005.

France has Europe’s largest Muslim population, estimated around 5 million. But France does not keep official statistics on race or religion, so this figure could easily be much higher. Regardless, just one in every 90,000 French women wear the full-body veil. And apparently one-quarter of them are converts to Islam.

One French Muslim organization that has been discouraging women to wear the full veil is Ni Putes Ni Soumises (Neither Whores Nor Submissives). Founded by Fadela Amara, a liberal Muslim woman of North African origin, the group promotes a modern combination of Islam and feminism.

Amara, now a minister in Prime Minister Francois Fillon’s right-leaning government, has become far more popular among politicians than among folks in la banlieue (working-class suburbs). Amara told Le Parisien last year:

The burka is a prison, it’s a straitjacket…It is not a religious insignia but the insignia of a totalitarian political project that advocates inequality between the sexes and which is totally devoid of democracy.

- Ben Piven

Photos courtesy of Flickr users I.Diabate and Giorgio Montersino under a Creative Commons license.

President Jacob Zuma warned protesters to respect the law. But across that country, an estimated one million families live in shacks without power and very limited plumbing.

Many blame immigrants for taking jobs that might lead to a better life. For more, watch the Worldfocus signature story “Immigrants in South Africa deal with hostility, xenophobia.”

Yaw Nyarko, a professor of economics and the head of Africa House at New York University, joins Martin Savidge to discuss South African attitudes towards immigrants and the government, as well as economic conditions.

Many Haitians migrate to the Dominican Republic for employment and are subsequently subjected to discrimination.

Up to one million people of Haitian origin currently live in the Dominican Republic, and many are subjected to discrimination and violence.

Many impoverished Haitians cross the border into the Dominican Republic looking for arable land, fuel and work. Often, they face racial prejudice and their Dominican-born children are refused citizenship because they are considered “in transit.” These children are left stateless.

In May of this year, a Haitian migrant was beheaded in the Dominican Republic. The incident sparked renewed outrage over treatment of Haitians in the country. Roger Leduc of “Upside Down World,” a Worldfocus contributor, describes the escalating human rights concerns.

Recent incidents involving Haitian workers in the Dominican Republic should alert even the most jaded observers that an already very serious human rights problem is getting worse.

A confluence of factors — a rapid succession of executions in the last few months, arrogance and defiance from Dominican government officials, institutions and citizenry vis-a-vis the plight of Haitian workers, the shameful indifference of the Haitian government, and the relatively superior economic and military position of the Dominican Republic — has created a pre-genocidal atmosphere that raises the specter of the 1937 mass murder of tens of thousands of Haitian immigrants.

What is alarming about these events is the rapidity, spontaneity, anger and brutality with which Dominican mobs react to rumored misdeeds of Haitians. This points to a deep well of prejudice and hatred, fed by a negative, stereotyped view of Haitians. It also denotes the distorted self-image and misconceptions some Dominicans have about their cultural and racial differences with their island brothers. Some of these opinions are typical anti-immigrant resentments: Haitians are stealing jobs, depressing the price of labor, etc.. Other sentiments, evoking fears of the proverbial “barbarians at the gates” and of Haitians changing the DR’s supposedly European and Christian culture, stem from century-old events and a misunderstood history. They are emotional and even visceral - and therefore more explosive and dangerous. Haitians are considered as the “enemy” who deserve their lot and who should be punished whenever Dominicans deem it appropriate.

Dominican government pronouncements feed this xenophobia. They not only deny any mistreatment of Haitians but accuse Haitians of fomenting violence. Haitians, they say, should then be thankful that Dominicans, more than any other nation, give them aid and succor, a Dominican version of Rudyard Kipling’s “white man’s burden.”

In 2005, the Dominican government reacted rabidly to the decision of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights that children born to Haitian parents in the Dominican Republic should be given full citizenship rights as Dominican law prescribes. It claimed that there was an international conspiracy against the Dominican Republic. Similarly, Haitian Prime Minister Michelle Pierre-Louis’ mild protest over Nérilus’ decapitation received vigorous rebukes from both President Leonel Fernandez and the archbishop —  the DR’s putative moral leaders. The Dominican police and judicial authorities are not only conspicuously silent but also take part in massive abuse and repression.

One of the reactions to Pierre-Louis’ whiny protest was that she should have toed the line set by President René Préval, who refused to denounce the beheading and stated that the case should be left to the Dominican authorities. There could be no better signal to Dominicans that they can do as they please with Haitians. [...]

Many petit-bourgeois Haitians ignore the plight of Haitian sugarcane cutters, who come from either the poor peasantry or the slums. In the feudal caste system in Haiti, such working-class people are considered disposable sub-humans. Some well-to-do Haitians are proud to trumpet how often they go on vacation in the Dominican Republic and spend their money, oblivious to the abject situation of our compatriots and enthralled by the great “development” of our neighbor. Haiti’s moneyed class feels no remorse in taking profits reaped in Haiti and investing them in the DR, claiming that the situation is too unstable at home — an instability and precariousness many of them helped create.

To read more, see the original post.

The views expressed by contributing bloggers do not reflect the views of Worldfocus or its partners.

Photo courtesy of Flickr user elmarto under a Creative Commons license.

The Lignum Vitae tree — Jamaica’s national tree — shades the grave of Albert Hosang in the Chinese cemetery in Kingston, Jamaica. Photo: Lisa Biagiotti

Lisa Biagiotti is currently reporting on HIV/AIDS, sexuality and young gay men in Jamaica. On Saturday, she visited her grandfather’s grave in the Chinese cemetery in Kingston. She shares a personal story of death and renewal of the Chinese community in Jamaica.

I never met my grandfather, Albert Hosang, but I knew he was buried in the Chinese cemetery in Kingston, Jamaica. The 11-acre cemetery serves as the buffer zone for three main gangs in one of Kingston’s most volatile neighborhoods.

Before the Chinese Benevolent Association (CBA) erected a wall around the cemetery, it was a blanket battleground. People slept in graves and pillaged marble tombstones, preventing many Chinese Jamaicans from visiting the final resting places of their relatives.

The cemetery is a reminder of the Chinese presence in Jamaica since 1854. After slavery was abolished in Jamaica, British landowners recruited the Chinese — specifically the peasant, nomadic Hakka Chinese from the Guandong province outside Hong Kong. They came as indentured laborers, but soon rose through the economic and social ranks of Jamaican society, settling in downtown Kingston and throughout the island as traders, shopkeepers and bakers.

From the beginning, the Chinese mixed with the local population and converted from Buddhism to Christianity. At one point, some estimate the Chinese population reached 20,000, but it’s difficult to calculate a precise count because many Chinese are a blend of other ethnic backgrounds like black Jamaican, white European, South Asian, Lebanese, Syrian and Jewish.

When independence from British rule came in 1962, the Chinese fully integrated into Jamaican society. The second and third generations identified more as Jamaican than Chinese. They didn’t speak the old Hakka dialect, but spoke Jamaican patois. The CBA in Jamaica is trying to revive haunts of Chinese culture with Mandarin language lessons, Chinese socials, badminton, Kung Fu and other traditional Chinese celebrations.

There is also a new wave of Chinese immigrants in Jamaica today. Like their Chinese ancestors 150 years ago, they are setting up shops in downtown Kingston. When I walked into Chun Lai’s shop on Princess Street, no one spoke patois (yet), and all the goods were made in China.

At 10:00 on Saturday morning, I sat at the foot of my grandfather’s grave in the 99-year-old Chinese cemetery while resident expert David Chang read the Chinese characters on the tombstone. (My grandfather died at age 46, but the Chinese characters read 49 — it’s common to have errors like these as the language slipped away from the Chinese Jamaicans.) David read from top to bottom, right to left: The town and province my grandfather’s family came from in China, the names of his parents, brothers and wife. Then he said, “And 10? Ten children?” and turned to me.

I nodded, “Yes, 10 children.” And I looked down at my right hand, at the worn, barely-beveled ring my Aunt Paula sent me in a plastic bag a few weeks ago. I sighed and thought of her as she waged her final battle with cancer. I patted her father’s grave and heard her slim gold band tap the white tile.

My aunt, Paula (Hosang) Sperrazza, died at 1:30 p.m. that very same day. I’m not sure if my visit was karmic or auspicious — maybe it just is. She was a courageous and brilliant woman who began her life 62 years ago in the Chinese Jamaican community in Kingston.

Rest in peace Paula Sperrazza and Albert Hosang.

- Lisa Biagiotti

• Watch all the Worldfocus In the Shadows video signature series
• Listen to Worldfocus Radio on LGBT politics and gay asylum
• For more information on homophobia and HIV in Jamaica, visit The Glass Closet, a multimedia project produced in partnership with the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting

Environmentalists and others may balk at the world’s rapid population growth, as the global population is expected to surpass 9 billion by 2050 — but in Russia, the opposite is true.

Facing dual threats of low birth rates and soaring mortality rates, the Russian population is aging and dying, according to a recent report from the United Nations Development Programme.

Life expectancy in Russia is some 12 years less than life expectancy in the U.S. Russia lost more than 12 million people over the last 16 years, and may lose another 11 million by 2025.

In an effort to combat the trend, the Kremlin has launched a pro-natalist campaign, expanding maternity leave benefits and offering financial incentives to mothers with more than one child.

The population decline has also impacted Russia’s national discussions on reproduction and abortion.

Worldfocus.org’s weekly radio show explored the factors driving Russia’s population decline and its implications for Russian society and public policy.

Worldfocus anchor Martin Savidge hosted a panel of guests:

Paul Goble is a longtime specialist on ethnic and religious questions in Eurasia and blogs at “Window on Eurasia.” Most recently, he was director of research and publications at the Azerbaijan Diplomatic Academy. Previously, he worked in various capacities at the U.S. State Department, the Central Intelligence Agency and the International Broadcasting Bureau, as well as at the Voice of America, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He has been decorated by the governments of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania for his work in promoting Baltic independence.

Vladimir Lenskiy is the New York bureau chief and correspondent for Russia’s Channel One television, the country’s oldest and largest television network with an audience of 100 million viewers throughout Russia and Eastern Europe. He has over a decade of experience as a reporter for Russia’s independent national television networks, including NTV (Nezavisimoye Televideniye), TVS and TV-6, a Moscow-based independent channel.

Louisa Vinton is a senior program manager at the United Nations Development Program’s Regional Bureau for Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States, where she is responsible for UNDP activities in seven countries: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova, the Russian Federation and Ukraine. Previously, Louisa worked for the Economist Intelligence Unit and as a senior research analyst for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty in Munich.

Photo courtesy of Flickr user eurutuf under a Creative Commons license.

Credits:
Host: Martin Savidge
Producers: Nicole E. Foster, Katie Combs and Bijan Rezvani

People in Mexico often hire a “pollero,” or people smuggler, to take them to the U.S.

Over the years, immigrant smuggling has evolved into a large and sophisticated industry.

Sacha Feinman is a journalist with the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting. He describes how people in Mexico go about hiring a “pollero,” or people smuggler, as border controls have tightened. 

Nogales, Sonora

Their stories are infinite in variety. Jose Arturo Romero got separated from his group and was left to fend for himself in the middle of the desert, picked up by the Border Patrol after four days of what had seemed like aimless wandering. It was his third attempt, and he had yet to make it the 60 miles to Tucson. Dehydration and the near-death experience be damned; he was ready to try again. Jorge Flores had been successful in his one and only crossing 22 years earlier. More than two decades later, an entire life came undone in Raleigh, North Carolina when he ran a red light and was found to be driving without a license. Some are trying to get to their families in New York or Chicago, believing that opportunity awaits if they can just complete the journey. Others have no one to call on and no idea what to expect once they finish moving.

The stories vary save in a single detail; each narrator hired a “pollero”, or guide, to bring them across the border and safely install them in the U.S.

These days, human smuggling to the U.S. is a big business, one that has undergone a profound transformation over the last 10-15 years. What were once “mom and pop” enterprises only found on the U.S/Mexico border have been replaced by far more sophisticated brokers who now interact with the country’s deadly narcotraffickers.

The hiring of a pollero represents a remarkable moment in a migrant’s journey. Life savings, not to mention lives themselves, are given over to a total stranger. And there is no criteria by which one might judge which guide is trustworthy and which is trouble.

“It’s luck, picking a pollero. Luck and faith in God,” advises Melvin Castañeda, a 34 year old migrant from the state of Sinaloa. “There are a few little things that can help. Never pick a young guide, for example. Older guides have been around longer and know better how to get around. And they don’t walk as fast. But luck; that is really all you have.”

“The border crossing is more dangerous today than ever before,” says Enrique Enriquez, the local coordinator of the governmental agency Grupo Beta. Working to provide medical attention and travel advice for would-be crossers, the organization’s members are in a unique position to testify on the dangers facing migrants looking to smuggle themselves across the U.S./Mexico border.

According to Enriquez, increased security measures by the U.S. Border Patrol has resulted in an equal but opposite reaction on the Mexican side. While U.S. authorities have militarized the border in an attempt to bring order to the region and stem the flow of undocumented workers in to the U.S., their actions have made the journey more dangerous for migrants.

To read more, see the original post. 

The views expressed by contributing bloggers do not reflect the views of Worldfocus or its partners.

Photo courtesy of Flickr user scazon under a Creative Commons license.

Environmentalists and others may balk at the world’s rapid population growth, as the global population is expected to surpass 9 billion by 2050 – but in Russia, the opposite is true.

Facing dual threats of low birth rates and soaring mortality rates, the Russian population is aging and dying, according to a recent report from the United Nations Development Programme.

Life expectancy in Russia is some 12 years less than life expectancy in the U.S. Russia lost more than 12 million people over the last 16 years, and may lose another 11 million by 2025.

In an effort to combat the trend, the Kremlin has launched a pro-natalist campaign, expanding maternity leave benefits and offering financial incentives to mothers with more than one child.

The population decline has also impacted Russia’s national discussions on reproduction and abortion.

Worldfocus.org’s weekly radio show explored the factors driving Russia’s population decline and its implications for Russian society and public policy.

Worldfocus anchor Martin Savidge hosted a panel of guests:

Paul Goble is a longtime specialist on ethnic and religious questions in Eurasia and blogs at “Window on Eurasia.” Most recently, he was director of research and publications at the Azerbaijan Diplomatic Academy. Previously, he worked in various capacities at the U.S. State Department, the Central Intelligence Agency and the International Broadcasting Bureau, as well as at the Voice of America, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He has been decorated by the governments of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania for his work in promoting Baltic independence.

Vladimir Lenksy is the New York bureau chief and correspondent for Russia’s Channel One television, the country’s oldest and largest television network with an audience of 100 million viewers throughout Russia and Eastern Europe. He has over a decade of experience as a reporter for Russia’s independent national television networks, including NTV (Nezavisimoye Televideniye), TVS and TV-6, a Moscow-based independent channel.

Louisa Vinton is a senior program manager at the United Nations Development Program’s Regional Bureau for Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States, where she is responsible for UNDP activities in seven countries: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova, the Russian Federation and Ukraine. Previously, Louisa worked for the Economist Intelligence Unit and as a senior research analyst for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty in Munich.

Photo courtesy of Flickr user eurutuf under a Creative Commons license.

Some Guatemalan migrants to the U.S. send money back to their families. Photo: Samuel Loewenberg

Samuel Loewenberg of the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting is currently in Guatemala producing a couple Worldfocus signature stories. He writes about the experience of Guatemalan migrants to the U.S.

People seem to cry a lot in Guatemala.

This applies to men as well as women, the country’s reputation for machismo notwithstanding. The crying seems to come especially when they are recounting their experiences as migrants to the U.S. It has been something of a surprise to be honest.

Over the years I’ve interviewed family members of murder victims, survivors of terrorist bombings, victims of medical malpractice, and I’ve not quite encountered something like this before. It is not that the trauma is greater (how can you quantify trauma?), but it does seem somehow closer to the surface. More than anything, I think what brings them to tears is a sense of grand injustice.

After all, they came to the U.S. to work, to provide for their families by doing jobs that Americans did not want to do, and they ended up being treated as criminals. The minimum wage in Guatemala is about $200 a month, well under the $250 a month considered necessary to feed a family, according to economist Jorge Santos, who says that U.S. economic policies, from the neo-liberal economic regimes known as the “Washington consensus” to the more recent Central American Free Trade Agreement have only increased the pressure on Guatemala’s poor, who make up the vast majority of the country.

Indeed, the level of Guatemala’s income inequality is stunning, with only a handful of families controlling the vast majority of the country’s wealth in what is almost a feudal system. The level of education for the general populace is among the lowest in Latin America, and malnutrition strikes about half of the country’s children — making it one of the worst such situations in the world.

In a small community center of the village of San Miguel Duenas outside of the Guatemalan tourist town of Antigua, dozens of men and women who had been deported after a raid on the kosher meat factory in Iowa, gathered to recount their treatment at the hands of U.S. immigration officials.

They described being held for as long as five months. They said they were given negligible access to lawyers and were unable to communicate with their families. Some said they were stripped naked. According to the Washington-based Guatemalan Human Rights Commission/USA, one woman was separated from her one-year-old child during her imprisonment. When she was released, she found her baby had been adopted by an American couple.

Workers told me they were hit by ICE officials, and when describing the abuse, which was not only physical but psychological, a rather tough looking guy with a mustache and gold chain broke down in front of me. “I came back with more scars than benefits,” he said.

- Samuel Loewenberg

Watch for Worldfocus’ stories from Guatemala in the coming weeks.

A fence at the U.S.-Mexico border.

Over the last year, Mexico has been swept up in a tidal wave of drug violence. Things have gotten so bad that, according to a recent Pentagon report, the country risks a “sudden collapse.” For more, listen to our online radio show on Mexico’s war on drugs.

On Wednesday, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton arrived in Mexico for a series of high level talks. Not only does the Pentagon assessment have Mexican officials bristling, there are lingering resentments over other issues too — there’s a growing trade dispute and ill will over the construction of that giant border fence.

Worldfocus editorial consultant Peter Eisner, the former deputy foreign editor of the Washington Post, writes about engaging with Mexico and its troubles rather than building fences.

“Show me a 50-foot fence, and I’ll show you a 51-foot ladder.”

That quote from Janet Napolitano when she was governor of Arizona makes more sense every day. Napolitano, now the Secretary of Homeland Security, was referring to the multibillion dollar, 700-mile long fence being built along the U.S.-Mexican border.

The idea of the controversial fence was to stop illegal immigration and drug trafficking across the border. Many people — including most people in the Mexican government — agree with Napolitano that the fence was a bad idea.

For many, the fence has come to symbolize arrogance and disinterest in dealing with real issues, such as poverty that fuels immigration, and consumer demand that supports the multibillion dollar cocaine, marijuana and heroin trade out of Mexico.

And if anybody in the United States still thinks the fence can hide the uncomfortable reality across the Rio Grande, they’re deceived.

The wave of drug violence in Mexico is bleeding over into the United States, and U.S. military officials fear a worse scenario: One Pentagon study says that Mexico, like Pakistan, faces the prospect of being unable to deal with the violence and could become a failed state.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is diving right into talks about drug cooperation, trade and other issues today and tomorrow in Mexico City and Monterrey. And President Obama is scheduled to go to Mexico in less than a month.

The administration has an opportunity to come up with answers that would include engagement with the Mexican government rather than building barriers. The answers will probably be costly, but there is rising sentiment in Washington that Mexico can’t be left, as one analyst recently said, to “muddle through somehow” on its own.

- Peter Eisner

Photo courtesy of Flickr user jcarter under a Creative Commons license.

Worldfocus special correspondent Martin Seemungal explores the ongoing problems faced by South Africa’s immigrants.

Listen to an extended interview with Dr. Xolela Mangcu of the Platform for Public Deliberation. He discusses the widening class divisions in the country. Some footage in the below video is courtesy of Filmmakers Against Racism.

Worldfocus special correspondent Lynn Sherr and producer Megan Thompson visited the southern Mexican state of Chiapas.

Venture to the first stop on the train line in Chiapas, and meet several Central American immigrants Waiting for northbound trains out of Mexico’s south (web original video).

Worldfocus’ crew traveled to the start of the railroad line in the town of Arriaga in Chiapas, Mexico. Central American immigrants hang out for hours — and sometimes days — waiting for the next freight train to depart. They climb onto the sides and the tops of these northbound trains.

This video was shot by Megan Thompson and edited by Bijan Rezvani.

Worldfocus special correspondent Michael Greenspan and producers Yuval Lion and Ara Ayer explore Israel’s melting pot.

Take a walk down Tel Aviv’s most diverse street (video).

Though the U.S. has often been called the “land of opportunity,” the country is losing some of its top minds to companies overseas.

In a phenomenon known as reverse brain drain, highly skilled immigrants and foreign students in the U.S. are returning to their home countries — nations like India or China whose industries might seem attractive as U.S. unemployment rises and visa restrictions come into effect.

Does the U.S. risk falling behind as these businesspeople and innovators return to work in their home countries? Worldfocus.org’s weekly radio show explores the emerging opportunities for highly-skilled immigrants around the world, U.S. immigration restrictions, and what all this “brain circulation” means for the U.S.

Listen to extended interviews with Hanson Li of a China-based investment bank and Yeniva Sisay, who grew up in the U.S. but returned to her ancestral home of Sierra Leone: China and West Africa beckon talented minds home.

Read the frustrating experience of a “slumdog immigrant” from India who is living in the U.S. on an H-1B visa. Rajeet Mohan also offers some solutions to retain and leverage highly-skilled immigrants in the U.S.

Martin Savidge hosts Vivek Wadhwa and Michele Wucker in our online radio show.

Vivek Wadhwa is a senior research associate at the Labor and Worklife Program at Harvard Law School and executive in residence at Duke University. He is an entrepreneur who founded two technology companies and is the author of the forthcoming report tentatively titled “America’s Loss is the World’s Gain,” a study of Chinese and Indian immigrants who have returned to their home countries. Vivek also writes a column at BusinessWeek.

Michele Wucker is the executive director of the World Policy Institute in New York City and the author of “Lockout: Why America Keeps Getting Immigration Wrong When Our Prosperity Depends on Getting It Right” and “Why Cocks Fight: Dominicans, Haitians and the Struggle for Hispaniola.” She also was a 2007 Guggenheim Fellow working on evolving notions of citizenship, belonging and exclusion. Her work involves the politics and economics of immigration and integration, transnational political processes, the politics of culture, Latin America and the Caribbean and international finance.

Credits:
Host: Martin Savidge
Producers: Lisa Biagiotti, Katie Combs and Stephen Puschel

Others return to less developed countries, like those in Africa, where their skills and entrepreneurship contribute to the countries’ infrastructure, education and foundation.

Tune in to our online radio show on reverse brain drain.

Here, listen to extended interviews from those featured on the radio show, and read blogger experiences.

CHINA

What bloggers are saying about reverse brain drain to China:

The “Baglady” blog writes from California:

My experience in [Silicon] Valley is that many people who work in high tech are foreign nationals and most of these people are either Chinese or Indian.  [...] The good news for America is that there are still plenty of foreign nationals who are willing to live in this country and contribute to its economy. I am one of them, but I’m not sure how long America will stay as attractive as a golden mountain of opportunity and freedom. A lot of graduate students my age that come from China these days are going back to China after they graduate because they believe that China has more opportunities than America.

The “Wanderlust” blog writes from Shanghai:

I met Zoe Zhou in Spring 2007 through my friend Sophal. She is in her late 20s and has a warm demeanor. She was a student at Syracuse University in New York state. She tried looking for a job in the DC and New York areas, but found more opportunities in China. The recruitment process took her more than 7 months, with 5 interviews, including several panel interrogations. Now, she works as an operations analyst with the International Finance Corporation (IFC), a subsidiary of the World Bank.

The “Lavenderleaf” blog discusses a Chinese coworker’s journey:

When H. was first hired at our workplace, she seemed unfamiliar with a typical workday.  A young Chinese ESL student, she didn’t know what to do at lunch and spent her coffee breaks tidying up or standing by the front door of the building.  Gradually, she found more interesting things to do on her breaks.  H. went back for a month to visit her family in China after 2 years in Canada.  I had read in the Globe and Mail that overseas returnees — students and workers — were called ’sea turtles’ in China.  The two words sounded similar in the language.  When H. returned, I asked her if she was a ’sea turtle’.  She gasped in surprise and pointed at me, startled that I knew the phrase.  Yes, she was a sea turtle, she told me. H. eventually went home to China.  Her studies were finished and she decided not to try to get another visa and stay in Canada.

AFRICA

An excerpt from Yeniva’s “Memoirs of a Returnee” blog:

Sierra Leone offers you chances to see life through different lenses: as community member, contributor, victim, employer, employee, woman, young person, educated person, and the list goes on. You are forced to open your eyes and see what’s going on because life is happening all around you, all of the time. One is not inundated with the constant monotony of the West: work, TV, designer bags, bills, and alarm clocks. Here your life is intimately intertwined with others so much so that you matter and you are not just a number.

As I look back and reflect on a year, it’s hard to believe how time has power over one’s life. I have lived and learned. I have fallen but I am still standing, and, most of all, I have had a dream come true.

What other bloggers are saying about reverse brain drain to Africa:

The “Nigerian Village Square” blog talks about going back to Nigeria:

I was haunted by guilt each time I visited Nigeria. Guilt arose out of my helplessness in the face of poverty and decay; guilt re-surfaced just by seeing people suffer unnecessarily; people’s monthly salaries being withheld, people traveling on bad roads, going to bed at night in the fear of being woken by gunshots. You see some of your former colleagues who were perhaps more gifted than you were, but their chances of realizing their potentials are literally gone. You have realized yours; you are successful in your field due to a combination of certain things parts of which are environment that favors human flourishing, luck and your hard work.

Many Nigerians, I think, have faced similar situations and have been challenged to do something. Some sent money home in the hope of achieving great things. Quite a few quickly realized that the money they sent home has not achieved as much as they thought it would. A few were even tempted to come back because they believed that their homeland needed them. Indeed they came back, spent some time and did their best to change things. In the end they realized that their coming back changed nothing. Or, at least not much. [...]Reversing the brain drain, I think, is only a fraction of the equation. Indeed, it should never be positively embarked upon. If anything, one should be thinking of how to staunch the drain. This is achieved by Nigeria necessarily taking the route many other developed parts of the world took: make the living conditions satisfying for people, imitate other successful societies.

The “South Africa Rocks” blog notices London ex-pats returning to South Africa:

I left high school and a few mates left for “greener pastures.” I graduated from University and a few more left to travel the world, gain more skills, find something new and try out different places. Many left with a bitter taste in their mouths and many swore never to return. However many of them didn’t plan on the recession. Many didn’t plan on the U.K. working visa taking a turn away from South Africans and many simply realised that with all of our problems, South Africa is still their home and probably always will be.

I attended a pleasant little dinner part of Friday night. I was astounded to note that out of the eight people there I was the only one out of the group who hadn’t traveled to and lived in London. Even more exciting and intriguing was that all seven of the others had been to London, earned some money, saved, gained some extra skill sets and decided to return to SA over the past year or two.

Is this the great reversal of the brain drain? Is it possible that there are many, many more South Africans who are set to return in the very near future? I think it might be. I think there are many young South Africans realising that the earning potential for them if they return to our country is greatly improved now that the recession has hit, now that their visas have come to an end and now that families are beginning to buckle down here and stick it out.

More than half of all Silicon Valley startup companies had one or more highly-skilled immigrants as key founders, according to a Duke University study.

As unemployment continues to spike in the U.S., highly-skilled immigrants are more vulnerable to lose their jobs and their visas.

The U.S. issues up to 65,000 H-1B work visas each year for highly-skilled professionals. Foreign-born architects, engineers, computer programmers, accountants, doctors and other skilled workers are eligible to come to America under these visa provisions.

Each year, approximately 20,000 more H-1B visas are reserved for those with master’s or doctoral degrees from the U.S.

Holders of this visa can stay for a maximum of six years and apply for a Green Card and permanent residence if sponsored by their company. But applicants often wait in line for years, and up to 500,000 H-1B visa holders are waiting for a green card.

Rajeet Mohan is an Indian living in the U.S. on an H-1B visa. He shares his frustrating immigration experience and offers some solutions to retain and leverage highly-skilled immigrants in the U.S.

“Slumdog” Immigrant

I saw the movie “Slumdog Millionaire” the weekend after my Green Card application had been denied.

So many threads from the main character Jamal’s childhood connect to the moment he’s sitting in the hot seat of “Who wants to be a Millionaire?” competing for 20 million rupees. The movie made me think of how U.S. immigration policies seem to have played such a big role in shaping my destiny in this country and how I have no control over the results. This is my story of patience and frustration for the elusive “greener pastures” in my life.

A lot has been written and debated about the approximately 11 million undocumented immigrants residing in the U.S., however, little is published on highly-skilled immigrants.

Who is a highly skilled immigrant? For the purpose of my story, it represents an individual (like me) who has earned a master’s degree or higher from an American university, and holds a job for which an American citizen wasn’t available.

The life cycle of the legal immigrant is well defined: An F-1 student visa, followed by an H-1B (valid for six years) and — if the Goddess Fortuna blesses him/her — the prized Green Card (U.S. permanent resident card).

I came to the U.S. from India on Jan. 3, 1998 with $1,000 in Traveler’s checks and $500 in cash — just enough to buy a return ticket if there was an urgent situation back home. Little did I realize that on that day I had stepped into the “slumdog” immigrant life cycle — a legal process of immigration that is so painful and uncertain that if I were ever to advise potential immigrants willing to take this path, I would oppose the decision with the same level of intensity that Lou Dobbs so effectively uses to make his case against illegal immigrants.

I completed my master’s degree and went on to work for some of the finest American companies as an employee and a consultant. My Green Card application was filed in October 2002. After six years in line, I have never seen the Green Card and I’m not sure if I ever will get to see one.

The reason: I changed jobs three years ago. Though the American Competitiveness in the 21st Century Act has made job changes for immigrants easier after a specified period of time, my case falls into what was a loophole in the system. In 2006, it was technically legal for my former employer to “transfer” my status (without my knowledge) to another immigrant professional when I left my job. This practice was addressed and made illegal by Homeland Security in 2007.

How I found out: I logged on to my computer this past Thanksgiving to check my application status, as I often do, and it abruptly said “canceled.” I was not notified three years ago when I switched jobs or even now. Modern technology today allows us to track every packet via FedEx or UPS, so why do immigration applications, which are so crucial to the U.S. government and the applicant, get lost in a service center “black hole”?

Defenders of USCIS say that there is a process to appeal such decisions, which I’m in the process of doing. The problem is that there is no definite time line for the appeals process to be resolved and usually the legal immigrant has to finally use his $1,500 to go back to his home country.

I have listed several problems here, but the consultant in me wants to offer some solutions so that highly-skilled immigrants who find themselves in this predicament have more options than to simply quit their jobs, unwind their assets and return to their home countries.

I’m a firm believer of free market principles and having a good understanding of supply and demand (something I still remember from business school), I propose the following solutions to the legal immigrants’ problem of being in the dark during the Green Card process.

1. Decouple the link between the employer and the applicant after a specific stage in the Green Card process. In other words, take the middle-man employer or sponsor out of the process and make the contract between the immigrant and the government. I’m confident that this action will unleash the full potential of highly-skilled immigrant populations and America has all to gain from it — especially in today’s tough economic environment.

2. In return for action mentioned in the first solution and the assurance of the Green Card, immigrants with master’s degrees or higher, should donate their time and expertise. For two hours a week for one year, these highly-skilled immigrants should teach/tutor kids of U.S. citizens. I am proud of the strong foundation of the Indian schooling system, especially when it comes to math and science. Both Alan Greenspan and Thomas Friedman have highlighted the huge gap in math and science education for American kids. Their analysis predicts detrimental long-term impact. Their writings enunciate how this knowledge gap could lead America to potentially lose its innovative spirit.

Leveraging the skills of these immigrants could herald a new dimension to the grassroots movement that seems to be taking shape and ultimately restore America to the greatness for which we all left our homeland. The recent changes in the American political landscape have given me “hope.” President Barack Obama’s call for grassroots movement made me think of what immigrants could do for their adopted country.

So, back to me as the “slumdog immigrant.” I’m in the “hot seat” situation as I wait for my rejected Green Card application to be reconsidered. The motion I will be filing has no expected resolution date and since my current work visa (my current backup) is valid only until June 15, 2009, my hopes now rest on the astronomical alignment of my fate. If my application doesn’t get reconsidered by June 15, I must quit my job, sell my house, unwind my assets and return to India.

I don’t doubt that I can find work in India, and certainly, my family is there. But my wife, 2-year-old son and I have made a life and home in the U.S. and want to stay.

In the game show, the contestant has one opportunity to use a “lifeline” to choose A, B, C or D. In my case, the only “lifeline” I have is to dial 1-800-375-5283 — USCIS Customer Service.

- Rajeet Mohan

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Photo courtesy of Flickr user ario_j under a Creative Commons license.