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LITR 5831 Seminar in World / Multicultural Literature: American Immigrant: model assignments 2014
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research post 2
Heather Minette Schutmaat
June 30, 2014
The Push and Pull Factors of the Recent Influx of Undocumented Immigrants in the
United States
In my first research post, which centered on the feminization of migration and
immigrant women working as domestics in the United States, I touched on the
theory referred to as “push and pull factors,” or “Lee’s Law.” In short, the
theory of “push and pull factors” examines what
pushes an individual out of his or
her country of origin and what pulls
an individual into a particular country or region. In the case of immigrant
women from Mexico and Central America working as domestics in the United States,
the resources I referenced such as Global
Woman (2002) resolved that
the poverty of the third world is what pushes these women out of their country
of origin while job opportunities and a demand for labor (in particular, a
demand for nannies and maids) is what pulls them into the United States. As we
have seen throughout the course, such push and pull factors are characteristic
of the Traditional Immigrant Narrative as the majority of characters leave
behind an Old World of limits and journey to a New World of opportunity and
change. However, the theory of “push and pull factors” also involves many other
possible push factors including high crime, violence, and lack of safety. After
becoming aware of the recent, massive influx of undocumented immigrants, namely
unaccompanied children from Mexico and Central America arriving in South Texas,
I became interested in researching and uncovering to what extent the violence in
their countries of origin plays a role as a push factor of immigration, and to
what extent President Obama’s Immigration Reform plays a role as a pull factor.
Violence as a Push Factor
My search for articles covering the massive influx of undocumented immigrants
from Mexico and Central America to the United States generated an enormous list
of thousands of news articles covering the “humanitarian crisis.” Among them,
CBS News reported “on average, [the Office of Refugee Resettlement] used to care
for 7,000 to 8,000 unaccompanied children each year. That number jumped to
13,625 in fiscal year 2012 and nearly doubled to 24,668 in fiscal year 2013.
They are projected to receive 60,000 children this year.” CBS News also reported
on the push factor of violence in the immigrant children’s country of origin:
Multiple groups that have studied the surge have concluded that significant
numbers of children come to the U.S. because they are fleeing violence in their
home countries as a result of increased threats from organized criminal actors
like gangs, drug cartels or even the state, which is often coupled with a
failure of police to provide protection in their home countries. A full 48
percent of the 404 children interviewed while in ORR custody in a study by the
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees shared stories of being personally
affected by violence, and another 21 percent said they had suffered abuse or
violence in the home at the hands of their caretakers. Children from Mexico are
uniquely affected by the human smuggling industry, and nearly 40 percent of the
102 children from Mexico interviewed had been recruited or exploited by
smugglers. (CBS)
An article recently published by the New York Times reported on the
stories of Meybell and Katherine Ramos, and Leiby Mejía who were pushed out of
their home country not by poverty but by neighborhood gangs:
Meybell Ramos, 38, said she left a decent job as a social worker in El Salvador
to get her 11-year-old daughter, Katherine, away from the gangs in her
neighborhood. “The gangs came to my house,” Katherine said. “They told my
mother: ‘Take care of your daughter. Her body is becoming so pretty.’ ”Her
mother added: “If you don’t do what they say, those boys, they will kill you. I
was ready to leave everything behind to protect the life of my child.” Leiby
Mejía, 27, who came from Honduras with two sons, 5 and 7, said she heard the
permit rumor, then fled after a narcotics gang killed a cousin living nearby.
(New York Times)
These article excerpts are only two of numerous articles I read that give a
heartrending account of immigrant children and women fleeing their countries of
origin in order to escape death threats, violence, and living in a constant
state of fear. Therefore, while previous scholarship on the push and pull
factors of immigrant women from Mexico and Central America determine “relative
and absolute poverty” as the most influential push factor, I believe that today
the immense violence in their home countries plays just as significant a role in
pushing immigrant women and children out of their countries of origin.
Obama’s Immigration Reform as a Pull Factor
In June of 2012, “the Obama Administration announced it would no longer deport
young undocumented immigrants who arrived in the United States as children, have
lived here for five or more years, have no criminal record and have completed
some schooling or military service” (Time Magazine). I remember very
well my experience listening to Obama’s speech on immigration and being
profoundly moved by his statement that undocumented immigrants are “Americans in
their hearts, in their minds, in every single way but one: on paper.” However,
many believe that it is because of this decision that rumors have spread
throughout Central America, instilling in desperate Central Americans the belief
that undocumented women and children will be granted a permit and allowed to
stay in the United States. As an article in The Economist states:
The reason so many [immigrants] have decided to leave at once is a widespread
rumor that Mr. Obama’s administration has relaxed the barriers against
children—and their mothers if the children are young enough—entering the United
States. A leaked border-agency memo based on interviews with 230 women and
children apprehended in the Rio Grande Valley concluded that they had crossed
the border mainly because they expected to be allowed to stay.
However, after further research on the role Obama’s lenience has played in
pulling immigrants into the United States, I came across a news report by ABC
News that claims that it is not Obama that is to blame, but an act that was
reauthorized while George W. Bush was in office:
Desperate Central American parents are exploiting separate legal loopholes in
American border security passed before Obama took office. Unaccompanied minors
fall under the bipartisan law, William Wilberforce Trafficking Victims
Protection Reauthorization Act of 2008, which passed the House and Senate
unanimously and was signed into law by President George W. Bush. That law says
the children cannot be sent back. They must instead be held humanely by the
Department of Health and Human Services until the courts release them to a
“suitable family member” in this country.
Because of the increase in illegal immigration, new disagreements have developed
between the White House and Republicans. As an article in the New York Times
points out, “Obama administration officials insist that factors in Central
America, including poverty and criminal violence, are driving the migrants.
Republicans blame lax enforcement by the administration.” However, as the theory
of “push and pull factors” demonstrates, each part is not to be separately
blamed but are both equally responsible. It is poverty and criminal violence
that pushes Central Americans out of their countries of origin while the hope
that they will be provided opportunity and safety pulls them into the United
States. Furthermore, there are undoubtedly other factors that are separate from
the Obama administration’s tolerance that pull immigrants into “the New World of
opportunity and change,” such as the proximity of Mexico and Central America to
the United States as well as the longstanding, luring myth of the American
Dream.
Web Links:
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/surge-in-unaccompanied-child-immigrants-spurs-white-house-reaction/
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/17/us/migrants-flow-in-south-texas-as-do-rumors.html?emc=eta1&_r=0
