The days of confining children in tent cities on the dusty Texas side of the Rio Grande are over. Guards need no longer bar the concerned visitors who set red balloons afloat over the camps to show those inside someone cared about them.
But migrants still cross into Mexico from Guatemala, Honduras, and
El Salvador. In the five-year span from 2010 to 2015, the UN estimates over 300,000 left Central America. The Economist magazine (March 16, 2019) mentioned 8,000 left in January and February this year.
Mexico understands the plight of Central Americans who seek asylum from government repression of the poor, gang violence, and soldiers, like those who murdered San Salvador's Archbishop Oscar Romero and four nuns in 1980 and the environmental activist, Berta Caceres, in Honduras in 2016. Besides fleeing violence, migrants also risk the long, hot and dangerous journey north when they are displaced by mining activities and when coffee and other crop prices drop or when a lack of rainfall, heat, and a plague of insects reduce crop yields. (Also see the earlier post, "How Can Bananas Be 29 Cents A Pound?")
Since Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador became Mexico's President in December, 2018, his humanitarian welcome has cut into the estimated $2.5 billion organized crime was used to pocketing for trafficking migrants through Mexico to the U.S. border. As requested by Washington, D.C. migrants seeking asylum in the U.S. now remain in Mexico until close to their court dates.
Showing posts with label migrants. Show all posts
Showing posts with label migrants. Show all posts
Thursday, March 21, 2019
Sunday, September 16, 2018
Refugees at Work
Not all 68.5 million migrants identified by the UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) live in camps. In the US, for example, asylum seekers can receive work permits, if their cases are not resolved in 180 days. In July, 2018, one asylum seeker from Sudan was given a court date in 2021.
What do refugees do while they are in limbo? Some drive cabs or work in nursing homes. But refugees who fled a civil war in Ethiopia mobilized family members to bring their home town food-associated hospitality to a restaurant they opened in Washington, DC. Creative employers, such as the Palestinian and Yemen business partners, Nas Jab and Jabber Nasser al Bihani, look for asylum seekers who have skills they can employ. That way, they found chefs for their Komeeda restaurants in New York, NY; Austin, Texas; and Washington, DC.
The UNHCR adopted an idea from a French catering company, Les Cuistots Migrateurs, that organized a festival to attract immigrant chefs for restaurants in Paris, Lyon, Madrid, and Rome. UNHCR-sponsored festivals have led to numerous international dining experiences.
What do refugees do while they are in limbo? Some drive cabs or work in nursing homes. But refugees who fled a civil war in Ethiopia mobilized family members to bring their home town food-associated hospitality to a restaurant they opened in Washington, DC. Creative employers, such as the Palestinian and Yemen business partners, Nas Jab and Jabber Nasser al Bihani, look for asylum seekers who have skills they can employ. That way, they found chefs for their Komeeda restaurants in New York, NY; Austin, Texas; and Washington, DC.
The UNHCR adopted an idea from a French catering company, Les Cuistots Migrateurs, that organized a festival to attract immigrant chefs for restaurants in Paris, Lyon, Madrid, and Rome. UNHCR-sponsored festivals have led to numerous international dining experiences.
- Women cook native dishes at Mazi Mas in London.
- Home cooking from Syria is on the menu at the New Arrival Super Club in Los Angeles.
- Detroit is opening Baobab Fare, a Burundian restaurant and market.
- The Sushioki chain in Durhan, North Carolina, advertises the cooking of refugee chefs.
Saturday, March 25, 2017
Protecting What Is Prized Isn't Easy
If a famous artist's painting is one-of-a-kind and drug trafficking cartels prosper, what will people do? Some will be in the market buying and selling. Others will steal, kill, risk their lives, and try to hide their actions.
Since those who do things like smuggle slaves in cargo containers and poach rhinoceros horns at night, like it or not young people need to learn to be suspicious and vigilant, to look for abuses, and to ask authorities to undertake the often dangerous security measures needed to regulate or stop these activities. The challenges presented by lumber/wood harvesting, diamond and gold mining in Africa, and the trade in elephant ivory and exotic birds were discussed in earlier posts. Here, let's look at what is involved in regulating the mining of and trade in jade and in protecting an endangered species: the gray wolf.
In Myanmar (formerly knows as Burma), earning a living by finding and selling jade gems shares the same drawbacks as searching for diamonds and gold in Africa. Big Chinese companies connected with the Burmese military hold mining concessions in the jade fields of northern Myanmar's Kachin state, where the Christian Kachin Independence Army and the Buddhist Burmese military are engaged in a civil war. Despite the threat of deadly landslides, TIME magazine reports up to 300,000 unemployed migrants forage on unstable rubble piles looking to find a fortune among the less valuable stones companies dump.
The U.S. in 2016 sought to reward Myanmar for solving one problem, replacing military rule with the National League of Democracy party, by ending sanctions banning jade and ruby imports. But Myanmar's democratic reforms, moratorium on new mining licenses and freeze on renewal of existing mining licenses, safety standards, and anticorruption regulations have not closed mines operating without government certification; captured the tax money lost from jade smuggled to neighboring China; ended deaths from jade mining accidents; stopped the military from banning foreigners, except Chinese buyers, from reaching jade fields; financing the civil war with jade sales and taxes collected by Kachins from freelance miners on their lands; or stopping the heroin trafficking that thrives on sales to local migrants and a worldwide trade. Discuss: what can the U.S. or any country, including Myanmar, do to solve these problems?
Now, let's look at the challenges of placing grey wolves on the U.S. Endangered Species Act or delisting them and authorizing a grey wolf hunting season. Stories like Little Red Riding Hood and Peter and the Wolf have given wolves a bad reputation. But if you've ever tried to see wolves at a zoo, you know they don't come up to look at visitors. You have to really search hard to see them in the shadows of wooded areas.
How many wolves are too many? No humans have been harmed by the State of Wisconsin's estimated 900 wolves. Farmers in the state, who have sheep, goats, and cattle and live near waterways where wolves follow their wildlife prey, report no problems. They say wolves are smart and, if you have barking guard dogs that warn wolves are present, the wolves move on. Of Wisconsin's 70,000 farms, 47 reported a loss from wolves, and of the state's 3.5 million cattle, wolves were believed to have killed 75 animals. Wisconsin manages this situation by compensating farmers for livestock lost to wolves and by allowing landowners to get permits to kill wolves endangering their livestock.
Surveys show 65% of the people who live in what is considered wolf range and 80% outside wolf range consider wolves members of the ecological community that have a right to exist. If wolves are delisted from the U.S. Endangered Species Act and a hunt is authorized, the State does not disclose maps showing where wolf packs are located.Your thoughts?
Since those who do things like smuggle slaves in cargo containers and poach rhinoceros horns at night, like it or not young people need to learn to be suspicious and vigilant, to look for abuses, and to ask authorities to undertake the often dangerous security measures needed to regulate or stop these activities. The challenges presented by lumber/wood harvesting, diamond and gold mining in Africa, and the trade in elephant ivory and exotic birds were discussed in earlier posts. Here, let's look at what is involved in regulating the mining of and trade in jade and in protecting an endangered species: the gray wolf.
In Myanmar (formerly knows as Burma), earning a living by finding and selling jade gems shares the same drawbacks as searching for diamonds and gold in Africa. Big Chinese companies connected with the Burmese military hold mining concessions in the jade fields of northern Myanmar's Kachin state, where the Christian Kachin Independence Army and the Buddhist Burmese military are engaged in a civil war. Despite the threat of deadly landslides, TIME magazine reports up to 300,000 unemployed migrants forage on unstable rubble piles looking to find a fortune among the less valuable stones companies dump.
The U.S. in 2016 sought to reward Myanmar for solving one problem, replacing military rule with the National League of Democracy party, by ending sanctions banning jade and ruby imports. But Myanmar's democratic reforms, moratorium on new mining licenses and freeze on renewal of existing mining licenses, safety standards, and anticorruption regulations have not closed mines operating without government certification; captured the tax money lost from jade smuggled to neighboring China; ended deaths from jade mining accidents; stopped the military from banning foreigners, except Chinese buyers, from reaching jade fields; financing the civil war with jade sales and taxes collected by Kachins from freelance miners on their lands; or stopping the heroin trafficking that thrives on sales to local migrants and a worldwide trade. Discuss: what can the U.S. or any country, including Myanmar, do to solve these problems?
Now, let's look at the challenges of placing grey wolves on the U.S. Endangered Species Act or delisting them and authorizing a grey wolf hunting season. Stories like Little Red Riding Hood and Peter and the Wolf have given wolves a bad reputation. But if you've ever tried to see wolves at a zoo, you know they don't come up to look at visitors. You have to really search hard to see them in the shadows of wooded areas.
How many wolves are too many? No humans have been harmed by the State of Wisconsin's estimated 900 wolves. Farmers in the state, who have sheep, goats, and cattle and live near waterways where wolves follow their wildlife prey, report no problems. They say wolves are smart and, if you have barking guard dogs that warn wolves are present, the wolves move on. Of Wisconsin's 70,000 farms, 47 reported a loss from wolves, and of the state's 3.5 million cattle, wolves were believed to have killed 75 animals. Wisconsin manages this situation by compensating farmers for livestock lost to wolves and by allowing landowners to get permits to kill wolves endangering their livestock.
Surveys show 65% of the people who live in what is considered wolf range and 80% outside wolf range consider wolves members of the ecological community that have a right to exist. If wolves are delisted from the U.S. Endangered Species Act and a hunt is authorized, the State does not disclose maps showing where wolf packs are located.Your thoughts?
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