among them those of Burns (1993), Coutin (2000), Hagan (1994), Hamilton and Chinchilla (2001), Loucky and Moors (2000), Menjívar (2000), O'Dogherty Madrazo (1989), and Repak (1995), focused attention on these new Central American populations and contributed to the social science literature on “Latino” groups in the United States. My study owes a great deal to these important works. However, rather than focus on one group in one particular setting, it seeks to examine Central American migration in three different national settings in order to draw certain conclusions about this migration, in this case about the context of reception and the ways domestic and foreign policy interests shape how immigrants are received and perceived.
Finally, the study contributes to the growing body of work on nongovernmental actors and their role in shaping domestic and foreign policies. During the 1980s, a number of books were published on the culture of protest in the United States, especially the sanctuary movement. Studies by Coutin (1993), Crittenden (1988), Cunningham (1995), Davidson (1988), Golden and McConnell (1986), MacEoin (1985), and Tomsho (1987) examined the religious and civic motivations for American protests against the wars in Central America. My study draws on these and other more recent theoretical works by Boli and Thomas (1999), Fisher (1998), Keck and Sikkink (1998), and Risse et al. (1998), which discuss the changing role of NGOs within a global context. This study also contributes to this literature by examining the role of immigrant advocacy networks that operate within and across national borders.
One could argue that comparative studies are inherently prescriptive, but historians are generally reluctant to offer policy recommendations. Nevertheless, the history of Central American migration does offer various critical lessons, which in the post-September 11 world the United States and its neighbor-allies ignore. These lessons include, first, the need for regional responses to migration crises in which wealthier nations collectively share the burden of accommodating the displaced, rather than shifting the responsibility to poorer nations. Second, while foreign policy decisions often cause the displacement of populations, migration should not be used as an instrument for undermining or bolstering a specific regime. Finally, and most important, asylum seekers are entitled to certain protections, rights, and procedural safeguards, as specified by a number of international conventions on refugees. Likewise, immigration policy must be fair, consistent, and humane.
OVERVIEW OF THE BOOK
The following chapters provide a history of Central American migration in the 1980s and 1990s, government responses to that migration, and the advocacy networks that emerged to shape the policies of states. Chapter1 provides a brief history of the wars in Nicaragua, El Salvador, and Guatemala to explain the causes of the migration. It discusses the reasons why people migrated and where they settled, following their migration within Central America to countries such as Costa Rica and Honduras, and explaining why thousands ultimately chose to migrate northward. Chapters 2 through 4 examine how Mexico, the United States, and Canada, the countries that received the largest aggregate number of refugees, each responded to the refugee crisis. It examines how refugee policy was made, the role that different agents and interests played in shaping that policy, and the impact that individual policies had on neighboring countries.
Mexico is known as an emigrant-producing nation, but this discourse denies its parallel tradition of accommodating exiles and immigrants from all over the world. During the 1980s alone, Mexico became host to an estimated 750,000 Central Americans, primarily from El Salvador and Guatemala; and over a million more transited through the country on their way to the United States and Canada. Chapter 2 examines the political debates within Mexico regarding sovereignty and international responsibilities as well as refugees and economic immigrants.
During the 1980s and 1990s, Mexico tried to assert itself as a middle power in hemispheric affairs, challenging the United States on its Nicaraguan and Salvadoran policies, and assuming a prominent role in the Contadora peace initiative. (The Contadora Group consisted of representatives of Mexico, Panama, Colombia, and Venezuela, who first met in 1983 on the island of Contadora, off the coast of Panama, to establish a blueprint for a negotiated peace settlement.) From the beginning, Mexico denied the US discourse that the wars in Central America were part of an East-West struggle and asserted the rights of Central Americans to challenge unjust structures and institutions in their own countries and to shape their own destiny. However, this position was threatened by the presence of thousands of refugees along its southern border, which exacerbated centuries-old tensions with neighboring Guatemala almost to the brink of war, and jeopardized the political stability of Chiapas, a state of key importance to Mexico's overall economic development. Mexico's challenge, then, was to assert and balance its international responsibilities without alienating Guatemala and the United States. Its refugee and immigration policy was conceptualized against the backdrop of these foreign and domestic policy debates.
Even though Mexico was not a signatory to the UN Convention and Protocol, it granted official protection, albeit reluctantly, to one of the largest groups of refugees in the region, in large part because of pressure from various non-governmental organizations and from the refugees themselves. With the help of the UNHCR, the Mexican government established camps in Chiapas, Campeche, and Quintana Roo that housed forty-six thousand refugees, mostly Maya Indians, and then later assisted them either to repatriate or to legalize their status in Mexican society. However, the majority of Central Americans living in Mexico did not receive any recognition or assistance from the state or the UNHCR. Churches and charitable organizations that had direct contact with the refugees estimated that as many as half a million Salvadorans lived and worked anonymously in the major cities, and as many as two hundred thousand Guatemalans preferred to live outside the UNHCR camps and settlements, even if it meant forfeiting assistance. The Mexican government justified its neglect by claiming that the Central Americans were transmigrantes, or economic migrants, traveling through Mexico on their way to the United States or Canada, even though evidence suggested otherwise. In the end, Mexico's neglect encouraged many Central Americans to move further northward in search of higher wages and better working conditions. As a result, by the late 1980s the United States actively pressured Mexico to do more to control its southern border and step up its deportation of Central American workers, and in the NAFTA era Mexico was willing to comply.7 Once again, Central Americans became the pawns of foreign policy decisions.
Of the three countries, the United States hosted the largest number of Central American refugees. Those who entered the United States—most of them illegally—encountered a society that was less than enthusiastic about their arrival. Since the passage of the 1965 Immigration Act, the United States had accommodated millions of immigrants, refugees, and undocumented workers from a variety of countries, and Americans perceived the Central Americans as yet another drain on their economy. The influx of so many undocumented migrants in particular—from Mexico, Central America, and other regions—contributed to the anti-immigrant backlash of the 1980s that culminated in the passage of the restrictive 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act, which imposed a variety of measures and sanctions to try to control the entry of undocumented workers.
But for a segment of the US population, the migration of Central Americans presented a moral dilemma. Its members believed that the United States had a responsibility to assist the migrants from Central America because of the role their government had played in escalating the violence. The Reagan and Bush administrations denied that the “feet people” were refugees, because to acknowledge this would have implied that the governments they supported with billions of dollars each year were terrorizing their own citizens—an action that would both alienate the United States' Central American allies and sabotage continued congressional aid for these regimes. In the 1980s, the Central America advocacy networks in the United States called for a reassessment of US foreign and immigration policies. Chapter 3 examines how these networks demanded accountability from the US government for its actions in Central America and on the United States-Mexico border—first, through protest and civil obedience, lobbying, and the manipulation of the media and, ultimately, through the courts and the Congress.
Of the three countries, Canada did not have a long tradition of immigration from Latin America, in part because of its climate and geographic
