Reflection

The slogan proposed by Pope Francis for the World Day of Migrants and Refugees in 2023 is "Free to choose whether to migrate or to stay". From 2021 to 2022, we updated the situation of forced migration on the Continent through joint research of both [Jesuit] Conferences of Latin America and the Caribbean and of Canada and the United States, in which universities, human rights observatories, migration and refugee specialists and migrants from various countries were involved.

Far from concluding this research process along the lines of the slogan proposed by the Vatican, our conclusion leads us to consider the situation of forced migration in the region as a dead end.

Firstly, the violence that leads to expulsion is increasing. Secondly, the obstacles to migration are growing significantly, both in terms of migration policies and practices and the risks that forcibly displaced people have to face. Nevertheless, statistics show that migration has not stopped and will not stop in the short and medium term. No one should migrate to save their life, yet such is the reality we face.

In the following lines, I will focus on characterising the main developments in forced migration on the Continent. Still, it is worth noting that most of these trends are widespread practices or realities in other parts of the world. Their permanence and constant growth characterise the trends I will share below.

The first is that we are in a constantly changing context of forced migration, where flows have become globalised, both intra-regionally and with a more significant presence of extra-continental flows; for example, in the last year alone, more than 100 different nationalities have crossed the Darién jungle, one of the most complicated places on the entire migration route.

The increase in forced migration flows occurs in at least three terms: volume, diversity and multidirectionality. Its mixed nature, the grey zone, the extent of migration's multi-causality, and the different forms of violence that do not make one free to decide whether to migrate or to stay have deepened. This multi-causality makes it difficult for Church and civil society actors to accompany people and categorise them; this has consequences for regularisation and access to international protection. Among the new forms of violence, no one can deny that climate injustice, linked to the impacts of climate change accelerated by a predatory economic model, is a growing factor in the expulsion of people and entire communities.

Increased processes of second and third migrations result not only from the exact original causes but also from the social rejection or the worsening of conditions for integration and, especially, policies that seek to discourage and stop migration.

Restrictive migration policies based on containment, detention, militarisation and deportation have been imposed. Beyond the rhetoric, the truth is that cooperation between States is mainly focused on strengthening restrictive policies and practices.

Among the deepening causes of violence, we find an increase in those requiring international protection; despite this, we see a setback and a collapse in the asylum systems and the recognition of refugee status. Applications have increased dramatically in recent years, but the investment and the will to adequately respond to this have not.

From the deepening causes of violence and restrictive policies that multiply unwanted destinations, migratory bottlenecks and entrapment, we affirm that migrants are twice forced: forced to flee and forced to reside in undesirable places.

Political restrictions mean that migrants increasingly have to take on more significant risks, including facing organised crime and its strengthening control as a lucrative business. A criminal business that usually benefits from the passivity, or sustained by the impunity, or directly by the collaboration, of public actors; here, trafficking, in all its forms, and smuggling exceptionally scandalise us.

The challenges of integration are confronted in atrociously managed destination places or of coexisting in host communities; the social climates of rejection, stigmatisation and criminalisation of migrants fuelled by false information from the public authorities and the media, which generate xenophobic responses from some racist groups.

The situation of forced migration in the Americas is becoming a growing humanitarian emergency requiring bold solutions.

Despite the increase in all the obstacles reviewed, it is still possible to migrate. Sometimes, this is possible through legal opportunities that favour regularisation, access to rights and protection. To a great extent, it is still possible to migrate because of the contribution of humanitarian organisations and civil society-- including the Church. And also because, despite the increase in hostility towards migrants, popular resistance spaces of hospitality still exist, continually surprising us and giving us hope in so many communities of transit and reception. But if it is still possible to migrate, the main reasons can only be explained by the resilience, audacity, creativity and will of forcibly displaced people committed to living.

The organisations of the Society of Jesus that work as a network in the two Jesuit Conferences in the Americas have long shared this proposal of the Vatican dicastery; we dream of people being able to approach migration as a right, to be genuinely free to choose whether to leave or to stay. Some of the foundations for this desire and hope to become a reality include a determined effort to tackle the causes of forced migration as the only viable option for so many millions of people in the world, to establish safe transit processes, to commit ourselves to ensure that migration can be protected through reliable information, to develop fair mechanisms for regularisation, access to rights and protection, to insist on changing narratives to recognise and acknowledge the valuable contribution that migrants bring, and to promote fundamental processes of integration in host communities, among others.

The motto proposed by Pope Francis is a call to conversion that commits us all.

To learn more, we invite you to read this research, which also contains specific recommendations for the different areas covered. It is available in English, Spanish and Portuguese.