Download Ch 3 Key Issue 3 and 4

Why Do Migrants Face Obstacles?
• Two Major Difficulties:
- Permission to enter a
new country.
- Attitudes of citizens
once they’ve entered
country.
• Immigration Policies – two
policies to control foreigners
seeking work.
• 1. Quota System
• 2. Temporary Migration for
work.
Immigration Policies
• US Quota Laws – Quota Act of 1921 and
National Origins Act of 1924.
• Designed to assure most immigrants to the
US continued to be Europeans.
• Hemisphere Quotas to Global Quotas.
• Brain Drain – large-scale emigration by
talented people.
• More education, ¼ of all legal immigrants
to the US have attended graduate school.
Temporary Migration for Work
• Guest Workers – Europe and Middle East.
• Foreign-born workers = ½ of labor force in
Luxembourg, 1/6 in Switzerland, 1/10 in Austria,
Belgium, and Germany.
• Useful role in Western Europe – low-status and
low-skilled jobs that locals won’t accept.
• UK = restrictions of foreigners to obtain permits.
• Guest Workers – N.Africa, Middle East, E.Europe,
and Asia
Time-Contract Workers
• 19c. – Asian migration to
work in mines and
plantations.
• 29+ million ethnic
Chinese live permanently
in other countries, most in
Asia.
• Illegal immigration to
Asia for work.
• Taiwan – 20-70 thousand,
most are Filipinos, Thais,
Malaysians.
Economic Migrants vs. Refugees
• US, Canada, and
W.Europe treat the two
groups differently.
• Economic Migrants – not
admitted unless they
possess special skills or
have a close relative there,
and must still compete
with applicants.
• Refugees – receive special
priority in admission.
Emigrants
• Cuba emigrants = political refugees.
• 1959+, 600,000 to US; 2nd influx after 1980.
• Haiti emigrants = 1980 boatlift from Cuba,
several thousand Haitians to US due to
economic advancement.
• US says NO!! Haiti sues. US flops!
• We invade Haiti in 1994 to reinstate
president.
Emigrants
• Vietnam emigration – 1975; evacuation of Saigon.
• 2nd surge in 1980s by boat.
• Int. agreement – most were judged refugees and
transferred other places.
• Most, considered economic migrants, placed in
detention camps until 1996, camps were closed and
people sent back to Vietnam.
• Major source of immigrants to US, with pull of
economic opportunity and push of political
persecution.
Cultural Problems
• Politicians – Immigration = scapegoats
• American Attitudes – denial of education,
health clinics, day cares, public services.
• European Attitudes – guest workers suffer
from poor social conditions.
• Middle East – possible political unrest
within Islamic customs.
Why Migrate Within A Country?
• Internal = less destructive
than international.
• Two types – interregional
and intraregional.
• In US, interregional
migration popular in the
past due to farming.
• Large-scale internal
migration = opening of
American West.
Center of Population
• Average location of everyone in the country,
the “center of population gravity.”
• Move West over last 200 years.
• 1790 – population center was in Chesapeake
Bay, east of Baltimore.
• 1830 – West Virginia; 1830+ - moved rapidly
to just West of Cincinnati in 1880.
• Western pioneers passed through interior on
their way to California.
Center of Population
• Most of 19c. Continuous
westward advance of
settlement stopped at the
98th meridian.
• Interior = physical
environment not for
familiar agriculture.
• Maps = Great American
Desert
Settlement of Great Plains
• Center migrated West at
much slower pace after
1880.
• Large-scale migration to
East Coast
• Fill in area b/w 98th
meridian and California.
• 1950-1980 – center moved
farther west.
• 1980 – crossed Mississippi
River; 2000 – south-central
Missouri.
Recent Growth of the South
• 1990s – first time, more migrated out of the
West than into the West.
• Population center moved southward sharply.
• Immigrating into the South – job
opportunities and environmental reasons.
• Interregional migration has slowed.
• Net migration b/w each pair of regions is
now close to zero.
Migration in Regions
• More people move within the same region –
intraregional migration.
• Less than 5% of world’s people in 1800 lived
in urban areas, compared to almost ½ today.
• Urbanization begins in 1800s, in Europe and
N.America undergoing rapid
industrialization.
• Migration from rural to urban areas has shot
up in LDCs of Africa, Asia, and L.America.
Migration in Regions
• MDCs = intraregional
migration from
central cities out to
suburbs.
• Result of
suburbanization,
territory occupied by
urban areas has
rapidly expanded.
Migration – Metropolitan to Non
• Late 20c. – W.Europe and N.America have
new trend.
• More people immigrated into rural areas
than emigrated out of them.
• Net migration from urban to rural =
counterurbanization.
• Many are retired people.
• Has stopped in the US b/c of poor
economic conditions.