Migration in South America

Front matter

IMISCOE Research Series

Gioconda Herrera Carmen Gómez Editors

Migration In South America

Contents

Introduction: Emergent Issues of South American Migrations ... .

Gioconda Herrera and Carmen Gómez

PartI Emerging Mobilities and Old Exclusions

Part II Law and Migration Policies: From Human Rights to Border Closures A Decade of Growth in Migration in Brazil (2010-2020)

Tánia Tonhati, Leonardo Cavalcanti, and António Tadeu de Oliveira

Contradictions and Shifts in Discourse and Application of the Refugee System in a Mixed-Migration Context:

Jennifer Moya, Consuelo Sánchez Bautista, and Jeffrey D. Pugh

The Legality of (Im)mobility: Migration, Coyoterismo,

Ulla D. Berg and Lucia Pérez Martinez vi Contents

Part III Racism Xenophobia and Struggles Over Migrant’s Rights

8 Institutional and Social Xenophobia Towards Venezuelan Migrants in the Context of a Racialized Country: The Case OF Peri ici ira eee dra 169 Cécile Blouin and Cristina Zamora Gómez

9 When Migrant Pain Does Not Deserve Attention: María Emilia Tijoux Merino and Constanza Ambiado Cortés

10 Inequalities and the Social Process of Categorizing: Sergio Caggiano

About the Editors

Gioconda Herrera holds a PhD in sociology, Columbia University. She is Professor of Sociology and Gender Studies at the Latin American Faculty of Social Sciences since 1997 (FLACSO-Ecuador, in Spanish). Her researches look at the link between globalization and social inequalities with a special focus on the study on gender and international migrations in South America. She has written extensively on gender, migration, and social inequalities in different migration corridors. Currently, she is preparing a book on immobility regimes, migration, and deportation among Ecuadorian indigenous migrants, and she is also involved in a comparative project on states” responses to immigration in South America.

Carmen Gómez holds a PhD in sociology from the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales in Paris. She is currently a professor in the Department of Sociology and Gender Studies at FLACSO-Ecuador. Her main research and publications are in the field of asylum/refugee and forced displacement, and in studies on skilled migrations. She has done research on migration in Latin America, the Maghreb, and the Middle East.

Abbreviations

ACIFEBOL ACNUR

AI

ANID ASSEHR

ATF BRICS CAGED CASEN CELADE-CEPAL CELAG CERD CESFAM CIS CLACSO CNIg CODELCO COES CONARE COTAI COVID-19 CPF

CTA CTPS DEM

DL

DW ECLAC ENPOVE

Asociación Civil Federativa Boliviana

Alto Comisionado de las Naciones Unidas para los Refugiados Amnistía Internacional

National Agency for Research and Development of Chile Advances in Social Science Education and Humanities Research

Flores Fabric Workers Assembly

Brasil, Russia, India, China, South Africa

General Registry of the Admitted and Laid-Off workers Encuesta de Caracterización Socioeconómica Nacional Chile Comisión Económica para América Latina y el Caribe Centro Estratégico Latinoamericano de Geopolítica Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination Centro de Salud Familiar

Centro Investigación Social Techo

Consejo Latinoamericano de Ciencias Sociales

National Immigration Council

National Copper Corporation

Centro de Estudios de Conflicto y Cohesión Social

Brazilian Refugee Committee

Committee for Alternative Garment Industry Work Coronavirus Disease

Argentine Workers Confederation

Work and Social Security Card

Departamento de Extranjería y Migración

Decree Law

Deutsche Welle

Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean Encuesta dirigida a la población venezolana que reside en el pais

FARC FIFO-DIDO FLACSO FONDECYT FONIS

GDP

GIZ

GORE

IAEN ICERD

ILEA ILO INDH INE INEC INEI INREDH IOM

IOP

IRCA

JRS

MDS MERCOSUR MFAHM MIALC MIES MIGRACIONES MREMH NGO OBMIGRA ODEPA ODNA OECD OHCHR OIM

OIT

ONU

PTP

R4V

RAIS RELASO REMHU

Abbreviations

Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia Fly-in/Fly-out, Drive-in/Drive-out

Latin American Faculty of Social Sciences

Fondo Nacional de Desarrollo Científico y Tecnológico National Fund for Research and Development in Health Gross Domestic Product

Instituto de Altos Estudios Nacionales

International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination

International Law Enforcement Academia

International Labour Organization

National Institute of Human Rights

Instituto Nacional de Estadísticas

Instituto Nacional de Estadísticas y Censos

National Institute of Statistics and Informatics

Fundación Regional de Asesoría en Derechos Humanos International Organization of Migration

Instituto de Opinión Pública de la Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú

Immigration Control and Reform Act

Jesuit Refugee Service

Ministerio de Desarrollo Social

Southern Common Market

Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Human Mobility Migración Interna en América Latina y el Caribe Ministerio de Inclusión Económica y Social

National Superintendency of Migration

Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores y Movilidad Humana Non-governmental Organization

Brazilian Observatory of International Migration

Agrarian Studies and Policies Office

Observatorio de los Derechos de la Niñez y la Adolescencia Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights Organización Internacional para las Migraciones Organización Internacional del Trabajo

Organización de las Naciones Unidas

Temporary Stay Permit

Plataforma Regional Interagencial para Refugiados y Migrantes de Venezuela

Annual Social Information Report

Revista Latina de Sociología

Revista Interdisciplinar da Mobilidade Humana

Abbreviations

RN

SAPU SECAP SUs-TMDS

SisMigra SOIVA SRI

STI STI-MAR xi

Normative Resolution

Servicio de Atención Primaria de Urgencia Servicio Ecuatoriano de Capacitación Profesional Sistema Integrado de Información Social con Desagregación Territorial

National Migration Registry System

Trade Union of Garment Workers

Internal Revenue Service

International Traffic System

Refugee Request System

Federation Units

United Nations

Unión de Naciones Sudamericanas

United Nations High Commission for Refugees University of Campinas

United States

Textile Workers Association

Visa de Excepción por Razones Humanitarias

List of Figures

Fig.

Fig.

Fig.

Fig.

Fig.

Fig.

Fig.

2.1

Sel ae

6.1

6.2

6.3

6.4

Antofagasta Region, administrative division and mining projects Elaborated by Beatriz Jaramillo for the FONDECYT project

O goannas EN

Movements at border posts, by month of registration, Brazil Number of asylum requests in Brazil, by quarter, according

to selected countries (2016-2020). (Source: Simões et al.

Ecuador net migration Colombia Vs. Venezuela. Period Comparison of the number of Colombians Vs. Venezuelans asylum seekers in Ecuador (2018-Sep 2019). (Source:

UNHCR. Ecuador: MIES-UNHCR protection monitoring (MES, BUIN a iii History of recognized refugees in Ecuador by year. Period (1989—Jan 2021). (Source: Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores

y Movilidad Huména {202 Do aa Number of refugees and Asylum seekers, and Acceptance

Rate, 2000-19. (Source: Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores y Movilidad Humariad 201%, Dania xiii

List of Tables

Table 2.1 Table 2.2

Table 2.3 Table 2.4

Table 2.5 Table 6.1

Income and multidimensional poverty rates,

PAS IA orai N International migrant population of the Antofagasta region, A a rete

Comparison: Percentage history of applicants disaggregated by country of origin (1989—Oct 2018) vs. History of applicants disaggregated by country of origin (1989-May 2019)... eee

XV

Chapter 1 A Introduction: Emergent Issues of South geii American Migrations Gioconda Herrera and Carmen Gómez

This book examines changing dynamics of intraregional migration in South America in light of on-going political, economic, and social transformations. The book focuses on migration within the region departing from the still-prevalent trend to study South-North direction, particularly migration to Europe and the United States.

Indeed, South America has undergone several transformations in the dynamics of its international migration flows. While the second half of the twentieth century was characterized by South-North migration, particularly from the Andean Region to the US and Europe; and by transborder migrations within Latin America, the twenty-first century brought about an important diversification of destinations and added complexity to the structural causes of migration as well as to migrants’ motivations and decision-making to migrate. The States’ responses to this new situation also evolved in different ways.

From 2000 onwards, the region witnessed an important growth of forced migration, particularly from Colombia. They were fleeing from social and political violence that has not ceased. In addition, from 2010 on, Caribbean migration from Cuba, Haiti, and the Dominican Republic started arriving in countries it had never reached before, and migration from Asia and Africa increasingly arrived in the region through various means. More recently, the Venezuelan exodus to the whole continent encapsulated the new complexity of migration patterns in South America. Indeed, Venezuelan migration was massive and responded to multiple drivers, from economic scarcity to social violence.

These new migrations took place, on the one hand, amid a changing political environment that produced greater restrictions for migrant mobility, and on the other hand, in a scenario of economic slowdown and regress in social rights in many South American countries. Beyond national contexts, migration flows taking place

G. Herrera (24) - C. Gómez Latin American Faculty of Social Sciences, FLACSO Ecuador, Quito, Ecuador e-mail: gherrera@ flacso.edu.ec; cgomez @ flacso.edu.ec

O The Author(s) 2022 1 G. Herrera, C. Gómez (eds.), Migration in South America, IMISCOE Research Series, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-11061-0_1 as a result of displacement and dispossession due to the expansion of global extractive industries in the region have also acquired increased visibility.

Contrary to recent publications that focus on specific migration flows such as Venezuelan or Haitian migration in South America, this book does not address a specific migration flow but, rather, covers several migration patterns to analyze the current dynamics of expulsion, transit, and intake of different geographical areas and how these dynamics relate to each other. The book is interested in the analysis of non-linear flows and emphasizes the relevance of transit migration, of floating mobilities, and of territories as places of permanent circulation where forms of inequality, precarious labor, and diverse types of human rights violations are accentuated. Our aim is to highlight the connections between these new types of mobility, the expansion of capital, and their political management by governments.

In this sense, we hope to contribute with new conceptualizations and research paths that can be considered a basic reference in the field of migration studies in South America and other regions of the globe. The book also aims at providing tools for thinking about the transformations that are in motion in migrations at a global level.

This introduction examines the relationship between new patterns of migration, inequalities, and border controls in present-day South America. It starts with a historical overview of migration patterns in the twentieth century, and then focuses on the multiplication of flows in the past 20 years. A second part discusses the character of new mobility patterns, such as forced, transit, and circular migrations, and their connections with extractive industries, informality, and labor exploitation. Next, it discusses the link between these migration patterns and changes in state migration policies towards border control. The introduction ends with a description of the book chapters.

1.1 Changing Migration Patterns in South America

Migrations have played an essential role in the formation of South American nations. Internal and international migrations were central to the configuration of urban, rural, and frontier spaces in the subcontinent throughout the twentieth century. In addition, forced migrations from Africa were constitutive of the processes of colonization, and later, of the globalization of capitalist accumulation in the nineteenth century. Later, the arrival of European workers, especially from Italy, Spain, and Portugal, contributed to the formation of labor markets and political and national identities in Argentina, Venezuela, Brazil, and Uruguay (Baily & Miguez, 2003; Moya, 2018). Moya (2018) argues that transcontinental migrations have been central processes in the historical formation of Latin America and contribute to understanding the immense ethnic-racial diversity of the continent and, also, its persistent social inequality.

At the regional level, internal migrations have been part of the formation of all South American cities. Occasionally, these migrations spread into neighboring territories, bringing about cross-border movements with a long history. In Argentina, for example, the presence of Paraguayan citizens dates back more than a hundred years, while Bolivian migration has existed for half a century, both along the border and in several cities in the country. Likewise, Argentine and Peruvian presence in Chile has a long history and is an important cross-border population movement to this day. In the Andean region, Colombian migration to Ecuador and Venezuela is long-standing, and population movements of Bolivians and Peruvians in the Altiplano are part of processes that predate the formation of nation-states (Cerruti & Parrado, 2015).

In the second half of the twentieth century, there was a decline in migration from Europe, while three migration patterns set in: South-North migration, especially from several Andean countries to the United States and Canada; the continuation of mainly cross-border and intra-regional labor migration; and transoceanic migration to Europe and Japan, mainly from Peru and Brazil (Donato et al., 2010). Since 2000, however, this landscape has undergone important changes, both in terms of the volume of flows and their characteristics. We highlight three particularly important ones.

First, there has been a sharp increase in migration to Europe, mainly from Andean countries and Brazil (Herrera & Yépez, 2008). The places of destination diversified due to the inclusion of Spain, Italy, and Portugal as important destinations for South American migrations. Migration to the United States continued apace but in a more threatening environment due to increasingly restrictive policies that pushed migrants into clandestine crossings. By 2017, emigrant population from South America reached 8.4 million people (Organización Internacional para las Migraciones (OIM), 2017).

In the case of Europe, migration was initially led by women but gradually became family-based and originates in Peru, Colombia, Ecuador, and Bolivia (Herrera & Yépez, 2008). Migration flows were mainly articulated to the care economy in the case of women and to constructions and agriculture work for men. In the past 20 years, Andean migrants in Spain and Italy have gained access to extensive regularization and nationalization processes, which have allowed them to access social rights and certain forms of social protection in vulnerable contexts such as the pandemic. Nonetheless, very significant inequalities and exclusions still persist compared to the native-born population.

This relative legal stability, however, has not brought about significant socioeconomic mobility. In Spain, Fachelli and López-Roldán (2017) show that migrants have not seen significant social mobility, partly due to the 2008 crisis, which produced a blockage in such mobility processes. In addition, Arrans et al. (2017) argues that women tend to stay in the same labor niches and do not get stable work contracts. These studies do not disaggregate the information for the South American population; however, in the case of the Ecuadorian population in Spain, other studies have shown that, after two decades of migration, the vast majority of migrants remain in unskilled occupations: in the areas of construction, agriculture, transportation in the case of men, and in domestic work, care work and hotel services in the case of women (Iglesias et al., 2015; Correa & Tituaña, 2018).

Although some return migration or re-migration to third countries took place, especially in the wake of the 2008 global crisis, overall, most Andean migrants faced the crisis without moving to another place (Correa & Tituaña, 2018; Iglesias et al., 2015). Similarly, migration to Europe from South America continued, but at a slower pace, mainly through family reunification processes.

In the 2000s, migration from certain Southern Cone countries such as Argentina also increased visibly due to the 2001 economic crisis in this country. Since, in many cases, they were descendants of European migrants, this population was able to make use of their intergenerational transnational memory and social networks to settle in the new destinations (Oso & Dalle, 2021). Hence, their experiences of social integration have been more positive than those of Andean migrants, although they are still employed in jobs below their educational levels (Actis & Esteban, 2018).

South American migration to the United States has not stopped, with Brazilians, Colombians and Ecuadorians using the networks and circuits formed over the past fifty years in the country. However, the conditions of this migration have become considerably more precarious due to the hardening of migration policies and, consequently, the clandestine nature of these movements. Moreover, once in the USA, migrants face enormous difficulties obtaining legal residency (Herrera, 2019). A recent report by the Center for Migration Studies of New York City (2021) estimates that undocumented South American migration currently stands at 789,854 and represents 7.7% of all undocumented migration to the United States. It is led by Brazil, followed by Colombia and Ecuador. Statistics from the IOM state that about three million South Americans (with and without legal residency) live in the United States (OIM, 2017). These populations are highly vulnerable and their precarious legal status considerably limits social mobility and access to social protection.

The second dynamic that can be highlighted in these first two decades of the twenty-first century is the growth of intraregional migration (Cerruti & Parrado, 2015). According to OIM (2017), from 2000 to 2015 there has been both an intensification of intraregional cross-border migration and an important growth of extracontinental migration. These new flows emerged as a reaction to the hardening of restrictive policies in countries in the North, and the worsening of economic and political crises in the Caribbean, and in countries such as Venezuela and Colombia. Migration from the Caribbean, mainly made up of Haitians, Cubans and Dominicans, has become significant; that said, since 2015, Venezuelans represent the most important migrant group in South America (Stefoni, 2018; Plataforma de Coordinación Interagencial para Refugiados y Migrantes (R4V), 2021).

Until 2015, Venezuela, along with Argentina, were considered the main receiving countries in South America. Venezuela received migrants from the Southern Cone in the 1970s and 1980s, mainly political exiles, as well as labor migrants from Andean countries. Colombian migration was particularly large until 2015. For this reason, an important part of the flows that are currently leaving Venezuela are Colombian returnees. Argentina, for its part, has been a traditional destination for Bolivian and Paraguayan migration, and, in recent years, Colombian and Peruvian migration also. However, this situation has changed drastically in the past five years, with new destinations developing.

Migration to Chile stands out in this regard. The country reached, in 2019, 1,492,522 migrants, whose main origins were Venezuela, Peru, Haiti, Colombia, Bolivia, and Argentina (Instituto Nacional de Estadísticas de Chile (INE), 2020). This migration is explained, among other issues, by Chile’s economic model based, to a large extent, on the export of mineral and agricultural products that are laborintensive (Martínez Pizarro et al., 2014). Workers from Bolivia and Haiti are increasingly involved in this economic system. Likewise, cities have absorbed a lot of female and male labor in the service sector. Thus, the historical pattern of Peruvian migration in domestic work has now been joined by the migration of Haitian, Dominican, and, more recently, Venezuelan women (Acosta & Freier, 2015; Galaz Valderrama et al., 2017). Finally, the migration of Colombian populations, many of them Afro-descendants and in need of international protection, has also increased considerably in recent years (Echeverri Buriticá, 2016, Pavez, 2016; Stang & Stefoni, 2016).

Another new migration destination has been the Andean region. In the case of Colombia and Peru, with a very pronounced tradition of South-North migration in the past 50 years, the arrival of Venezuelan migrants has turned them into destination countries. Currently they are the two countries with the largest number of Venezuelan migrants in the region. According to R4V (2021), as of May 2021, there were 1,742,927 Venezuelans and 980,000 Colombian returnees living in Colombia, and 1,095,914 in Peru. In Ecuador, this transformation into a receiving country has occurred in the past two decades with the arrival of around 200,000 Colombians between 2000 and 2020 (Pugh, 2021), mostly people in need of international protection; and, with the migration, in much more modest numbers, of Haitian and Cuban nationals between 2010 and 2015 (Herrera, 2019). As of 2017, Venezuelan migration has taken the first place in the number of immigrants. By July 2021, R4V (2021) estimated there were 451,093 Venezuelans in the country.

Concerning extra-continental migration, the past twenty years show a significant growth of African and Asian migration, especially from Cameroon, Senegal, and Congo, India and Sri Lanka (Ménard, 2018; Yeats, 2019; Freier, 2017). According to Freier (2017, 2021), this growth is first explained by the tightening of migration policies in European countries and the United States, while several South American countries, such as Argentina, Ecuador, Bolivia, and Brazil maintained rather flexible entry policies until recently. Migrants arrive in South America with Brazil and Ecuador as their main ports of entry, but their destinations are generally Brazil, Chile, and Argentina (Ménard, 2018; Freier & Castillo, 2021). Second, many of these migrants were attracted by economic growth in Latin America until 2014. Third, we are dealing with expulsion processes caused by social and political violence, as is mainly the case for migrants from Cameroon or Congo (Yeats, 2019) or due to natural disasters (from India and Sri Lanka) (Yeats, 2019; Freier, 2017). Although their numbers are not as significant as those of other South American migrant groups, their presence has grown visibly at certain border posts such as the Darien jungle in Colombia and Panama or the U.S.-Mexico border. As we will see below, these migrants are part of the prolonged or pendular transit migration that South America is experiencing as a new migratory dynamic.

Additionally, the region has noticed a resurgence of skilled migration (Pedone & Gomez, 2021). Beyond the political exiles of the 1970s and 1980s from dictatorships in Central America and the Southern Cone, the new middle-class migrants are the result of globalization processes, but also of greater regional integration and the economic growth of several Latin American countries in the 2000s, which have expanded the markets for professionals in different fields. As they stand midway between the lack of economic opportunities in their countries and a greater capacity for mobility thanks to the different capital they have acquired in their social trajectories, these migrants face other types of experiences, challenges, and also exclusions (OIM, 2016; Pedone & Gómez, 2021).

Finally, as Herrera and Sgrensen (2017) point out, the growth of indigenous migrations is part of this new migration scenario. Latin America has over 650 indigenous groups recognized by their States, whose international migration is acquiring relevance, both due to their numerical impact and to their particular characteristics. The international migration of these groups occurs mainly as cross-border migration, reflecting the fact that their territories have been fragmented by national borders. In Bolivia, Chile, and Paraguay, nine out of ten indigenous immigrants come from a neighboring country.

In some cases, indigenous migration has clearly been forced, such as the displacement of several indigenous groups in Colombia directly affected by armed confrontations, threats and massacres, and the exploitation of their ancestral lands (ACNUR, 2017). In other cases, migration is caused by the marginalization and impoverishment of indigenous peoples, often reproduced at their destination, such as that of the Wayuu people on the Colombian-Venezuelan border (Consuegra, 2021). Both cross-border migration and displacement due to violent conflict are indicative of the forced nature of a large percentage of indigenous migration (Oyarce et al., 2009). It is also important to note that several indigenous peoples such as the Kichwa Otavalos or the Kañaris have started migrating North, to the United States, and, to a lesser extent, to Spain in search of better economic opportunities (Herrera, 2019).

Finally, the scenario that opened up in the 2000s is accompanied by a third characteristic that we will look at in depth in the next section. It involves the irruption of new dynamics in the configuration of the migratory processes, among which the following stand out: transit and circular migrations with an increasingly permanent character, the visibly forced nature of the flows and its connection with extractive industries, and the prevalence of informality and exploitative labor relations.

1.2 New Migratory Dynamics, Precarious Environments and Inequalities

In addition to the diversification of migratory flows and destinations discussed in the previous section, new migratory dynamics have emerged in a transforming economic environment. First, South America is going through an economic slowdown due to the fall of commodity prices, in the context of economies mainly based on extractivist models of development. According to Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC, 2021), South America is entering a process of sustained economic slowdown, which started in 2015, affecting the social and labor conditions of the entire population, although in a differentiated manner. From that year onwards, poverty, inequality, and labor markets deteriorated. First, poverty and extreme poverty are growing again, initially at a slow pace, rising from 27.5% in 2014 to 30.5% in 2019. With the arrival of the pandemic, however, the trend accelerated. ECLAC calculated, for 2020, a poverty rate of 33.7% and a 12.5% extreme poverty rate (ECLAC, 2021, p. 52). Second, the downward trend in inequality experienced in the first fifteen years of the century is reversing and increasing in countries such as Brazil, Ecuador, and Colombia, all of which are new migrant destinations. However, in most other South American countries, itis stagnant. Third, the trend towards the creation of formal employment was reversed and consequently, unemployment and labor informality increased, “due to the progressive inability to absorb the labor supply and create formal jobs, with higher and more stable labor income and inclusion in social protection systems” (ECLAC, 2021, p. 92).

By 2019, workers in low-productivity sectors, characterized by low income, job instability, and lack of access to social protection, reached 49.7% compared to 48.7% in 2010. This deterioration was more pronounced in rural areas, and among the population with incomplete primary education, the indigenous population, and Afro-descendants. Women participate more than men in these precarious sectors (ECLAC, 2021, p. 93).

In such an environment, migrant labor markets in the region are shaped differently. On the one hand, countries such as Argentina and Chile are experiencing more pronounced labor segmentation between migrant and native populations, following the model that exists in the global North. On the other hand, in countries with high rates of informality, such as Peru and Ecuador, migrants and native populations share precarious labor markets (Carella et al., 2021). Recent studies on the exponential growth of labor niches corresponding to transnational digital platforms such as UBER and GLOVO show, precisely, that in countries such as Argentina these jobs are increasingly occupied by Venezuelan migrants and other nationalities, while in countries such as Ecuador and Colombia these niches are shared among migrant workers and native populations (Beccaria et al., 2020; Salazar & Hidalgo, 2021).

With regard to the presence of extractive industries, mining and oil production in the Andean countries and soybean or extensive agriculture in the Southern Cone continue to be the countries’ main sources of income, and their expansion has been prioritized by Pink Tide governments as well as by administrations with openly neoliberal policies (Acosta, 2011; Svampa, 2019).

Extractivist models of development have historically attracted internal, as well as regional and international migration in many countries of the region. The chapter by Stefoni, Stang and Rojas in this book, examines the case of Antofagasta (Chile), a mining production area with a history of mobilities of more than 100 years. Another example is oil production in Venezuela which was an important pole of attraction for regional workers from Peru, Colombia, and Ecuador in the 1970s (Ramírez et al., 2019; Páez 8 Vivas, 2017). In recent years, migrant labor working in illegal mining operations has been identified in several areas of expansion of mining production in the region. Migrants’ participation in this activity was driven by the deterioration of urban labor markets resulting from the economic slowdown. These migrants come from very diverse national backgrounds—Colombian, Peruvian, Bolivian, Haitian, and Venezuelan—and they work in extremely precarious conditions. The labor conditions and forms of recruitment of these migrant populations need further research.

Within this structural context of labor precarity and the expansion of the extractivist model, we detected at least three intra-regional migratory dynamics that differ from the traditional cross-border labor migrations of previous decades. These dynamics are documented in several chapters of the book.

First, there is a diversification of the causes of displacement, both in structural terms and with regards to the motivations of people for leaving their countries. In addition to the economic needs that have been described to explain why people leave their communities to live in other countries, there have been displacements caused by political and social violence, expulsions due to mega-infrastructure projects, or humanitarian crises caused by natural disasters. In some territories, the combination of all these phenomena explains the outflow of their population.

The case of Haitian migration is paradigmatic in this regard. It is a diaspora that has a long history of migration but, following the 2010 earthquake, they began to migrate to South America. Since then, the Haitian presence in Ecuador and Chile and, to a greater extent, in Brazil, as analyzed in the text by Cavalcanti, Tonanti, and Amador in this book, has become increasingly prominent, with a corresponding multiplicity of causes: from poverty to processes of territorial expulsion, social and political violence, the collapse of institutions, and natural disasters.

On the other hand, the internal, intra-regional, and extra-continental migration of the Colombian population also has very complex and multidimensional characteristics. In addition to the armed conflict and political violence that marked forced displacement in the first decade of 2000, new causes related to displacement caused by infrastructure projects, extensive crop cultivation, and social violence have now been added.

The causes of the Venezuelan exodus are also currently the subject of both academic and political debates on whether it is a predominantly economic migration or whether we should consider it the result of the collapsing of social institutions and increasing violence that jeopardize people’s access to health, food, and a safe environment, all of which have converted it into forced migration, according to the international instruments signed by most countries in the region, such as the Cartagena Convention (Blouin et al., 2020). UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) has promoted the understanding of this migration within the framework of a humanitarian crisis that allows the activation of emergency public policy mechanisms (Alto Comisionado de las Naciones Unidas para los Refugiados (ACNUR), 2020).

In other words, one of the most relevant trends in contemporary South American migration is its forced nature, and this is expressed both in the dizzying growth of asylum applications and in the ever-increasing experience of clandestine and vulnerable migrants traveling around the continent and who do not consider themselves or are not recognized as persons in need of international protection. Precisely, the text contributed by Moya, Sanchez, and Pugh, shows, regarding the Colombian and Venezuelan case, the inconsistencies that occur between the political-media rhetoric and the institutional practice of their recognition as forced migrations. This ambiguity has also led to the increasingly frequent use of the term mixed migrations, a subject addressed in this book in the chapter by Gómez and Herrera. In addition to this forced character, on other occasions, their journey often includes clandestine crossings due to the restrictive policies of countries in the North, policies that, as we will see later on, have been progressively adopted by South American countries. This has also led to migrants’ travel and movement with the involvement of smugglers. Berg and Pérez’s chapter in this book examines the customary legal practices and negotiations that migrants establish with smugglers to secure their arrival in the United States when traveling from Ecuador.