Five things to retain from 2024

The Mexico route

Since the so-called "Mexico route" began in mid-2022, prompting nearly 50,000 Dominicans to undertake the dangerous journey of crossing the Darien jungle to reach Mexico and then cross the metal wall that would allow them to fulfill the "American dream," nearly two thousand Dominicans voluntarily returned to the country in 2024 after realizing that life abroad was not what they expected. From January 2023 through December 2024, the United States deported 7,354 Dominicans out of the 47,273 who took that route, according to data from the General Directorate of Migration, which reports monthly on the number of Dominicans deported from all parts of the world and the reasons for their involuntary return.

Geopolitics (Sabatini, Chatham House, December 2024)

"Migration from Latin America to the United States has surged to unprecedented levels, with more than 370,000 people intercepted at the border with Mexico in the month of December 2023 alone. Economic need, political repression, and civil wars used to be the main factors driving Latin American migration toward the global North. This has changed. Today, most people are fleeing countries trapped in criminal violence and failed states. In some cases, criminal networks and even governments are involved in the trafficking of their own citizens. For the United States, migration is a deeply divisive issue and played an important role in the 2024 presidential election. The recent rise in migrants continues to polarize the debate. The resulting cycle of failed states, criminal enterprises, and declining civil discourse on migration represents a regional crisis... Can fragile and failed states in Latin America be saved? Possibly, but the required response is global, structural, and long term."

150 countries. 110 languages. A shelter system

Two years ago, when the first buses carrying immigrants from the southern border arrived in Manhattan, it seemed like a political maneuver. If New York wanted to be a sanctuary city, the Republican governor of Texas was happy to help by sending buses full of immigrants. More than 225,000 migrants have arrived in New York City since 2022. More than 6 billion dollars have been spent on shelters. Hundreds of hotels and empty office buildings heavily affected by the pandemic were adapted as shelters. Baseball fields and warehouses were turned into barracks-style dormitories to house migrants from countries such as Venezuela, Peru, Morocco, and Sudan. Politics changed as well. New York became entangled in the national anger over immigration that helped Donald Trump get reelected as president. Support for the president-elect increased in a city that used to be hostile to him, pushing Mayor Eric Adams, a Democrat, to reconsider one of the city's core principles: that it must provide a bed to anyone who needs shelter.

Migration and climate disorder at island scale

A report promoted by the World Bank in 2024 entitled "Climate Migrants in the Dominican Republic" highlights the importance of establishing synergies between climate and environmental policies and migration policies. Based on statistical projections and a case study on how environmental degradation and its impact on agriculture in the municipality of Restauracion, Dajabon, influence the decision to migrate, the report provides evidence of how patterns of internal and international migration are influenced directly or indirectly by the adverse effects of climate change. The likely pattern is one of internal out-migration of the Dominican population from agricultural and grazing regions, which fuels urban growth, with those same regions receiving an influx of, presumably, circular and labor migrants from Haiti, largely due to the impacts of climate change in Haiti.

Hospitality toward Haitian migrants in Mexico

More than 44,000 Haitians applied for asylum in Mexico in 2023. Many of them end up working in the food industry and in the large wholesale markets of the capital. "We had never seen this before, and I have been chambeando, working, here all my life," says Eduardo Gomez, an 84-year-old merchant engaged in the wholesale and retail buying and selling of food. He is referring to the dozens of migrants and asylum seekers of Haitian origin, men and women, who work as handlers and porters, but also as dispatchers and shop assistants in the many warehouses and endless aisles of the Central de Abasto. "Haitians are very resilient," notes Andres Ramirez, head of the Mexican Commission for Refugee Assistance. "They can adapt to Mexican society, despite coming from a rather different culture."