Climate Change is Pushing a Higher Number of Migrants to the U.S.
According to Eos, the U.S. is responsible for 40% of climate change effects happening today and yet climate migrants are ineligible for asylum. The need to recognize climate refugees should create a sense of urgency — not burden — for the U.S. to fix its broken immigration system.
Last month, NPR released a story about a farmer in Honduras who was no longer able to support himself through farming because of erratic rainfalls and droughts. One of their potential solutions was to migrate to the U.S.
As the U.S. immigration system buckles under hundreds of thousands of asylum applicants, our bandage solutions for the humanitarian crisis are failing to address a long-term issue: Climate migration.
An estimated 200 million to 1.2 billion people will be displaced from their homes by 2050 because of climate change. According to Eos, the U.S. is responsible for 40% of the climate change effects seen today. The need to recognize climate refugees should create a sense of urgency- not burden- for the U.S. to fix its broken immigration system. Primary focuses should be to increase funding, update immigration policies, enable cross-sector collaborations, and monitor the environmental impacts of natural resource extraction. Misdirected efforts to lessen- or completely bar- migrants coming to the U.S. have had traumatic and detrimental impacts from family separations, people going missing, and countless deaths.
Presently, climate migrants are ineligible to receive asylum.
“They still need to show that they are in danger of being persecuted in the country they’re from,” said The New York Office for New Americans, referring to any asylum seekers who are displaced as a result of environmental disasters caused by climate change. Following President Biden’s asylum ban, this also means they would need to show immediate danger of being persecuted in the countries they crossed prior to arriving in the U.S.
U.S. Consumption Begs Reparations for Latin America
The economic prosperity of the Global North is, undoubtedly, tied to the low-cost labor and extractive practices from the Global South. Meanwhile, an estimate from the United Nations puts cost for developing countries in adapting to climate change at $500 billion a year by 2050. That sum is almost 18 times larger than the gross domestic product (GDP) of Honduras today.
Last year, Honduran President Xiomara Castro addressed the United Nations assembly, “The industrialized nations of the world are responsible for the serious deterioration of the environment. But they make us pay because of their onerous lifestyle.”
Eos reported that the Global North, which includes the US and the EU, was responsible for 92% of carbon emissions today. This prompts the question of whether countries in Latin America, Africa, South Asia and the Pacific should bear such large costs alone. If the nations of the Global North benefited from the exploitation and extraction of these regions while also maintaining the largest share of carbon emissions, accountability would make these same nations responsible for paying reparations to support the Global South in adapting to climate change.
Environmental Inequities
The effects of climate change largely impact populations outside the U.S. At least presently. Residents of corrupt states endure compounding factors such as an absence of financial support or investment from their government to rebuild the infrastructure of their communities after a natural disaster.
Much like the NPR story above, rural residents in Latin America that are hit by floods and droughts are often left with no option but to flee to a nearby city. In addition to lost crops, land erosion can make it impossible to cultivate in the future. The journey for these residents to establish themselves in Latin America’s urban regions can be one in a perpetual state of poverty. The high cost of living and lack of community connections can be disheartening.
Consequently, femicide becomes a salient issue with migrating to Latin America’s cities. Attaining housing, work, caring for children, and navigating predatorial violence with scarce legal recourse invariably increase the risk for women. Having little to no formal education, and relying on agriculture and ancestral forms of cooking, assimilation becomes an arduous path. According to 2021 data, the number of men and women that have migrated to the U.S. from Central America is nearly split evenly.
For Indigenous people, language barriers are sometimes a worsening factor. In an Indigenous border town in Guatemala, residents were left without homes, roads, or electricity following the hurricanes of 2020, Eta and Iota. With limited infrastructure and in the absence of the Guatemalan government’s support, the community relied on aid from Mexico. Similarly, residents from Campur- another village in Guatemala- fled after the hurricanes’ destroyed their homes and land. While isolated populations in Central and South America remain unassisted, it’s residents from these regions that are migrating to the U.S. in hopes of starting over.
Exploitation and Extraction
Slowing the effects of climate change will require the expansion of mining activity. Yet, mining has been a controversial issue across the Global South. With ambitions to generate more green technologies by 2050, the U.S.’ demand for materials outpaces that of current mining activity. Nature’s editorial cites “the world’s economy appears inextricably linked to resource extraction.”
Mining led by U.S., Canadian, Swiss, and Chinese enterprises has devastated the health of communities in Global South. To minimize harmful effects, greenhouse gas emissions and environmental impacts need to be tracked by those overseeing mining projects. However, mining companies have continued operating decades after initial concerns were brought to light, indicating their lack of concern for the very populations they’re affecting.
One such incident is that of Colombia. A Canadian mining company known as Cordoba Minerals- with capital investments from the U.S. and China- began mining in the Indigenous town of El Alacrán. According to Prensa Comunitaria, the company CEO Sarah Armstrong Montoga said “We have received support from the local authorities to the top of the State, and the local communities are very favorable to the project.” However, residents said they were never consulted and never gave approval to move forward with mining. Further, residents reported health issues and negative environmental impacts. Cordoba Minerals allegedly denied the presence of an Indigenous population in the mine’s vicinity.
In Guatemala, the Fenix mine in El Estor was initially led by Canadian company Hudbay Minerals prior to sold to Swiss company Solway Investment Group. The mine had contaminated the largest freshwater lake of Guatemala, Lake Izabal, as noted by local residents in the red color of the water. When protests began, the company continued functions and told residents the discoloration was a result of the algae. During this period, protesters were violently persecuted, and one was murdered.
Environmental inequities are often faced by defenders of Indigenous lands in Latin America. These groups have been denied their land titles by their own governments. Further, these same governments have welcomed the extractive practices of foreign entities across the Global North (often for illegal kickbacks or in the name of “economic growth” that seldom benefits local residents), enabling human rights violations, deteriorating health, destroying biodiversity, and disrupting diverse Indigenous cultures.
Updating the U.S. framework for asylum seekers and refugees
It’s essential that Congress increase funding for the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) as the agency currently relies solely on application fees. Because the agency updates their fee rates every four years, the revenue generated from immigration and naturalization requests are unlikely to reflect the demand of asylum applications.
Foreign Policy has also urged a reevaluation on the concept of asylum in order to expand its definition to both, political and climate refugees. The increasing number of migrants have left U.S. shelters overcrowded, and many more are without any form of housing. Consequently, U.S. Americans have become less supportive of further migration, though it is unclear if that sentiment is driving urgency to fix our immigration system or to scale up efforts in barring migrants altogether.
The U.S. immigration framework has aged out of its World War II origins, which leaves faultless climate migrants stranded and vulnerable. It’s essential that the legislative system work to enact reforms that synergize the expertise of those on the front lines of immigration: The judicial system, nongovernmental and nonprofit organizations, civic associations, and faith-based entities.
Indigenous people must be brought into the global conversations around the effects of climate change. In addition to their insights, their active role in protecting natural resources needs to be respected following track records of irresponsible extractive practices.
Whether people displaced from climate change will come to the U.S. isn’t the question. No matter how discouraging the U.S. border tactics remain, the number of migrants will increase time and time again as the climate crisis accelerates. The solution to managing the humanitarian crisis must be holistic. By contrast, immigration advocacy agencies already trudging through the crisis will be worse off. Doria Hernandez, an investigator from Federal Defenders of San Diego, said “There isn’t a situation where they [USCIS] take climate into account for asylum. I feel like that would open Pandora’s box and overwhelm the immigration system.”
