ARTICLES ON SOMALI MIGRANTS

GPI LAW attorney Amien Kacou has a third piece published in the Georgetown Journal of International Affairs Online. The article focuses on the special difficulties faced by Somali migrants due to the unavailability of reliable official documents in their country.

Related articles published on NOLO.COM include the following:

• How do I prove I'm from Somalia so as to claim refugee status in the U.S.? (available here)
• Proving Foreign Marriage When Official Documents Are Unavailable (available here)
• Migrating to the U.S. From a Country With No U.S. Embassy or Consulate (available here)
• When Religious or Traditional Marriage Ceremonies Are Valid for Immigration Purposes (available here)

ARTICLE ON GLOBAL MIGRATION REFORM

GPI LAW attorney Amien Kacou has a new article in the Fletcher Forum of World Affairs. The article, titled "The Case for Treating Migration as Trade," presents arguments in favor of liberalizing and multilateralizing global migration on the model of global trade.

ARTICLE ON REFUGEE MARRIAGE RECOGNITION

GPI LAW attorney Amien Kacou has a second piece published in the Georgetown Journal of International Affairs Online. The article argues in favor of relaxing the application of marriage recognition rules (and marriage registration requirements, in particular) to family relationship determinations in the case of refugees.

LIBERALIZING INTERNATIONAL LABOR MIGRATION, PART II: Potential Benefits and Costs to Destination Countries

Potential Benefits

• Replacement migration: According to the International Organization for Migration (IOM), the population of high income countries (typical destination countries) such as the U.S. aged between 20 and 64 years old is expected to decline by 23% in 2050 (see World Migration 2008). Younger immigrants could help both address related labor shortages and fund social security and pensions for that ageing population.
• Decreased incentives for illegal immigration and related crimes: According to the IOM, international migrant smuggling now matches drug trafficking as a source of income for organized crime (see here).
• Lower the cost of migrant departure: According to the World Bank, migrants tend to stick to their destination country, even during times of economic crisis, when migration flows decrease (see Migration and Development Brief 11, 2009). I am not so sure that this squares perfectly with more recent (post- Great Recession) experience in the US, but, regardless, perhaps migrants tend to fear losing the opportunity to return if they leave.
• Fiscal benefit: at least in the case of skilled migrants,  they can be expected to pay more in taxes (due to their higher income) than they receive in public benefits.
• Alternative to outsourcing: international labor migration (ILM) may be preferable to outsourcing in at least two respects. First of all, it brings new consumers and investors to domestic U.S. businesses (instead of creating new ones for foreign businesses); and, second of all, it enables high income countries to control labor conditions--through wage legislation for instance--in ways that can favor their domestic populations.
• Specialization of domestic workers in destination countries: In theory, liberalization should favor a better division of labor (see Joel Trachtman, The International Law of Economic Migration, 2009, p. 339).

LIBERALIZING INTERNATIONAL LABOR MIGRATION, PART I: Benefits to Countries of Origin

In December 2011, Robert Guest (business editor for the Economist) described the general case "in praise of brain drain" (i.e., the "transfer of intellectual capital" due to skilled worker migration from poor countries to rich ones), pointing out that, under normal conditions, the transaction benefited poor countries by:

• Motivating their citizens (the majority of which would not be able to emigrate) to acquire "marketable skills;" 
• Creating uniquely-stable financing through remittance flows (money earned in rich countries and sent back home to poor families, which is more than double the foreign aid their allegedly "corrupt" governments receive); and
• Opening channels of commerce (through diaspora networks).

Guest (an economist) failed to mention some easily-overlooked political benefits of so-called brain drain--e.g., releasing key young labor surplus (thus reducing the chances of social unrest). Most poor countries have very young populations in demographic ascent. (A 200% increase is expected in Africa, and around 40% increase expected in Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, in the 20-64 age group, by 2050.) For poor countries, where those populations are likely to be unemployed and there is currently too little capital for entrepreneurship, exporting even a skilled labor surplus might well increase political stability.