Released on: October 10, 2007, 1:36 pm

Press Release Author: Kenneth D. MacHarg

Industry: Government

Press Release Summary: Can the U.S. help stem the flow of immigrants by assisting
Latin American countries. The experience of Colombian immigrants in Florida provides
an example.

Press Release Body: By Kenneth D. MacHarg

The on-going debate about immigration and what to do about an estimated
twelve-million illegal migrants has, unfortunately, failed to address the
longer-term issue of stemming the tide of people coming to the United States
primarily to find higher paying work than is available back home.

The experience of Colombians in South Florida may provide some pertinent insight
into such a solution.

In 2002 while writing freelance as a Special Correspondent for the South Florida
Sun-Sentinel I was asked to prepare a feature story on the Colombian community in
the region.

During the previous decade, there had been a steady flow of Colombians to south
Florida as increasing guerrilla warfare among two rebel groups, a right-wing
paramilitary group and the army had spread throughout the country. The conflict had
brought a sharp increase in the number of people kidnapped for ransom or killed in
bombings and other violence.

Talking with recent and long-term immigrants, I found a community that was working
hard to help newcomers adjust to their new home.

As more and more Colombians sought safety and security in the U.S. longer-term
residents had formed organizations to provide seminars on developing credit,
planning for retirement, insurance, social security and other issues that were often
very confusing to newly-arrived Colombians.

Others helped immigrants to purchase a home, process immigration papers, learn how
to jump through the necessary hoops to open a business, get their children
registered in school, identify doctors, find a church, etc.

But it wasn't easy. "They don't understand the finances here and they can't get
credit," one interviewee told me. "And, they miss their family, friends and way of
life back home.

By the next year, 2003, when the paper again asked me to write a feature on the
Colombian community in South Florida, I found that the picture had totally changed.

"Many people are starting to return to Colombia," the same source told me. "For many
Colombians, it has been a struggle here, and many of them have not made it after two
to three years of trying."

She said that changing conditions in Colombia under President Alvaro Uribe and an
increasingly favorable economic situation there had convinced many that it was time
to return home and start again.

Two years previous, 1,000 Colombians were relocating to Florida each week. By 2003
the number of immigrants is down to 100 to 150 a week. And, Avianca Airlines was
reported to be carrying at least 15 families back to their Colombian homes each
week.

The reason for the change? Conditions had improved in Colombia and Colombians wanted
to return to their homeland and be closer to their families. The economy had
improved, violence was reduced, movement around the country and in cities was much
safer and the business climate had turned around.

Another source told me, "Many Colombians are returning because they feel the need to
go back to their roots and resume the style of life they had before they fled. "From
our heritage, our family is our first society. By going back, we will have more time
for a social life and our families."

The example from Colombia can easily be applied to Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador,
Honduras and other countries from which immigrants come to seek a better life. They
too value the extended family, want to return to their roots and feel more at home
in their own society. What keeps many of them here are the steady jobs and higher
salaries.

As we debate spending upwards of $3 billion dollars (some estimates go as high at $7
billion dollars) to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexican border, consideration needs
to be given to providing resources to develop the economic base where most
immigrants originate. Such development would not only keep potential immigrants home
but would attract others to return to what is familiar and comfortable.

Rodolfo García Zamora of the Autonomous University of Zacatecas in Mexico told the
Chicago Tribune in 2006, "If the U.S. would take half of what it is investing in
militarizing the border and invest it in economic development in Mexico, in ten
years the migration to the U.S. would be going down."

Along side the immediate attention needed to control the influx of immigrants, we
need to also be planning for the long-term resolution of the immigration problem. A
solution that helps our neighbors to the south to improve living and working
conditions and provides economic stability will go a long way toward reducing the
flow of people across the border and rebuilding the fractured relationships with our
Latin American neighbors.

Kenneth D. MacHarg is the author of From Rio to the Rio Grande, Challenges and
Opportunities in Latin America available from local book stores or on line at
www.atlasbooks.com/marktplc/01969.htm or at other online book sellers. . He lives in
Carrollton, Georgia.


Web Site: http://www.atlasbooks.com/marktplc/01969.htm

Contact Details: Kenneth D. MacHarg
102 Comly Rich Dr
Carrollton, GA 30117
riotoriogrande@gmail.com
www.atlasbooks.com/marktplc/01969.htm