Work visas for Canada and Spain, the US option before the end of Title 42

After three years, the Title 42, a sanitary measure that Donald Trump used to expel immigrants to the Mexican border. The imminent end has attracted people who imagine a easier crossing into the United States. But it’s not like that.

The Joe Biden government deployed 550 military personnel in addition to the 2,500 troops stationed on the border and reached agreements with Canada and Spain to manage labor mobility to those territories.

Las work visas They make up one of the main policies to prevent the massive arrival of migrants without documents that the US government, according to the Migration Policy Institute (MPI, for its acronym in English).

He Title 42 is a section of the United States Public Health Service Act, which authorizes the government to use extraordinary immigration measures in the event of an epidemiological emergency, such as immediate expulsion without respecting the right of migrants to request asylum. But with the end of the Covid-19 pandemic, there is no longer any justification for keeping it in force.

The basis of the strategy is the establishment of Regional Processing Centers, which will be located in different countries of Latin America. These offices will identify “people in need of protection” and direct them towards legal routes of entry, says the MPI.

The State Department plans to open about 100 of those centers and will launch a online platform for scheduling appointmentsas reported by that US agency.

Staff will review each person’s case to determine if they are eligible for one of the “legal pathways to the United States, Canada, and Spain,” countries that will offer or expand temporary job offers.

On Tuesday, Presidents Joe Biden and Andrés Manuel López Obrador spoke about “the strong enforcement measures in preparation for the return” of the Title 8“which has more serious consequences for people deported” than Title 42, indicates a statement from the White House.

The immigrant workforce in the US

They reside in the United States 11 million immigrants unauthorized, according to a report by the Congressional Research Service (CRS), published in August 2022. The labor participation rate of this population is 65%, the document points out.

It also indicates that unauthorized immigrants work mainly in agriculture, construction, hotels, services, and manufacturing.

A large part of the increase in migratory flows is related to the demand for labor in the United States and the relatively slow growth in some countries in the Americas due to the economic crisis unleashed by covid-19, says the MPI.

There are other reasons, such as the political situations in Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua and Haiti, countries that have historically experienced an intervention by US politics.

The migration It will increase, but it will not be large or lasting, the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA) predicts.

“After all, Title 42 hardly deterred migration” and the Biden administration “is working, with the collaboration of the Mexican government, to keep asylum out of reach” of migrants, he adds.

What measures will the US, Canada and Spain take?

The State Department says regional centers will refer people to legal pathways to migrate. But those routes are “to accommodate the demand for labor from the United States or the number of people who are likely to try to move north,” says the MPI.

In fact, if they had them, they could shift a good part “from unauthorized migration to legal migration that provides certainty for employers, migrants and public authorities alike.”

The regional centers will provide information and process cases of migration towards United States, Canada and Spain.

In recent days, the United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced a trilateral agreement to promote “safe, orderly, humane, and regular migration.” The three countries will expand “opportunities for labor migration regular, even through ‘circular’ or temporary labor mobility,” the statement reported.

The US authorities pledged to strengthen recruitment, “fairly and ethically examine and support eligible workers” and increase the protection and awareness of the labor rights of migrants.

Cooperation is based on “the shared interest in addressing the shortage of manpower in key industries in participating countries of destination, the shared commitment to empowering workers” and the need to manage irregular migration, he argues.

In 2022, Canada received more than 50,000 workers from Mexico, Guatemala and the Caribbean in the agricultural sector, notes the DHS. His government “commits to increasing the region’s labor mobility,” linking Canadian employers with national labor ministries.

While, “spain will increase the number of people coming from Latin America over the next three years through channels linked to the needs of the labor market”.

For its part, the United States will increase 25% of the H-2 temporary work visas for Central America. With a budget of $65 million, it will start a pilot grant program “for agricultural employers to address job instability and labor shortages,” which will improve working conditions for migrant staff, the DHS says.

“It remains to be seen how well this will work in practice, especially given the heterogeneous nature of the Different programsthe various mechanisms to apply and for which different nationalities are eligible”, warns the MPI.