For the International Organization for Migration (IOM), international migration is the movement of people out of their usual place of residence to a country of which they are not nationals. For Giselle Arellano, migration is a social phenomenon of a centenary, which involves millions of people daily and which happens (voluntary or not), between different neighboring countries. In Mexico particularly, the border with the United States is a static space, where day by day the relationship between the two countries is recreated and political and economic relations are stirred in the sea of their conditions.
In a recent historical context, in the last 20 years, the international migrant population increased 62%: 173.2 million people in 2000 and 2 decades later the figure increased to 280.6 million migrants. Today, with about 281 million people, 2020 has been the year of the largest international migration in the world since the event has been recorded; It must be taken into account that the amount could have been higher if the crisis due to the COVID-19 pandemic had not occurred.
Within this estimate, Arellano deals with the numbers that represent a summarized version of the way in which the need to be transnational within Latin America has increased. After all, not just in Mexico, but in the world, migration is related to a variety of different reasons, including economic problems, poverty, rising inequality, and the struggle to improve living standards.
Mexico is the third country that registered the most international migrants last year with 11.2 million registered people, this figure is surpassed by India with 17.9 million and China with 11.6 million. Likewise, during 2020 more than a third of people born in Mexico and residing in the United States have obtained citizenship through naturalization. This figure increased between 2006 and 2019, from 2.5 million to 4.1 million.
The statistics presented previously show that Mexico is a country in which the migration issue is intrinsically linked to our life context, both in terms of personal and labor mobility. The high rates of migration make it necessary for Giselle Arellano, an approach to the migration issue that starts from the generation of a public policy, which considers the complexity of the situation, and the shared responsibility of the countries in our region, but, above all, based on human rights and the concept of human security.
In contrast to the main statistics, the United States is the first destination for the international migrant population and almost always, with mandatory passage through the Mexican country. In 2020, it received 50 million 632 thousand 836 migrants. These amounts are followed by Germany who received 15.7 million and Russia with 11.6 million; as the countries that perceive the highest quantified migration under regularized terms.
Regarding the migrant population stored, that is, in areas that perceive exodus from different countries, the busiest migratory corridor in 2020 was that of Mexico and the United States. In addition to the political issue, the United Nations Population Division estimated that, in 2020, there were 11.2 million Mexican migrant people in the world. It is mostly concentrated in the United States. This fact presents forced social changes for the North American country, where security, trade and jobs are essential dimensions in understanding how and how to regulate the same process.
The opportunities for negotiation between the border, for both countries, are plausible; more to move in that direction should be given both governments the right to lead negotiations on the phenomenon of migration through the same channels of cooperation and understanding that allowed them advance in other areas of the political agenda.
