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Irregular
migration
March 2021

What is

Irregular

Migration

The International Organization for Migration (IOM) defines it as the “movement of persons that takes place outside the laws, regulations, or international agreements governing the entry into or exit from the State of origin, transit or destination.” (IOM, 2011) in other words, “Irregular migration occurs when a person enters, or lives in a country of which he or she is not a citizen, violating its immigration laws and regulations.” (Castles, 2010)

What motivates our compatriots to emigrate?

According to the survey “In the Footprints of Migrants” (IDB, 2019)9 out of 10 Guatemalan migrants report economic reasons as the main motivation for emigrating. “There is a development pattern with little investment in physical and human capital, with limited personal safety or social security,

resulting in modest labor productivity”. (ECLAC, 2019) Due to the slow rate of economic growth, the likelihood of getting good jobs are limited, which also affects poverty and slow growth rates.

Who emigrates in

search of better opportunities?

We have identified at least three different types of population of compatriots seeking to emigrate, which are described in the following table:

What are the consequences, effects and impacts of migrations?

“Migrants experience high levels of risk and exploitation. Smuggling, trafficking, forced labor and the lack of labor and human rights is the fate millions of migrants face. In fact, even legal migrants can have uncertain resident status and be vulnerable to economic exploitation, discrimination and racist violence”. (Castles, 2010)

“Emigration can be positive from an economic point of view for individual migrants and their families. The possibility of evaluating the impact at a general level of the economy is more uncertain, although we should not overlook the fact that remittances represent a high percentage of the GDP or the impact they have on total exports of some Latin American countries”. (ECLAC, 2002)

“There are also problems with short-term and long-term consequences. For the former, there is a phenomenon that, by acting as an ˋescape valve ́, it relieves pressure on the labor market and the money transfers can be highly beneficial. In the long term, the unskilled labor force, the loss of the young population and the dependence on money transfers can constitute an obstacle to development.”(ECLAC, 2003)

What is UniSpice

doing

to mitigate the negative effects of migration?

UniSpice has raised the following premise: With the execution, improvement and growth of its commercial operations, investment in productive infrastructure and its competitiveness at a national level, UniSpice will be able to generate new opportunities for economic and social development in its centers of operation, creating jobs throughout its production chain and, therefore, reducing poverty and improving living conditions of the communities involved. Under these conditions and opportunities, potentially migrant populations will choose to remain in Guatemala rather than assume the risks related to migrating to another country, and thus irregular migration would decrease.

Creation of Job Opportunities in Guatemala:

With the expansion of centers of operation (our own farms, small producers, processing facilities and administrative offices) in at least 10 rural Departments in the country, the most practical impact indicator is to measure the number of people carrying out productive activities directly (small farmers and their workers, personnel hired in the farms and processing centers, personnel on office and operations payrolls).
Registration of this data for 2020, the estimate of the full-time equivalent positions in the field and the family members benefited from each job generated, currently links about 40,000 people.

New Operations Expansion Plans:

Following their guiding values of “always growing, never give up, challenge the impossible and always do the right thing”, Unispice expects that, with this expansion, after the 3 years it will take to implement it and through the optimization of operations, the projection of growth will benefit a total of 11,000 Guatemalan families:

Other

Proposals

and opportunitties

Irregular Migration

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