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In the latest edition of Foreign Affairs, Professor Alexander Betts writes on the migration crisis in the Americas. He compares the situation and the response in the Americas to that in Europe since 2015, and details the lessons that can be learned from Europe. He writes: “To avoid the kind of human and political toll that the migration crisis produced in Europe, political leaders and policymakers must treat this new situation holistically and learn from past examples. Already, policymakers in the United States and elsewhere in the Americas are repeating European mistakes.”

He further states: “The key lesson from the European experience of 2015 is that when it comes to migration, there are limits to unilateralism and bilateralism. The sense of crisis began to abate only when the EU adopted a multipronged approach grounded in cooperation among the migrants’ countries of origin, transit, and destination.”

The article also questions the usefulness of conventional categories such as ‘refugees’ and ‘economic migrants’, when “what Europe saw in 2015 and what the Americas are witnessing today are not simply refugee flows or market-driven population movements but rather ‘survival migration’.”

Read the article here: https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/americas/2019-10-15/nowhere-go

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