7. Exploring New Spaces for Dialogue and Regional Cooperation in the Americas to Protect Migrants’ Human Rights

See Associated Press (September 24, 2006) “Mexico Sees Surge of Migrants From Haiti, Africa and Asia” New York Times, http://​www.​nytimes.​com/​aponline/​2016/​09/​24/​world/​americas/​ap-lt-mexico-haitian-immigrants.​html?​_​r=​0.

Mexico remains, by far, the largest source of migrants to the U.S., mostly through the migration of Mexican nationals but also through the transmigration of Central Americans across Mexico to the U.S. In 2010, Mexican nationals comprised the highest percentage of immigrants in 33 U.S. states; a century ago, Mexican nationals predominated only in Texas, Arizona, and New Mexico.

After Mexican nationals, migrants from Caribbean and Central American nations comprised the next largest groups of U.S. immigrants in 2010, including predominant representation by Dominicans in New York and Rhode Island, Cubans in Florida, Jamaicans in Connecticut, and Salvadorans in Maryland and Virginia.

As of December 2013, 47 nations have either ratified or acceded to the ICMW, and another 15 nations are signatories without ratification or accession. Most of these countries are primarily migrant-transmitting nations. No primarily migrant-receiving nation of the global North (Western Europe, North America, Russia), or the more prosperous nations of the Middle East and Pacific Rim (with exception of Indonesia), have signed, ratified, and/or acceded to the ICMW.

This includes the fact that the U.S. is not likely to sign or ratify in the near future those core international human rights instruments which it has so far chosen not to adopt, including the ICMW. However, it is possible that national- and subnational-level equivalents can be adopted, and likewise compassionate policies can be implemented and advanced on those levels as squarely within the ambit of immigrant regulation (such as immigrant integration). It is, therefore, crucial that as sending nations press for hemispheric implementation of core human rights instruments, so too must sub-federal and transnational actors (primarily civil society organizations) continue to work toward compassionate migration on their own and in coordination with other actors, both within and beyond U.S. borders.