549 - Thematic Session. Return Migration during Hard Times

Session Submission Type: Invited Session

Abstract

When countries experience “Hard Times”, immigrants face new challenges to their integration into a host country. Legal policy may seek to push immigrants out and back to their countries of origin, by defining them as undesirable. In the United States, for example, deportations have risen dramatically since 2001; every year over the past four years close to 400,000 individuals have been deported. Social policies may also aim to encourage immigrants to return voluntarily to their countries of origin. Since 9/11, anti-immigrant sentiment has dramatically impacted the lives of the foreign-born throughout the world.

This thematic session proposes a scholarly look at the meaning of return migration in various Latin American contexts in the contemporary era. The presenters in the session will highlight the most significant findings in their work on contemporary patterns in return migration, whether due to economic recession or legal policy constraints. Additionally, the panelists’ comments will focus on the consequences of return migration for individual migrant families, communities and, more broadly, countries of origin.

Sub Unit

• Thematic Sessions

Session Organizer

• Joanna Dreby, State University of New York-Albany

Presider

• Joanna Dreby, State University of New York-Albany

Panelists

• Silvia Elena Giorguli Saucedo, El Colegio de Mexico

• Tanya Maria Golash-Boza, University of California-Merced

Individual Presentations

• Divided Families, Fractured Schooling: Children Returning from the United States to Mexico - Victor A. Zuniga, Universidad de Monterrey

Discussant

• Leah Caroline Schmalzbauer, Amherst College