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In his 2010 State of the Union address, President Obama devoted only a single sentence to immigration reform. As reported by The Washington Post, this cursory treatment of the issue has led to “disillusionment” among immigration advocates. A staple of Obama’s campaign and early-term rhetoric, immigration reform has taken a back seat to health care reform and other issues, such as job creation.

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The global economic crisis and rising unemployment have caused Croatia to drastically reduce the number of work permits it will grant, according to croatiantimes.com. Only 902 new work permits will be approved for 2010, compared to 4,267 in 2009. However, it is expected that the 6,000 foreign workers already in Croatia will get their work permits renewed.

Image credit: Zscout370

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The Migration Policy Institute released a report suggesting that migration flows, particularly illegal immigration, have decreased during the global economic downturn. The recession has impacted economic migration to major immigrant-receiving regions like the U.S. and U.K. Would-be migrants stayed put, and migrants remained in their adopted countries rather than return home, despite high unemployment rates.

Other findings by the report include:

• Remittances were generally down, although certain countries, like Bangladesh, saw an increase. Although this marginally impacted countries in which remittances account for only a minimal percentage of gross domestic product (GDP), countries that rely heavily on remittances were more seriously affected (e.g., remittances account for 0.2% of Turkey’s GDP but account for one third of Moldova’s GDP).
• The recession has greatly affected migrants’ financial well-being.
• Almost half of Eastern European immigrants who came to the U.K. in the middle of 2004 had returned home by the end of 2008.
• The inflow of Mexican nationals into the United States decreased by more than two-thirds between March 2004 and March 2009.
• Rates of unemployment for foreign-born workers in Spain rose to 28.4% during the first quarter of 2009, compared to 17.4% for native workers.

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According to the New York Times, an increasing number of U.S. college graduates are seeking employment in China. The low cost of living and vibrant Chinese economy, coupled with the dwindling U.S. job market, have made metropolitan areas such as Shanghai and Beijing appealing to recent graduates eager to join the workforce.

Some U.S. graduates are able to obtain far more important positions in Chinese companies than would be possible in the U.S. Rather than starting with an internship, then progressing to an entry-level position and slowly advancing through the ranks, American graduates are able to skip a rung or two on the corporate ladder and gain invaluable business experience that would have taken considerably longer in the U.S.

The benefits, however, are not one-sided. As Chinese businesses attempt to enter U.S. markets, American graduates, with their keen understanding of Western society and culture, are perceived as uniquely qualified to act as company liaisons. Moreover, the assertiveness of U.S. graduates, at least compared to their Chinese counterparts, is highly valued by Chinese businesses seeking to drive their companies forward.

Language, interestingly, has not been much of a barrier, even for those with limited or even no knowledge of the Chinese language; many Americans working in China become conversant in Chinese in a short period of time.

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Current global migration patterns indicate that, due to rising unemployment rates and contracting economies in developed countries, fewer workers are migrating from poor to wealthier nations, and the flow of migrant workers returning to their home countries is increasing. As reported in The Wall Street Journal,  this is potentially the biggest reversal in migration flows since the Great Depression.

Statistics illustrating the reversal include:

• Emigration from Mexico to the U.S. dropped 13% in the first quarter of 2009 compared to the first quarter of 2008. In the same period, more people returned to Mexico than left Mexico for the U.S., about 139,000 and 137,000, respectively.
• In 2009, a projected 60,000 or more Indonesia citizens will return home from Malaysia, South Korea and other wealthy neighboring nations, as immigrant workers lose their jobs.
• Tens of thousands of Indians are returning from Dubai as jobs there dwindle and work permits expire.
• In the United Kingdom, the number of registered workers coming from new European Union member nations like Poland and the Czech Republic dropped 55% in the first quarter of 2009 compared to the same quarter a year earlier.

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According to a new report by the Center for Immigration Studies, immigrants to the United States have been hit harder by the recession as compared to native-born Americans, with larger increases in unemployment among both educated and uneducated workers. The report, which was based on U.S. Census statistics, found that immigrants (legal and illegal) now have significantly higher unemployment than natives, which represents a departure from the recent past, when native-born Americans typically had higher unemployment rates. Immigrant unemployment in the first quarter of 2009 was 9.7%, the highest level since 1994 (when data began to be collected for immigrants). The current unemployment rate for natives is 8.6%, also the highest since 1994.

Other key findings of the study include:

• The immigrant unemployment rate is now 5.6 percentage points higher than in the third quarter of 2007, before the recession began. Native unemployment has increased 3.8 percentage points over the same period.
• Among immigrants who arrived in 2006 or later, unemployment is 13.3%.
• The number of unemployed immigrants increased 1.3 million (130%) since the third quarter of 2007.  Among natives the increase was five million (81%).

As reported in The Los Angeles Times, Steven Camarota, the study's coauthor, commented that many of the immigrant job losses came in low-skill occupations. In construction, for instance, the immigrant jobless rate climbed to 20% in the first quarter of 2009, from 4.7% 18 months earlier.

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The Australian government is cutting the number of skilled migrant visas it will issue by 18,500, the first reduction in 10 years. According to Immigration Minister Chris Evans, there is mounting pressure to protect jobs made scarce by the global financial crisis. The Australian statistics bureau expects the unemployment rate to reach 7 percent in the year ending June 30, 2010. Evans has also indicated that the government will cut some trades from the list of needed overseas workers.

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H-1B employment visas, widely issued by high-tech companies, have been issued to hundreds of thousands of foreign professionals. As reported in The Seattle Times, the economic downturn is having a dramatic impact on H-1B visa holders, who are "out of status" as soon as losing a job, and must find another employer sponsor in order to regain status. And, with U.S. unemployment rates soaring, employers are under increased pressure to cut their foreign workforce first. This is happening even as employers prepare and submit applications to hire up to 85,000 new H-1B workers nationwide.

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A record 151,635 work permits were issued in the United Kingdom in 2008. The Telegraph further reports that: 

• Indians were the largest recipient of the permits, at 49,950, followed by 28,835 Americans and 8,090 for workers from China.
• More than one in four permits allowed the migrant to stay for up to five years although 40 per cent were for less than a year.
• Some 85 permits were for more than five years.
• Over the same time period, unemployment increased by 290,000. 

These figures emerged on the day that Britain officially entered a recession.

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