ESSAY 6
gies proven to improve apple quality. With improved produce and
better knowledge of the market, farmers can increase the income
generated by their orchards—giving them a potential alternative to
migration.
The international funding provided by CRS and Vista Hermosa helped the FDC secure matching funds from the Mexican
Ministry of Agriculture for a cold storage facility, so that apple
farmers don’t have to pay others to store their crops. “We now
have the ‘hook’ to get the resources we need,” said FDC advisor
Jesus Emiliano. “Now that we have some money for the project,
we ask [the government], ‘How much are you going to put in?’”
Another potential example of how to develop alternatives
to migration is found in a chicken coop in the village of Verapaz, about 30 miles east of El Salvador’s capital, San Salvador.
This project brings together the government of El Salvador, the
Ford Foundation, the Salvadoran immigrant community (or
diaspora) in Los Angeles, and a Salvadoran nongovernmental
organization. The poultry program is specifically intended to
generate employment and provide alternatives to unauthorized
migration.
The idea for the project came from Salvadorans living in the
diaspora in Los Angeles. Their organization, the Emergency
Committee for Aid to El Salvador, was originally focused on disaster relief. Later, its members became interested in supporting
efforts to create jobs and livelihoods in their home communities
in El Salvador’s rural areas.
The Verapaz project began in 2010 with the participation of
the local government and the Ministry of Agriculture. The project is managed by 15 local women who maintain the chicken
coop; gather, clean, and package the eggs; and sell them at a
local market. Participants said the eggs generate about $1,300
a month. They earned a small profit in 2011 but seek to expand so that the operation provides a viable job for all 15 participants. To serve as a realistic alternative to immigration, the
poultry program needs to enable each woman to earn at least
$300 a month.
This project is a small work in progress. But its partnerships
and innovative channeling of contributions from immigrants in
the United States make it a potential model for job creation.
A Role for U.S. Development Assistance
The projects in Avila Camacho and Verapaz are not the only
projects seeking to produce jobs and reduce poverty in the
migrant-sending communities of Mexico, El Salvador, and their
neighbors. Projects may be supported by local people themselves
through groups like the FDC, by U.S. nonprofit groups such as
Vista Hermosa, and/or by diaspora groups such as the Salvadoran
&
Myths
Realities
Myth: Immigrants are taking jobs away from U.S.
citizens.
Reality: It seems like a good bet that “subtracting immigrants” from the workforce would lower
America’s stubbornly high unemployment rates. After
all, then there would be job openings. But only about
2 percent of Americans work on farms. The reality is
that there have been numerous attempts to recruit
citizens to do field work—even at jobs that pay more
than minimum wage—but none of them have been
successful on a large scale.
In our abandonment of farm labor as a common occupation, Americans are not alone. Other developed
countries—and developing countries that are a bit
wealthier than their neighbors—also have agricultural
work forces dominated by immigrants. El Salvador,
while the source of many workers on U.S. farms, is itself home to about 200,000 unauthorized immigrants
who work on its own farms.
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Myth: The United States doesn’t need to worry
about immigration issues beyond just deporting the
unauthorized immigrants themselves.
Reality: Immigration enforcement is expen-
sive—for example, in 2010 it cost the Department of
Homeland Security an estimated $1 billion to detain
and deport 76,000 Central Americans.
Yet if conditions in their home communities have not
improved, people who have been deported don’t “stay
deported.” In recent surveys, for example, 43 percent
of those deported to Central America say they plan to
return to the United States within a year. The figure
is even higher among those who left family members
behind in the United States.
When workers are deported, the money they are
saving from their U.S. jobs and sending home
stops—worsening the situation in imp