MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

US and Spain host to most of the 6.5 million that migrated from the Americas from 2003 to 2009

OAS Secretary General José Miguel Insulza, a research with no parallel in the region

Between 2003 and 2009, nearly 950,000 people per year emigrated from the Americas to countries of the OECD and of this total, nearly half went to the United States, and a fourth to Spain, according to the First Report on International Migration in the Americas.

The report is a joint effort by the Organization of American States (OAS), the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), and the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) with the purpose of a rigorous and current technical information on the phenomenon of international migration. The report was officially presented by the OAS in Washington.

“Legal migration levels from the Americas to OECD destination countries have generally maintained themselves in the midst of the most severe economic crisis of the post-war years with the exception of migration levels to Spain and the United States” points out the report.

Recent developments in remittance flows, the labour market situation of emigrants from countries in the Americas in recent years, and asylum seekers in the Americas are some of the other subjects contained in the report.

OAS Secretary General José Miguel Insulza asserted that “this first research effort has no parallel in the region and responds to the growing demand for information and analysis on migration in countries of the Americas”.

He added that “contemporary international migration is tied in a unique way to the processes of social and economic integration that characterize globalization” and is “one of the priority areas on the agendas of many countries’ governments.”

The Chair of the OAS Permanent Council and Permanent Representative of Guatemala to the OAS, Ambassador Jorge Skinner-Klee pointed out that in 2009 at least 70% of the population migrating to Latin America originated in the Americas, “generally between neighbouring countries, which indicates that currently all of the countries in the region are countries of origin as well as transit countries and destination countries”.