It is impossible to separate the refugee advocacy of the 1980s from the larger protests against state policies and human rights abuses in Central America. Mass migrations generally attract the involvement of NGOs, which in turn encourage a shift in international policy.5 Those who became involved in the sanctuary movement, or who filed lawsuits on behalf of the refugees in camps and detention centers, or who lobbied their legislators for immigration reform did so in part because of their opposition to state policies that created a disposable population. Refugee advocates in the United States, for example, argued that the United States had a moral obligation to help the displaced because of the country's long history of economic exploitation of the region and the role it played at the time in supporting corrupt military regimes and death squads. For some advocates, it was their opposition to militarization that brought them to refugee work; for others, it was contact with the refugees themselves in churches, clinics, and legal aid offices that heightened their awareness of foreign policy. However the advocates came to know about Central America or its refugees, the two political initiatives became symbiotically entwined. When Americans lobbied or testified in favor of immigration reform, they always condemned the policies that had created the refugee crisis in the first place.
The advocacy networks used a variety of tactics learned from other social movements around the world, among them the labor, student, and environmental movements of the 1960s, as well as the US civil rights movement and Vietnam War protests. Refugee advocates organized petitions, rallies, and demonstrations. They organized conferences, published books, articles, and editorials, and produced films and documentaries.They organized letter-writing campaigns and fact-finding trips for scholars, legislators, and journalists. They set up halfway houses and sanctuaries for the refugees. They financially supported communities in Central America through the sale of cooperative-produced clothing and crafts. And they transported food and medical supplies in highly publicized “peace caravans.” All these activities served to heighten awareness of the wars and its refugees.
At the same time, those who worked in Central America promoting economic development and political rights helped local communities to experiment with democratic institution building and political empowerment. By addressing the issue of human rights, activists also addressed a wide range of interrelated issues including poverty, agrarian reform, environmentalism, population growth, the rights of women and indigenous societies, and what in the post-Cold War era has become known as globalization.
The refugees played a role in their own advocacy. By relating their personal experiences in interviews, at legislative hearings, and at church and civic halls, they gave a human face to statistics. The refugees exerted a transnational influence on their countries of origin—not only through the testimonios that helped to change state policies, but also through the economic remittances they sent to family and friends. These remittances, in particular, became so important to the developing economies of Central America that at least one head of state is known to have pressured the Reagan administration to ease up on the deportation of co-nationals.6 And once repatriation or travel to their homelands became possible, these migrants exerted a significant influence on the political and economic life of the communities they helped to rebuild. Their migration reflected—and contributed to—the devastation in their countries, but the influence they exerted in exile and repatriation was equally powerful.
A COMPARATIVE FOCUS
Central American migration provides the case study through which to examine the role foreign policy interests play in shaping immigration policy. Over the past two decades, a number of studies (among them Loescher and Scanlan 1986; Mitchell 1992; Pedraza 1985; and Teitelbaum 1985) have examined how US foreign policy has shaped population movements, especially in the Americas, where US interests and influence are most evident. The United States has also been the focus of much of the recent literature on globalization, transnationalism, and remittances. This study draws on and contributes to that literature by adding a cross-national focus, examining the impact that state policies have, not only on the character and flow of migration, but also on neighboring countries and the region as a whole. The United States cannot be totally decentered in this discussion, given the economic and political impact its policies have had on Central America. However, the study places the United States within a North American context to examine not only the impact US policies had on the region but also the influences that neighboring countries exerted on the United States. Thus, Mexico and Canada, two countries that played an important role in the regional response to the refugee crisis and ultimately in moderating US policies, receive comparable attention. Likewise, the study also examines the impact that sending countries had on the North American policies. El Salvador, Guatemala, and Nicaragua maintained an interest in their emigrants for both economic and political reasons: emigrant labor abroad provided much needed income in the form of remittances; and dissidents exerted enormous political influence through their lobbying and fundraising in host societies. Thus, pressure from Central American governments also shaped the ways Mexico, the United States, and Canada responded to this migration and the ways they accommodated the refugees.
This study also contributes to the growing literature on Central American immigrants to North America. During the first decade of the migration, a number of reports and monographs were published examining the root causes, character, and distribution of Central Americans. Aguayo 1985;Aguayo and Fagen 1988; Fagen 1984, Fagen and Aguayo 1986; Ferris 1987; Manz 1988 (Refugees of a Hidden War); Montes 1987; Montes and García Vásquez 1988; and Peterson 1986 were among the studies that chronicled the early years of Central American migration and the migrants' reception in different host societies. These studies complemented others by Bonner (1984), Coatsworth (1994), LaFeber (1993), and LeoGrande (1998) that provided regional histories explaining the civil wars. After the peace accords were signed and repatriation programs begun, the scholarship on Central American immigrants changed, focusing primarily on the social and legal incorporation of Salvadoran and Guatemalan immigrants in their host societies, particularly in specific cities in the United States, as well as the immigrants' transnational ties to their homelands. Several important studies, among them those of Burns (1993), Coutin (2000), Hagan (1994), Hamilton and Chinchilla (2001), Loucky and Moors (2000), Menjívar (2000), O'Dogherty Madrazo (1989), and Repak (1995), focused attention on these new Central American populations and contributed to the social science literature on “Latino” groups in the United States. My study owes a great deal to these important works. However, rather than focus on one group in one particular setting, it seeks to examine Central American migration in three different national settings in order to draw certain conclusions about this migration, in this case about the context of reception and the ways domestic and foreign policy interests shape how immigrants are received and perceived.
Finally, the study contributes to the growing body of work on nongovernmental actors and their role in shaping domestic and foreign policies. During the 1980s, a number of books were published on the culture of protest in the United States, especially the sanctuary movement. Studies by Coutin (1993), Crittenden (1988), Cunningham (1995), Davidson (1988), Golden and McConnell (1986), MacEoin (1985), and Tomsho (1987) examined the religious and civic motivations for American protests against the wars in Central America. My study draws on these and other more recent theoretical works by Boli and Thomas (1999), Fisher (1998), Keck and Sikkink (1998), and Risse et al. (1998), which discuss the changing role of NGOs within a global context. This study also contributes to this literature by examining the role of immigrant advocacy networks that operate within and across national borders.
One could argue that comparative studies are inherently prescriptive,