With more than 180 million migrants worldwide, roughly 2.3 percent of the global population, migration is a global phenomenon, characterized by cross-border movements that are strikingly varied. This book discusses the current state of migration as a question of governance rather than crisis, examining contemporary migration movements within the legal, political, and economic structures that shape who may move, and why. The book focuses on Latin America, a region shaped by long histories of mobility, and the immigration policy frameworks of the United States, the European Union, and Latin America and the Caribbeans, tracing how different institutional architectures face similar migratory pressures but obtain markedly different outcomes. Ultimately, the book argues that migration functions as a governance barometer, by introducing the concept of policy elasticity, and exploring the limitations of existing “one-size-fits-all” approaches.
