Journal Article
Migration Narratives in Northern Central America
Aug 25, 2023
The Link Between Migration Narratives, Policy, and Power
Published in: Migration Policy Institute website (October 2021)
Posted on RAND.org on October 22, 2021
International migration has more than tripled worldwide since 1960, with some of the most dramatic increases seen in places least accustomed to large-scale movements across borders. Colombia went from having fewer than 40,000 Venezuelan refugees and migrants in 2015 to more than 1.7 million five years later; in Lebanon, the number of refugees now exceeds 25 percent of its population; and one in five Swedes is now foreign born. This rapid social and demographic change in many countries around the world has triggered a new reckoning around what immigration means for societies, giving rise to a plethora of narratives or stories about how the movement of people across international boundaries reinforces-or undermines-national values, security, and prosperity.
This report is part of the RAND Corporation External publication series. Many RAND studies are published in peer-reviewed scholarly journals, as chapters in commercial books, or as documents published by other organizations.
The RAND Corporation is a nonprofit institution that helps improve policy and decisionmaking through research and analysis. RAND's publications do not necessarily reflect the opinions of its research clients and sponsors.