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PUERTO RICO

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GENERAL DATA

Poverty rate:

44.5%

of the population lived in poverty

MIGRATION DATA

  • Emigration: There is a significant flow of internal migration from the island to the US states. It is estimated that at least 4.6 million Puerto Ricans reside stateside according to the 2010 census. It is estimated that after hurricane María 130,000 Puerto Ricans left the island and established themselves mostly in central Florida.

  • Immigration: According to the 2019 US Census Bureau, 87,133 people born off the island live in Puerto Rico. There are 68,000 Dominicans registered in the country, according to the 2010 census, however it is very possible that this represents a significant underestimation and that the number of Dominicans could reach 200,000. Likewise, we note Cuban immigrants (17,860 according to the 2010 census) as well as Haitian immigrants.

 

  • Refugees: Due to the condition of coloniality, the task of refugee registration falls to the US government.

IMPACT BY COVID-19

Hover over the country where you want to know the data.

* daily data update

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STATE MEASURES

  • The lack of public policies on migration issues in Puerto Rico, added to the context of a pandemic, has delayed migration processes. Thus, appointments before the Immigration Court have been repeatedly suspended, preventing the regularization of the migrant population.

  • There is also a delay in access to essential social services by the migrant population on the island, mainly Dominicans.

  • The irregularized Dominican migrant community does not have access to health, like other migrants such as Haitians, which makes them especially vulnerable to covid-19.

  • Irregularized migrants, mainly Dominicans, cannot access tools such as the PUA [Pandemic Unemployment Assistance], even if their sons and daughters were born in Puerto Rico.

*For more detail go to the digital archive that we created:

In mid-March 2020, nearly every country on the continent declared a health emergency. These countries closed their borders and adopted a series of exceptional measures, arguing that forced immobility as a  solution to contain the virus. Following the shutdown of borders,  more than 30 researchers from the Americas, interested in analyzing the migratory question politically, organized virtually and began to consider the particular situation of millions of migrants, women, men, children and adolescents, from the continent and/or from other latitudes, all of whom are mobile and in transit.

Original Concept: Soledad Álvarez Velasco, University of Houston

General Coordination:Soledad Álvarez Velasco, University of Houston & Ulla D. Berg, Rutgers University

Research, Systematization and Development of Contents: Soledad Álvarez Velasco, University of Houston;  Ulla D. Berg, Rutgers University; Lucía Pérez-Martínez, FLACSO-Ecuador; Mónica Salmon, New School for Social Research; Sebastián León,  Rutgers University.

Coordination polyphonic map: Iréri Ceja Cárdenas: Museo Nacional/ Universidad Federal de Rio de Janeiro

Project Advisor: Nicholas De Genova, Universidad of Houston.

Translation team Spanish - English: 

Ryan Pinchot, Soledad Álvarez Velasco, Mónica Salmón, Ulla Berg, Luin Goldring, Tanya Basok, Ingrid Carlson, Gabrielle Cabrera, Ryan Pinchot.

Translation team Spanish - Portuguese: 

Iréri Ceja, Gustavo Dias, Gislene Santos, Elisa Colares, Handerson Joseph, Caio Fernandes, María Villarreal.

Website Design and Development:  ACHU! Studio; Francisco Hurtado Caicedo, Social Observatory of Ecuador

Photography: David Gustafsson y Cynthia Briones.

Video: David Gustafsson.

Some of the researchers of this project are members of these CLACSO Working Groups

English translation and proofreading by Gabrielle Cabrera, Rutgers University.

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Thanks.

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