African immigration trending towards Latin America

The ongoing issue of immigration and the widespread backlash across Europe has seen a new trend develop amongst African migrants who are now turning to Latin Amewrican ports as the new destination of choice.

Tightening border controls and stricter legislation have seen many European countries move to restrict new arrivals from Africa. The result is that many asylum seekers have arrived unwittingly in Argentina and Brazil as cargo and freight ships once almost exclusively bound for Europe now take on new routes. Mexico is also rising fast as a desired destination given its closeness to the United States. In Argentina, asylum seekers from Africa now make up one-third of the country’s total. Less than a decade agao there were only 50 or so immigrants from Africa in Argentina – the figure is now estimated at 3,000.

Argentinian authorities have started to take notice; an African was a rarity in the past but now the streets of Buenos Aries see more and more each day. Immigration officials there expect the numbers to continue to swell, citing the post 9/11 security clampdowns across Europe as the main reason.

In Brazil, the issue is even greater - 65 percent of all Brazil’s asylum seekers are from Africa. The new arrivals are generally stowaways on ships bound from Ghana, Nigeria, Egypt or Senegal and many attempt to obtain a Brazilian visa before attempting onward land travel.

Ironically, the new spate of African arrivals mirrors the trend of European immigrants who flooded Argentina and Brazil 100 a century ago in the face of two world wars.