The information in this book was compiled by the authors within the framework of the research project "Policies beyond Borders: The Dynamics of Emigrant Policies and Politics in Latin America and the Caribbean," at the GIGA German Institute of Global and Area Studies in Hamburg.
Data collection took place from GIGA's Berlin office and covered a one-year period ending in early 2015. Since then and up to the date of publication of this Spanish version, some of the policies toward migrants reported in this book have changed. Since our commitment was to publish the same book in Spanish, we have refrained from including those changes, even if they were major, in order to maintain rigor in the cross-sectional perspective of this study.
Nevertheless, we would like to point out two of the most important changes in policies toward migrants since the publication of the original English version of the book:
Law No. 20,960 regulating the right to vote abroad was passed in Chile on October 18, 2016. This law addresses the electoral registry (creating an electoral roll for Chileans abroad with an initial and then automatic single registration for elections); defines the modality of voting abroad by establishing mechanisms similar to those that operate in Chilean territory (i.e., in person at the tables authorized to receive votes in consulates of countries with a strong presence of Chilean residents); maintains general supervision of the process in the hands of the Electoral Service and gives a relevant role to the consulates of Chile abroad. Chileans were able to vote from abroad for the first time in the 2017 presidential elections in 121 cities.
Ecuador approved in January 2017 the Organic Law of Human Mobility. The purpose of the law is to regulate the exercise of rights and obligations of persons in a situation of human mobility, a concept that includes both immigrants in Ecuador and Ecuadorian emigrants residing abroad.
In Mexico, the regulation to implement the 2014 electoral reform was completed. In the 2018 elections, Mexicans abroad already voted under the conditions set by this reform, including the possibility of processing their credentials to vote from abroad and voting for the Senate and several governorships.
The translation into Spanish and printing of this study, originally published in English, have been funded by the EU-LAC Foundation