ABSTRACT
Throughout the more than seven decades of its existence, the Soviet government strictly regulated the movement of its citizens within the country and, with only a few exceptions, largely prohibited travel to Western countries that did not share its socialist ideology. Upon the disintegration of the USSR in 1991 massive population movements took place both within and outside of what became the former Soviet republics. This process is still ongoing. Avenues for migration include regulated channels usually available to certain ethnic and religious groups such as migration of Jews and ethnic Germans to Israel, the United States and Germany; emigration of ethnic Russians and Ukrainians from Central Asian republics; and migration of persecuted religious groups such as Old Believers1 and Pentecostal Christians to the United States. Such migration requires formal admission into the countries of destination under the auspices of an existing migration policy framework. Highly skilled migrants from the former Soviet Union who speak fluent English and can offer knowledge, and skills that are in high demand (i.e. scientists, renowned athletes, and high-tech specialists) are also welcomed by many industrialized countries such as Canada, the United States, Germany, and Australia, although the efficiency of migration mechanisms varies depending on the country’s admission policies. As this book has illustrated, however, many individuals from this region who don’t fit into the above-mentioned specialized categories migrate on a large scale both within and outside of the FSU. In most of these cases, they cannot utilize legal channels of migration because they may not possess skills or knowledge in demand in the destination countries, speak a foreign language, or have relatives overseas who can sponsor them for a visa. Nevertheless, due in large part to the economic turmoil that followed the transition from a command to a market economy in their home countries, these migrants are compelled to migrate abroad in search of better earnings. The United States, with its per capita GDP of $45,800 (United States Central Intelligence Agency 2008) and wages that are considerably higher than in developing countries, is a major destination attracting migrants from all over the world including poor post-Soviet states. Paradoxically, the US admission policy vis-à-vis labor migrants is very restrictive despite a significant demand for unskilled labor. As a result, thousands of Russian-
for migration and end up in the United States as irregular (illegal) migrants. This book tells the story of their journeys, and follows the complex interactions of all the players along the way. The core of the book is based on the case study of labor migration from Kyrgyzstan to the United States. The book embraced a holistic methodological approach and explained the entire migration process starting from the country of origin to the country of destination. In addition, this book relied on interviews with migrants from Kazakhstan, Georgia, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan to highlight the similarities and differences between the integration of various comparable groups of post-Soviet migrants into the United States labor market. This study set out to investigate how formal and informal institutions interact in the process of irregular labor migration from Kyrgyzstan to the United States. Two sets of research questions were asked:
1 How does the process of labor migration from Kyrgyzstan to the United States work and what formal and informal institutions are involved in it?
