Many who follow
U.S politics are aware of President’s Trump’s desire to establish a
wall on the southern border. The U.S government views this as one of
the best ways to discourage illegal migrants from entering U.S territory. Why
are Central Americans making the trek through challenging terrain to reach the
United States? Does the ground situation in these Central American countries
have anything to do with this migration?
In this piece,
we will look into 3 Central American states, referred to by some scholars as
the Northern
Triangle of Central America (NTCA). Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala
which fall into this category have, in recent years, seen waves of migration to
the United States. What motivated these people to abandon their traditional
lands and possessions and journey
to the United States?
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| Source: Author. |
Recent reports
suggest that the number of people from the NTCA who have sought refuge in
surrounding countries have increased by 2249 percent from 2011 to 2016. Such
levels of migration prompted the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees
to refer
to this situation as a “humanitarian crisis.”
In the past, Latin
Americans migrated to the U.S for economic reasons. The
Bracero Program for example, allowed Mexican laborers to move to
southwestern U.S. farms as guest workers earning a temporary immigration status
when the United States faced a labor shortage. In the 1970s and 80s however, around
2 million Central Americans were displaced due to internal armed
conflicts. Some contend that poor economic
conditions in these post-war Central American countries is to blame for the
present day migration levels. Stephanie Leutert, the director of the Mexico
Security Initiative at the University of Texas-Austin believes
that the recent collapse of the coffee market intensified economic difficulties
for coffee growers in Central America, prompting many to abandon their
cultivations and head north for better opportunities. Others maintain
that the Great Recession (2008/2009) gravely impacted NTCA countries pushing
many to leave their homes and journey to the United States.
So is it correct
to categorize these people as ‘economic migrants’? Or are there more factors at play
motivating this exodus to USA and other regional countries? A survey (of patients
and people receiving treatment in MSF-supported clinics from NTCA countries) by
the Doctors Without Borders / Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) revealed
that 39.2% claimed direct attacks or threats to themselves or their families,
extortion or gang-forced recruitment as the main reasons for fleeing their
county. The
survey
further argued that:
“Along
the migration route from the NTCA, migrants and refugees are preyed upon by
criminal organizations, sometimes with the tacit approval or complicity of
national authorities, and subjected to violence and other abuses —abduction,
theft, extortion, torture, and rape— that can leave them injured and
traumatized”
Despite the
dangers along the way, many still believe that the benefits far outweigh the
risks. The International Crisis Group (ICG) notes
that nearly 20,000 were killed from 2014 to 2017 in El Salvador. According to
the ICG, this figure is higher than that of Libya, Somalia and Ukraine when
these states were facing violent conflicts.
Let us examine
the case of El Salvador to better understand why such violence originated in
the NTCA.
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| Source: https://www.refworld.org/pdfid/5c07a4f94.pdf |
The Mara
Salvatrucha (MS 13) is a powerful criminal gang said
to have been formed in Los Angeles by men who had fled the 1980-1992 Salvadoran
civil war. The civil war in El Salvador at the time, pitted a Marxist-Leninist
guerrilla group, termed
the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front against the government of
El Salvador. The US Reagan administration, during the height of the war was
believed to have provided 1.5
million dollars a day to prop up the Salvadoran Government against leftist
forces. Once the civil war ended, many who had fled El Salvador and joined the
MS 13 criminal gang in Los Angeles, were deported back to their home country.
The Salvadoran government however, was unable to bear this influx. Economic
stagnation and unemployment prompted adolescent Salvadorans to join the MS 13
in El Salvador.[1] A corrupt law enforcement setup, expedited the rise of rival criminal groups in the country.
Christy
Thornton, a sociologist at the Johns Hopkins University argues
that “the destabilisation in the 1980s – which was very much part of the US Cold
War effort – was incredibly important in creating the kind of political and
economic conditions that exist in those countries today.” CFR backs up
this claim, reporting
that individuals from NTCA countries
often “cite violence, forced gang recruitment, and extortion, as well as
poverty and lack of opportunity, as their reasons for leaving.”
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| Source: https://www.pri.org/stories/2016-06-27/map-here-are-countries-worlds-highest-murder-rates |
The Migration
Policy Institute shows that by 2015, as many as 3.4 million people born in
El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras were living in the United States.[2] This
is more than double the
number which resided in USA in 2000. Over the years, U.S President's have taken numerous steps to stem the flow of people. President Bush initiated “Operation
Streamline” in 2005 to deter migrants from arriving at the US border.
The American Civil Liberties Union states that through
this project, “in addition to being processed for deportation, apprehended
migrants are referred by the Department of Homeland Security to the Department
of Justice for federal prosecution, and are typically detained for 1 to 14 days
before appearing in court.”
President Barack
Obama focused on supporting Central American governments by increasing assistance to
help the region’s law enforcement, counter-narcotics, and justice systems. President
Trump however, believes that adopting a harsher stance is necessary and slashed aid
to El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras in March 2019.
Despite the ongoing criminal activity and economic hardships afflicting these
communities, the response from the international community
has been rather muted. In this backdrop, the UNHRC
ascertains
that a “significant percentage of those fleeing from the NTCA countries may be
in need of international protection, in line with the 1951 Convention relating
to the Status of Refugees, as well as the 1984 Cartagena Declaration on
Refugees.”
Mr. Shakthi De Silva serves as a Visiting Lecturer in the Bandaranaike Diplomatic Training Institute. He has published widely including in South Asian Survey, the Global–E journal of the University of California, and the London School of Economics South Asia Blog.
The opinions expressed in this article are the author’s own and not the institutional views of the BIDTI, nor do they necessarily reflect the position of any other institution or individual with which the author is affiliated.
The opinions expressed in this article are the author’s own and not the institutional views of the BIDTI, nor do they necessarily reflect the position of any other institution or individual with which the author is affiliated.
[2]
As per WorldMeters 2015 data, the total population of Guatemala
exceeded 16 million, the population of El
Salvador reached 6 million while the population of Honduras
was slightly lower than 9 million.
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