Crises in many Latin American countries add up to a historic immigration crisis in the U.S.

“There’s a place where I was told

Every street is paved with gold

And it’s just over the border. “

– “Across the Borderline”, Ry Cooder, 1987

The desperate people you see on your TV screen trying to reach the United States have traveled over 2,100 miles to get here. They come from Central America in countries like El Salvador, Nicaragua, Honduras and Guatemala. If you factor in Haiti, Cuba and Venezuela further south, the immigration crisis is even worse here in our western hemisphere.

Julia Preston of the New York Times, who received the 1998 Pulitzer Prize for her writing on drugs and political corruption in Mexico, said in the National Geographic TV documentary Blood on the Wall that the refugees are people “who are deadly criminals.” Flee violence ”. Ludy, a 17-year-old girl from Honduras, simply said in the documentary that she “wants to have a future that leaves suffering behind”. A young boy from Honduras said they travel in caravans because “if we stick together, we can defend ourselves against the drug cartels and other criminals.”

The July 7 assassination of Haitian President Jovenel Moïse caused even more “chaos in a country already suffering gang violence and protests against its increasingly authoritarian rule,” CNBC reported on the same day. Haiti’s interim Prime Minister Claude Joseph has called for American military intervention to stabilize the country. CBS News reported that Moïse was tortured before he was murdered.

In Cuba, according to CBS News, the democracy movement has now spread to around 30 cities. In remarks to reporters, President Joe Biden cheered the demonstrators: “The Cuban people demand freedom from authoritarian rule. I don’t think we’ve seen anything like this protest in a long, long time if, frankly, ever. “

In Venezuela, millions are fleeing the economic collapse and the autocratic rule of President Nicolás Maduro, who has succeeded the previous strong man Hugo Chavez. Chavez died in 2013 after entrenching himself in power. According to The Washington Examiner on March 18, “the displacement of more than 5 million Venezuelans since President Nicolás Maduro came to power … is one of the greatest crises in the world.”

Inside the country, Human Rights Watch’s The World Report 2021 said about Venezuela: “In September, a fact-finding mission appointed by the United Nations Human Rights Council found that the government of Nicolás Maduro and its security forces were responsible for extrajudicial and short-term executions enforced disappearances and imprisoned opponents, prosecuted civilians in military courts, tortured detainees and cracked down on demonstrators. “

In 1979 Daniel Ortega and his Sandinistas, named after the Nicaraguan folk hero Augusto César Sandino, were welcomed in Nicaragua as liberators when they overthrew the predatory rule of the Somoza dynasty.

In July 2018, the BBC published a portrait of Ortega: “Almost four decades later, he is serving his third consecutive term as president while fighting new battles.” Human Rights Watch America director José Miguel Vivanca warned Al- Jazeera on June 23 that “a new and far greater migration crisis from Nicaragua could destabilize Central America, which is already suffering from undocumented mass migration and violence from organized crime. ”

In the 1980s, El Salvador suffered from one of the most devastating civil wars in Latin American history. Human rights groups estimate that around 75,000 people died in the civil war between 1980 and 1992.

Human Rights Watch said Nayib Bukele, the current president of El Salvador, has “undermined basic democratic controls and balances.” In February 2020 “he entered the [Salvadoran] Legislative assembly with armed soldiers in an overt attempt to intimidate lawmakers into approving a loan for security forces. “

The Human Rights Watch report continued, “Historically [government] Security forces have committed extrajudicial executions, sexual assault, enforced disappearances and torture. They remain largely ineffective to protect the population from gang violence ”, especially the deadly Mara Salvatrucha or MS-13.

Mara Salvatrucha started out among Salvadoran civil war refugees in Los Angeles. When gang members were deported to El Salvador, they took MS-13 with them. According to a January 2019 report by CBS News, “the gang’s violent grip in Central America is one of the forces driving thousands of migrants to flee to the US – where the gang ironically began”.

In a modern children’s crusade, Latino mothers and fathers have sent their children north to reunite with relatives already living in the United States. The Biden government is working hard to speed up these reunions. However, the Washington Post reported on June 9, “More than 16,200 children remain in health and social care custody, the agency reported yesterday – a number that is still 50% higher than in March. And some children have no sponsors at all. “

Vice President Kamala Harris, Biden’s special envoy for immigration, toured Central America in April. According to CNN, she pledged another $ 310 million for Central America. Harris said in a tweet, “I’m confident that over time we can build a foundation of hope for a better future.”

The Department of Homeland Security announced on May 28, according to the US News & World Report, that “certain families arrested while crossing the border between ports of entry will be placed on so-called“ dedicated routing slips ”in immigration courts in 10 cities selected for them “Legal resources and the ability to handle the cases are set.”

Unusually high temperatures along the border make the American authorities fear the worst. On June 3, Don White, a deputy sheriff in Brooks County, Texas, told the Washington Post, “It’s going to be a brutal summer. I’ve never seen so many people come before. It’s just crazy now. ”This year alone, the county police recovered 34 bodies and human remains.

“The river continues to flow like a breath,

Between our life and death

Tell me who will cross the line next. “

John F. Murphy is a historian and author. He wrote this column for the Dallas Morning News.

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