Another Embarrassing Statistic

Published in Prensa Libre
(Guatemala) on 18 December 2013
by Editorial (link to originallink to original)
Translated from by Tristan Foy. Edited by Gillian Palmer  .
Yesterday, with the arrival of three flights that raised the number of deportees to 50,234, the number of deportees from the United States surpassed 50,000. This is one of the most shameful pieces of information, especially because it [deportation] has become an infamous practice against a group of human beings who are just trying to change the deplorable conditions in their lives, which they do not only look upon frustrated, but as something through which they can start a new journey.

Since 2007, when the deportations reached 23,062, this figure has not stopped its steady growth. With the deportations registered yesterday, they have far surpassed the initial percentages of 10 percent; they are now at 25 percent, compared with just the previous year, when 40,647 people were deported from that country, but that doubles with a comfortable lead when compared with the information from six years ago, when this started, with only Guatemalans being counted.

If we just add up the deportations of the last three years, we get the unimaginable quantity of almost 120,000 Guatemalans thrown out of the United States. This is in line with the hardening of immigration policies since Barack Obama assumed that country's presidency, as well as the rigidity of the legislation that drove the Republican Party, whose representatives had, for the most part, become reluctant to discuss immigration reform to give legal status to millions of persons without documents.

Nor should it be forgotten that, along with the hardening of immigration measures, a shameful business that survives on capturing and imprisoning undocumented aliens has grown in that country, as some American mass media have recently reported: These have shown that the privatization and supplying of prisons has become a juicy enterprise for many businesses, which have received profitable benefits from constructing prisons to rent and lock up anyone who does not have legal documents.

On both sides of the border, the migration of Guatemalans has always been a multibillion dollar business each year. The nightmare starts here, when those who wish to escape their misery get into unimaginable debt with loan sharks, who remain with the last of their belongings in exchange for a handful of quetzals, all of which gets complicated when the search for a dream turns into a horrendous nightmare when they are deported because they must face a hostile outlook in their own homeland.

In the face of such impactful drama, it is pathetic that politicians are so inapt that they appear oblivious to the drama affecting millions of people, without taking discerning actions to look for solutions that may be beneficial to both nations, especially when the origin of the problem is the healthy intent to change — however small a part of it, it may nevertheless be — the very poor conditions of life that condemn these people to levels of intolerable poverty and that call out for reform.


Otra estadística que avergüenza

Ayer ser rebasó la cifra de 50 mil deportados procedentes de Estados Unidos, con la llegada de tres vuelos que hicieron que aumentara a 50 mil 234 el número de expatriados, uno de los datos más vergonzosos, sobre todo porque esta se ha convertido en una infame práctica en contra de un conglomerado de seres humanos que simplemente intentan cambiar sus deplorables condiciones de vida, algo que no solo ven frustrado, sino que con ello inician un nuevo calvario.

Desde 2007, cuando las expatriaciones alcanzaban las 23 mil 62, la cifra no ha parado de crecer en forma sostenida y con las deportaciones que se registraron ayer se superan con creces los porcentajes que inicialmente alcanzaban un 10 por ciento, para situarse ahora en un 25 por ciento, solo comparado con el año anterior, cuando fueron deportados de aquel país 40 mil 647, pero que se duplica con suficiente ventaja cuando se confronta con el dato de hace seis años, cuando se empezó a llevar un registro solamente de guatemaltecos.

Solo si sumamos las expatriaciones de los últimos tres años se obtiene la incomprensible cantidad de casi 120 mil guatemaltecos expulsados de Estados Unidos, y esto obedece al endurecimiento de las políticas migratorias, desde que Barack Obama asumió la presidencia de ese país y también la rigidez en la legislación que impulsó el Partido Republicano, cuyos representantes se han convertido en los más reacios a discutir una reforma migratoria que legalice a millones de indocumentados.

Tampoco debe dejar de mencionarse que paralelamente al endurecimiento de las medidas migratorias ha crecido un vergonzoso negocio en aquel país que vive de las capturas y reclusión de los indocumentados, como recientemente denunciaron algunos medios de comunicación estadounidense, en los que se demostraba cómo la privatización de las cárceles y de la alimentación se habían convertido en un jugoso ingreso para muchas empresas que obtenían rentables beneficios de la construcción de cárceles para alquilar y recluir a quienes no poseían documentos legales.

A ambos lados de la frontera, la migración de guatemaltecos siempre ha sido un negocio que mueve miles de millones de dólares al año, ya que la pesadilla empieza aquí, cuando quien aspira a escapar de la miseria termina endeudándose de manera incomprensible con usureros que se quedan hasta con el último de sus bienes a cambio de un puñado de quetzales, todo lo cual se complica cuando la búsqueda de un sueño se convierte en una horrenda pesadilla cuando son deportados, porque deben encarar un panorama adverso en su propia patria.

No deja de ser patético que ante un drama de tal impacto exista tanta incapacidad de los políticos que parecen estar ajenos a un drama que afecta a millones de personas y sin que se vislumbren acciones para buscar soluciones que sean de beneficio para ambas naciones, sobre todo cuando el origen del problema es la sana intención de cambiar, aunque sea en mínima parte, las paupérrimas condiciones de vida que los condenan a niveles de pobreza intolerables y ante los cuales se clama por una reforma.
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