Where Will the Children Play?

Crowded together in locked cages, without access to bathrooms, with no food and very little water — children and adolescents from Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador look out at the cameras. They project signs of exhaustion, having traveled thousands of kilometers while facing hunger, weariness, fear and aggression. Thanks to a courageous Henry Cuéllar, who decided to fully expose the magnitude of the problem, we now know how the U.S. government treats the immigrant children. President Obama declared a humanitarian crisis and asked Congress for $1.3 billion to deal with the situation. However, Vice President Joe Biden clarified that the funds would go to efforts to strengthen the border, conduct deportations, and toughen policies that ensure that undocumented parents do not enter the U.S. with their children. At the same time, with its typical arrogance, the U.S. has called for an urgent meeting with the Central American and Mexican governments so that they will assume their responsibility and stop allowing so many of their poor people to leave home in search of the American dream. The doors have been closed on that pipe dream — there are no more openings.

The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights has denounced at least 100 cases of sexual and physical abuse against these children by U.S. border agents. And, although U.S. politicians try to ignore their role in creating the humanitarian immigration crisis, we [the Latin Americans] do remember. The 2009 coup in Honduras, orchestrated by Washington to oust an elected, leftist government, and the militarization and funding of the “war on drugs” created the worst social crisis in our recent history. U.S. businesses went into Honduras to make money. Trafficking in persons increased. A notable decrease in gross domestic product followed. Violence increased under the new right-wing, neoliberal, racist and censorial government in Honduras, which responds to Washington’s interests. Americans think we don’t remember the role that U.S. interventionism has played in the development of the humanitarian crises. They can’t deny their shared responsibility. Starting with the Monroe Doctrine, still evident in Kennedy’s policies and the fight against socialism, and continuing during the perverse drug wars Reagan and Bush carried out in our region, Americans have fomented coups d’état, favored right-wing governments that increase the gap between the rich and the poor, promoted the use of military solutions to problems (such as drug trafficking) — all of which have directly contributed to the lack of access to decent jobs and social justice.

The U.S. government promotes repressive policies, invests in strengthening a culture of criminality among the poor, and gives traction to the crisis of corruption in the judicial branch. Our governments and societies definitely share responsibility for many things — but without question, Uncle Sam’s heavy hand, which rocked the cradle beginning in 2009, causes 13,000 Honduran children to immigrate every year (70,000 in the entire region). The weakness of the illegitimate government in Honduras led to a doubling of the number of migrants fleeing misery in what has become the most violent country in the world. Obama ignores the effects on the Honduran people of weak faith in democratic institutions.

Activists and immigration specialists have verified through photographs that Latin American children are being treated like prisoners of war. This neoliberal war — which is about land, water, gas and oil, political control as well as indigenous peoples, the poor, members of resistance movements, and those who dream of living in a democracy — is a threat in the eyes of the U.S. The only solution is greater cooperation in support of development processes and reduced criminalization. In the meantime, the U.S. government keeps 100,000 children locked up on military bases.