Massive Exodus

If the deplorable situation of thousands of immigrant children in shelters and military bases was unfolding anywhere else other than the U.S., the well-known Inter-American Commission on Human Rights would be right on top of it with reports like the ones they give us, as well as the other ombudsmen and nongovernmental organizations that are sent to developing countries to put the spotlight on governments who violate human rights. Now that the U.S. vice president is coming to Central America, this should be the main topic discussed, as it is linked to other issues whose roots U.S. officials apparently haven’t the slightest idea of: Unlike what the U.S. government insists, it has nothing to do with parents sending their children.

As if they have their parent’s or guardian’s consent to go and risk their lives at that notorious corridor of death and exploitation, including suffering indignities going through Mexico, where human rights violations are also committed. These children are escaping the terror of violence. They are escaping organized crime, which is involved in the drug trade that supplies the demands of the U.S. market. They are leaving so as not to be recruited into their neighborhood gangs and because their lives, in such an unsafe situation, become an ordeal without opportunities and full of horrors. What did they expect these preyed-upon children to do in a war-like situation, as the Honduran president described it? The roots of this massive exodus have not been dealt with properly.

The first to go were adults who could not find work or opportunities in their native countries. Instead of dying of hunger, they elected to risk it all. Now, children are going because of a different ordeal. They are tormented by a violence that has its roots in drug trafficking to North America. This situation is sinking countries, which are being used as bridges for corruption, breeding insecurity, and the deterioration of their own institutions. The U.S. tries to fix this problem, which it is a part of, by providing aid that comes in dribs and drabs. Aside from this minimal contribution — it doesn’t even supply the radars the country needs to fight drug trafficking and blocks the possibility of upgrading airplanes — what is the response, the good-neighbor policy, to the presence of this large number of unaccompanied children? The response has been to treat the situation as an illegal immigrant problem: Holding the children in refugee camps, asking parents to stop sending their children and deporting them, which means sending them back to the same hopeless situations they escaped.

Recently, the representative of Honduras to the United Nations, taking the opportunity when the topic of discussion was the use of children during armed conflict, drew a parallel with the Security Council — these are children who are victims of a cruel and bloody war being fought by domestic authorities, who lack necessary resources and infrastructure, and which is being propagated by drug cartels and gangs. She called on the international community to take immediate action and tackle the problem at its roots. Central American presidents in their summits have complained about how little support they see from the U.S. The Honduran president went to Washington, D.C. to tell them that they do not understand the problem. If the U.S. had approved immigration reform during the first term of the current administration, when they had majority control, this massive immigration influx would not have occurred. Today, immigration reform is stuck in a political entanglement, making it improbable that anything worthwhile will come to fruition. Some will criticize the tone of this editorial. But they are just words, nothing more. Nothing compared to the ordeal that our countryman endure or the painful condition of their desperate situation. I hope that whomever they send to meet with Biden in Guatemala tells him the truth with the respect he is due, but with candor.