Of Caravans, an Exodus, Plans and Walls

The migration situation in Central America, above all in the countries of its Northern Triangle, appears to have no end in sight. Every day it becomes more complex with respect to the causes, the transborder measures and national and geopolitical plans for the region.

Since October 2018, we have witnessed a new mode of migration: that of a collective formed by the so-called caravan of migrants (which a number of human rights organizations prefer to call a migrant exodus), especially of women, young men (although there have been some adult males), children and adolescents. The majority of them are Hondurans, although groups of Salvadorans and Guatemalans have subsequently joined them. Thanks to different media and other entities accompanying the exodus, it has been proven that people made the decision to join the caravan after learning about an open invitation to migrate to the United States on the radio and through social media.

Violent conditions, shortage of jobs, the loss of harvests and the lack of any prospects for the future continue to trigger the migration. Regrettably, some people have died in the attempt, others have been deported or decided to return, and the majority that have reached the Mexico-United States border in Tijuana have taken residence in the shelters set aside for them while they await their turns to submit applications for asylum or family reunification. Their situation for the moment is precarious, and some have begun to try to earn money through temporary work in the area. Others have decided to break through the wall and enter the United States without waiting for that country’s government to resolve their claims. And while the issues of the first migration have not yet been resolved, a new caravan formed during the second week of January.

Apparently, in an attempt to contain the migration, new government decisions are making organized and documented entry based on law possible, respecting the Central American Border Control Agreement that allows free movement between the four Central American countries, while Mexico prepares to receive them with document alternatives such as humanitarian visas and permits for work, refuge and temporary residence. The root causes of the migration, aggravated by Honduras’s failure to solve its political situation, an institutional breakdown in Guatemala and the fact that upcoming elections in El Salvador do not seem to matter, persist in the three countries from which the immigrants are coming. And a new migration is forming.

There is, therefore, a deepening migration crisis. While that is happening in Central America, the United States is also in a political entanglement given the foolishness of President Donald Trump in fulfilling his campaign promise to build a highly fortified and monitored wall that is supposed to guarantee national security, despite the discovery of a new narcotics tunnel. In response, the Democratic opposition, with its majority in the House, refuses to give in to Trump’s whim, which has caused the president to shut down the federal government for more than 20 days* and leave more than 800,000 government employees without pay.

From that point forward, a flood of media coverage has occupied the center of public debate. Before the recently elected Mexican president was sworn in, there were a number of different efforts aimed at persuading Mexico to keep restraining this migrant population in Mexico. There were offers of new funding and jobs in the border areas, a kind of buffer zone for migration, which would promote its development. Once the government of Andrés Manuel López Obrador was installed, Mexico’s effort to persuade the United States to help stop Central American migration was labeled a kind of Marshall Plan that would involve a high level of financing to create development projects in Mexico. That is, a plan in Mexico for the people from Central America. This, in the face of the vacuum created by the almost complete absence of the governments from the Northern Triangle, which have been immersed in defending themselves and their allies rather than in serious efforts to change the structural causes that generate the forced migration and these new collective migrations.

None of the plans for, or routes to, better living conditions for the population of the Central American countries will bear fruit while weak democracies persist, maintained by perverse connections between political and economic power that keep those nations in captivity. As long as that situation continues, no wall will be capable of limiting the human right to migrate and to live a life of dignity. Migration, then, exists at the crossroads of a deepening crisis and the exit from it toward governability and sustainable development for the region.

*Editor’s note: At the time of publication, the government shutdown was entering its second month.