Joseph Sorrentino
The refugee
crisis isn’t over. I’m not talking about the tens of thousands pouring into
Europe over the last several months, but about the tens of thousands who are
still trying to get to the United States from Central America.
But you’d
never know it from listening to our government or our media. After the panic
over the “surge” of children at the border last summer, stories about Central
American refugees all but disappeared. Now, Customs and Border Protection (CBP)
is crowing about a nearly 50 percent drop in apprehensions of family units at
the Southwest Border over the last 12 months, compared to the previous year.
Yet,
according to staff in refugee shelters across Mexico, shelters are full and
refugees are still streaming into that country, hoping to make it to the United
States. If we’re apprehending fewer people, it is because more are being
deported by Mexico or falling prey to gangs, drug cartels or dangerous terrain
on a voyage that is becoming as treacherous as the Mediterranean crossing.
And like the
Syrians, they meet the UN criteria for a refugee: anyone fleeing their home
country because of violence and who fears persecution upon return. I spent
seven weeks in Mexico between late January and March of this year, interviewing
Central American refugees in shelters stretching from Oaxaca to Mexico City.
Although several mentioned economic concerns, almost all said it was violence
that drove them from their homes; violence mainly perpetrated by the incredibly
brutal gangs Mara 18 and Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13).
Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador have some of the highest murder rates in
the world. People told me of having to pay la renta, extortion money, to operate a
business or even to live in a particular neighborhood. If they did not pay, the
gang would kill their children. Gangs also forcibly recruit young men; if they
refuse, they or their families turn up dead.
I heard so
many such stories that it’s difficult to pick a quote that sums up the dangers,
but one sticks with me: Evelyn Noeme Durán was a 22-year-old Guatemalan
traveling alone through Mexico. She walked, sometimes took a bus and also rode
the freight train the migrants call La Bestia,
“The Beast.” On the train, a gang—she identified them as one of the “Maras”
because they were tattooed—stole all her money and even her shoes. Without
money, she would have to cross the rest of the country on foot or by clinging
to the top of La Bestia
(many migrants fall off and lose limbs). When I told her the trip was dangerous,
she looked at me with tired eyes and said patiently, “It is as dangerous on a
bus … in Guatemala as being on the train. It is only different in the mountains
here [because] there are animals.”
Why are we
ignoring this crisis? Maybe it’s easier for Americans to feel compassion for
refugees who are across an ocean and stand little chance of making it to the
United States. We don’t have to worry about them straining our public
assistance programs or fear they’ll take our low-wage jobs. We don’t have to
listen to presidential candidates calling immigrants of their ethnicity drug dealers and rapists.
When it
comes to the Syrians, we seem to recognize that refugees deserve asylum: We
demand that European countries take more refugees, and we’re even pledging to
do our part. In September, the White House announced the United States would
take in at least 10,000 Syrians over the next year, while U.S. Senator Dick
Durbin recently said that number should be 100,000. Durbin visited refugee
camps in Europe and called the refugee crisis, “the most significant
humanitarian challenge of our time.” He added, “There is great suffering and
exploitation of refugees…You have to imagine how desperate people would be to
send a 15 year old boy with his 8 year old sister alone.” Then there’s that
gut-wrenching photo of the drowned Syrian child, lying face down by the water’s
edge.
The fact is,
we have a humanitarian crisis right here. CBP may announce that fewer refugees
are reaching our border, but it’s not because fewer are trying; it’s because
more are being stopped in Mexico. A New York
Times article published last June—a rare
exception to the near-silence of the U.S. press—reported that Mexico deported
almost 93,000 Central Americans in the first seven months of fiscal year 2015;
23,000 more than the United States did. And the Migration Policy Institute
reported in September that Mexico is on target to deport 70 percent more
Central Americans this year than last, while U.S. deportations are expected to
be halved. Not only is Mexico doing our dirty work by deporting Central
Americans, we’re paying for it: According to an October 10 New York Times article,
we gave Mexico tens of millions of dollars in fiscal year 2015 to prevent these
refugees from reaching our border.
It’s
stunning that CBP is ignoring the fact that, by its own admission, the Central
Americans it wants to deport are fleeing violence that has not ceased—which
would make them legitimate refugees. CBP recently announced that “conditions
related to the economy and violence in El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala have
not improved.” Yet in the same announcement, the agency calls people “illegally
crossing the border” from these countries “a top priority for removal.”
When
refugees do make it across the border, they are locked up like criminals. Many
of the women and children in “family” detention centers were held for months,
even after establishing that they feared returning to their home countries.
Recently, under a federal judge’s order, they have been released more quickly—within three to
five weeks. But almost all of the women released are fitted with an ankle bracelet (which advocates
call “shackles”)—the same device used to track prisoners released on parole.
In Mexico, I
interviewed and photographed hundreds of refugees on their journey north: José
Luís, a frightened 11-year-old Honduran riding alone on La Bestia; men who’d lost
limbs to that train; Noel, a 16-year-old Salvadoran walking alone to the United
States. In Ixtepec, I visited a small cemetery that held the remains of 15
unknown migrants; in Chahuites, I saw discarded women’s clothing lying in a
place near the train tracks where, locals told me, refugee women were dragged
to be raped by local thugs. I’ve heard stories like those Durbin heard from
refugees in Europe. I know, as much as I know anything, that people who are so
desperate that they’ll literally risk their lives to reach the United States
won’t be stopped by Mexican immigration agents dragging them off trains and
using Tasers on them; by Mexican police forcibly removing them from buses; or
by the threat of local gangs robbing, kidnapping, maiming or killing them. And
they certainly won’t be stopped at the U.S. border by more walls, fences and
agents. As long as conditions in Central America don’t improve, refugees will
keep fleeing north. And by law, we should be taking them in. Why are we
ignoring the crisis that is happening right on our doorstep?
Joseph Sorrentino is a writer
and photographer. He has been documenting the lives of agricultural workers on
both sides of the U.S./Mexico border for 12 years.
From: In These Times.
No comments:
Post a Comment