Debunking 8 Myths About Why Central American Children Are Migrating

[Judi Lynn]

July 8, 2014

Debunking 8 Myths About Why Central American Children Are Migrating

‘Lax enforcement’ is not the culprit—U.S. trade and immigration policies are.

BY David Bacon

The mass migration of children from Central America has been at the center of a political firestorm over the past few weeks. The mainstream media has run dozens of stories blaming families, especially mothers, for sending or bringing their children north. The president himself has lectured them, as though they were simply bad parents. “Do not send your children to the borders,” he said in a June 27 interview with George Stephanopoulos. “If they do make it, they'll get sent back. More importantly, they may not make it.”

Meanwhile, the story is being manipulated by the Tea Party and conservative Republicans to attack Obama's executive action deferring the deportation of young people, along with any possibility that he might expand it—the demand of many immigrant rights advocates. More broadly, the far Right wants to shut down any immigration reform that includes legalization, and instead is gunning for harsher enforcement measures. Even Marine Corps Gen. John Kelly, commander of U.S. Southern Command, has sought to frame migration as a national security threat, calling it a “crime-terror convergence,” and describing it as “an incredibly efficient network along which anything hundreds of tons of drugs, people, terrorists, potentially weapons of mass destruction or children—can travel, so long as they can pay the fare.”

All of this ignores the real reasons families take the desperate measure of leaving home and trying to cross the border. Media coverage focuses on gang violence in Central America, as though it was spontaneous and unrelated to a history of U.S.-promoted wars and a policy of mass deportations.

In truth, the United States’ meddling foreign policy and a history of the U.S.’s own harsh immigration measures are responsible for much of the pressure causing this flow of people from Central America. These eight facts, ignored by the mainstream press and the president, document that culpability and point out the need for change:

More:
http://inthesetimes.com/article/16919/8_reasons_u.s._trade_and_immigration_policies_have_caused_migration_from_ce

[newfie11]

1. K&R!!!!!!

[NYC_SKP]

2. K/R. (nt)

[RobertEarl]

3. So the problem is human trafficing through Mexico?

Why hasn't Mexico done something about this? Mexican government is disrespecting its neighbors allowing this to happen. Yes, it is Mexico's fault, is what I am saying.

How could they not know all these children are being transported through Mexico?

[Al Carroll]

4. You obviously didn't read it

Almost everything in the article was about economic problems, and how being hardline on immigration makes it worse. Not a word in it about trafficking, and Mexico was barely mentioned.

[RobertEarl]

5. Excuse me?

The kids are being transported from one end of Mexico to the other, right?

[Judi Lynn]

7. You're right! There's also the barbaric brutality of the US-supported right-wing regimes

which have been sought since the 1950's, when the US actually overthrew a beloved, effective reformer President, Jacobo Arbenz in Guatemala, because he dared to think of the well-being of his people first, before the profit of the US corporation, United Fruit, which became the Chiquita corporation many years later. Well over 200,000 souls were deliberately stolen in the blood feast starting in 1954, throughout the Ronald Reagan accelerated genocide in Guatemala at the hands of his heavily financed (through US tax dollars) monster dictator, Efrain Rios-Montt.

The same story happened in all the other Central American countries, as well. US citizens were kept wildly misinformed while it was all going on, of course! And we used to think our corporate "news" media was there to keep us aware of actual events going on in our world.

Welcome to D.U., Al Carroll. Great to see your comments.

[Judi Lynn]

6. How could an impoverished nation like Mexico finance stopping every person in cars

or walking on the street from the Pacific to the Gulf of Mexico and get his/her I.D., demand to know where he/she is going, or transport him/her outside the country? Where are they supposed to get the money to finance an overwhelmingly vast police force, and do it for their neighbor to the North so right-wing assholes won't get mad?

The job would be impossible.

How can any Mexican cop spot a child from the very same region as being from outside Mexico, and not from inside it? It would require a total police state beyond anything the world has ever seen, and por nada. Raising that much money to appease the US wouldn't even touch about their own screaming, shocking poverty their own vast poor population has to struggle with every day of their lives until they are lucky enough to die juet to get some peace of mind.

Another poster mentioned the article doesn't lead the reader to speculation like that. The article challenges readers to try to spend some of their time finding out more about what has been going on in the Americas, and how the United States fits into the larger picture. A lot of people clearly have never stirred themselves to find out.

[RobertEarl]

8. Eh?

How many kids? 70,000? From one border to another over what, 1,000+ miles? Mexico is not that frigging' poor. Mexico is enabling the human traffickers. Probably bribes and what not. Coyotes.

Question: if the kids wanted to stay in Mexico, would Mexico let them?

[nilesobek]

9. All they want

is some safety, some sanctuary, some prosperity. You are right Judi that this is cause and effect taking place. The brutal regimes the US has propped up and manipulated have led to unlivable conditions for these children.

Such an dangerous journey only to be greeted with scorn and hate, only to be chained with zip ties and marched off to cages in front of the video cameras. Shameful.

[RobertEarl]

10. to be clear

My position is that the mechanics of this migration needs to be understood.

Clearly these children are being mistreated, here, and back at home. They have come here in desperation seeking a better life and what better place than the US is there?

I welcome them and support all efforts to assimilate them into the US.

Of course it would be much better for them if they could stay home and have a life. And yes, corporate america has a hand in why they felt they must leave their homes. That has been known for years and years.

Maybe this situation will cause some serious changes? Something has to give. Either we make it so they can have lives there or we make so they can live here. The moral choice is clear.