Let’s dive head first into the most contested domestic issue facing the United States currently: thousands of illegal minors entering the country through its southern border. Yeah, buckle up folks.
As the American debate rages many have concluded that unprecedented violence in the region is motivating thousands of Central Americans to enter America’s golden door illegally. Although ravaged by war for decades, violence alone is not causing people to risk their lives to ride “The Beast” or put their fates in the hands of coyotes.
In the three source countries of the current ‘border crisis’ in the United States - Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador - the majority of people make the northern journey for various reasons, all stemming from the intense poverty strangling the region’s development.
So let’s break it down country by country:
Guatemala:
Guatemala knows serious violence. More than 200,000 Guatemalans were killed in the country’s decades long civil war, including the genocide of its Mayan population. Post-conflict Guatemala hasn’t been much better. In 2013 Guatemala was averaging over 100 murders - every week. Crimes specifically targeting women were up 70% in 2013 according to the US Department of State Bureau of Diplomatic Security. This in part explains why so many of the Central Americans crossing into the United States are women and children; they have faced increasing risks in their home countries. Intense poverty is partly to blame for pushing young men to join drug gangs and women to take their children and flee to the north. In fact, the number of Guatemalans living in poverty, up more than 20% since 1989, has derailed any hope of the country achieving many of its MDG targets.
Honduras:
Behind Haiti and Nicaragua, Honduras is the third poorest country in Latin America and the Caribbean. The country’s 2004 GDP per capita of just $952 was nearly ¼ of the $3935 GDP for the Latin American region as a whole. Half of the country’s population lives in extreme poverty; 2.6 million do not have access to water, 30% of the population does not have access to sanitation and the World Bank recently ranked the country’s education system as the worst in the region. Not to mention, Honduras has the morbid honor of being home to the world’s most dangerous city: San Pedro Sula. With a homicide rate of 188 murders per 100,000 people, residents of San Pedro have a greater likelihood of being murdered than people in Baghdad or Mogadishu.
Oh, and the United Nations believes Honduras will meet none of its MDG targets.
El Salvador:
Like Guatemala, El Salvador was decimated by a bloody civil war that ended in 1992, after the deaths of almost 100,000 of its citizens. The conflict plunged the country into economic decline and the El Salvador has experienced negative economic growth ever since. As of 2013, 40% of the population lives in poverty. El Salvador has had relative success in reducing poverty in specific areas: the percentage of the population living in rural poverty fell from 28% to 13% between 1991 and 2012.
What’s poverty got to do with it?
More so than violence, a lack of political and economic rights has enflamed the situation in Central America, stalling or preventing real development from taking place. The prevalence of poverty typically results from a deprivation of one or both of these freedoms, resulting in violence and lawlessness. According to the United Nations, Central America is actually worse off than it was before the implementation of the Millennium Development Goals.
Mexico is the prime example of this phenomenon. Just a few years ago many Americans were predicting our southern neighbor was going to descend into chaos. Millions of Mexicans were illegally crossing into the United States. Many analysts were hypothesizing what America would look like if it bordered a failed state. More than 100,000 Mexicans lost their lives in the subsequent violence, yet the number of Mexicans illegally crossing the American border actually decreased. Mexico was still violent but it wasn’t driving people to leave, as the graph below indicates.
So what is making people stay or go?
During this time the number of Mexicans living on less than $1.25 was halved. Currently less than 4% of the population lives in extreme poverty. In 2011, Mexico’s GDP increased by nearly 8%, surpassing even America’s growth rate. 85% of Mexico’s MDG goals will be met by 2015.
And all of this growth was achieved in the midst of a violent drug war – go Mexico.
Mexico’s simultaneous crackdown on drug cartels was coupled by an increased emphasis on development, forcing cartels to shift their operations southward. Luckily, the triad of countries to the south was easily exploitable and underdeveloped: a perfect staging area to recruit poor and vulnerable youths for their drug rings.
Poverty is often a result of injustice and injustice is often exacerbated by poverty. Most studies indicate a lack of opportunity and underdevelopment force many, particularly youths, to turn toward gangs, drugs, and violence for a sense of inclusion and for a lucrative enterprise. We need to remember that in order to end poverty by 2030.
Thousands of Central Americans are fleeing in mass from Central America - many of them women and children - in order to escape violence, but also to escape crippling and worsening poverty. Any American solution to the crisis needs to address these inequities. There is hope - as we’ve seen from Mexico. Our southern neighbor is far from a perfect place but development has seriously increased the quality of life of millions of Mexicans and has curbed drug violence and illegal immigration.
And that’s what Central America needs to stop the immigration problem.