Remittances sent back home by migrants who have managed to enter the United States, Canada or European countries are often crucially important in supporting families in low-income countries. Nowhere is this as clear as it is in the Northern Triangle countries of Central America: El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras. In Guatemala remittances generally account for 14 per cent of the country’s GDP; in Honduras and El Salvador, the equivalent figure is 20 per cent.
Whilst the business world (in the form of CentralAmericaData.com) reported record increases in remittances sent to Central American countries for January and February this year – see table below – and forecast a good year for remittances in 2020, at that time the effects of the pandemic had not been foreseen. This dramatic effect, however, is illustrated by the figures for April 2020 compared with April 2019 – see the table below.
At the level of the family and the household, remittances are often vitally significant for the household economy which in many cases is precarious at best. Unemployment and a lack of opportunities added to a high level of violence in these three countries have stimulated a decades long wave of emigration to richer countries where jobs are more numerous and salaries are higher. In the last two years the phenomenon of migrant caravans from these countries, and especially Honduras, has grown largely as a result of a slightly new balance of forces in which the threats of violence to the family have increased in significance. The economic motive, however, is still highly significant, as are the remittances which improved economic earnings in the rich countries can sustain.
The COVID-19 pandemic, however, caused problems not just for the earners, but also for the recipients of the remittances. Despite these problems, in July CentralAmericaData.com was reporting an increase in remittances to El Salvador of around 10 per cent in the month of June (compared with June 2019), which it believed was due to the ending of the lockdown in the United States and the consequent reduction in unemployment there. This in turn was an enabling factor allowing “a major effort on the part of Salvadorans living abroad to support their families.”
Remarkably too in Guatemala the Bank of Guatemala reported that “in the first seven months of 2020 the country received remittances totalling $5,959 million (USD), a sum 2 per cent greater than the equivalent figure for 2019.”
For the first six months of 2020, on the other hand, remittances to Honduras were down by 4 per cent on the equivalent period for 2019. La Prensa (Honduras) explained: “the majority of these resources come from family members in the United States which has seen employment fall by 13.3 per cent by June following a 4.4 per cent decline in March.”
How remittances progress in the remainder of the year will depend on factors such as the advance or retreat of the COVID-19 pandemic in the Northern Triangle, its advance or retreat in the United States (and other rich countries) and the effects of these factors and policies pursued by governments on levels of unemployment in the rich countries.
Sources:
CentralAmericaData.com
‘Remesas en El Salvador: Tendencia se revierte’,07.20
‘Honduras recibe menos remesas’,07.20
‘Remesas: Envíos récord en Julio de 2020’, 08.20
Central Reserve Bank as given in El Economista ‘Recepción de remesas en El Salvador cayó 40% en abril’ by Javier Orellano, 15 May 2020.
El Economista (09.07.20) ‘Las remesas enviadas a Guatemala se recuperan un 15.1% en el último mes’.
El Economista (04.05.20) ‘Prevén drástico descenso en remesas para el Triángulo Norte de Centroamérica’.
El Economista (17 December 2018) reports
that remittances received in El Salvador between January and November 2018 increased
by 8.7% in comparison with the same period in 2017, and amounted to more than US$4,900
million [US dollars], according to the Central Reserve Bank (BCR).
In
these ten months the country received remittances from 160 countries, at the
head of which was the US with US$4,602.4 million, followed by the European
Union and Canada with US$46.8 million and US$43.8 million respectively.
The 2.8 million Salvadorans who live in the United States sent a major part of the US$5,021.3 million in remittances which El Salvador received in 2017, this being the highest figure in history for the Central American country.
Informe
Pastrán (21 December 2018) reports that remittances
received in Nicaragua during the third quarter of 2018 rose to US$372.8
million, an increase of 4.8 per cent compared with the same period in the
previous year. Remittances up to and including the month of September 2018
amounted to US$1,097.4 million, a 7.6 per cent increase on the same period
during 2017.
During the third quarter of 2018, the major origins
of these remittances were the United States (55.4%), Costa Rica (19.4%), Spain
(11.5%) and Panamá (5.3%).
The department of Managua continued to be the major
recipient of the remittances (35.0%), with the department of Chinandega
receiving 10.3%, León 8.2%, Estelí 8.0% and Matagalpa 7.0%.
I have spent much of the last decade conducting on-the-ground fieldwork in this region, and along the migration paths through Mexico, seeking answers to this question.
The region’s extreme poverty and violent impunity are central factors driving this migration.
Yet every migrant’s story is unique. Some simply seek the chance to earn enough money to ensure a better future for themselves or their children. Others flee persecution at the hands of gangs, organized crime or corrupt state officials. For others, insecurity and poverty are so intertwined that drawing them apart becomes impossible.
Santos Isabel Escobar weeps beside the coffin of her 18-year-old son, Eddy Fernando Cabrera, who was executed with four other young people in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, Jan. 11, 2019. AP/Fernando Antonio
‘Falling deeper into debt’
Extreme poverty and inequality haunt the region. Today, about half of all Central Americans – and two-thirds of the rural populations of Guatemala and Honduras – survive below the international poverty line.
Many Central American migrants are simply desperate to find work that pays enough to feed their families. U.S. asylum law provides no relief for these “economic refugees.”
I met Roberto Quijones in a migrant shelter in the Mexican state of Tabasco, about 25 mile north of the Mexico’s southern border with Guatemala, in late 2017. We spoke as he soaked his blistered feet and tried to mend his busted shoes with duct tape.
Roberto is from a rural town in northwestern El Salvador near the border with Honduras and Guatemala, and had been out of work for two years. For more than a year, he and his wife and their 2-year-old daughter had been living with an aunt. Their welcome had worn thin.
“She’s family,” Roberto said, “but you know you get to a moment when not paying rent isn’t possible anymore. Even if they are family.”
And even for those who can find work, extremely low wages cannot cover families’ basic needs, destroying hope for a better future.
“I can make 200 lempiras, a day working” – the equivalent of US$10 – said Marvin Otoniel Castillo, a father of three from Tegucigalpa, Honduras. We spoke in late 2016 beneath a bridge in Veracruz, Mexico, waiting to hop a train to continue northwards.
“So your whole life is falling deeper into debt,” Marvin continued. “That’s why I came. So I could send my oldest child to school so he wouldn’t have to live like his father.”
A woman sells live baby chicks in central San Salvador, El Salvador. Nearly 1 in 3 Salvadorans lives in poverty. AP/Rebecca Blackwell
Running for their lives
Other migrants have been targeted by criminal organizations that operate with stunning impunity in Central America.
Criminal organizations derive much of their power from their deep links with government agents; it’s sometimes impossible to identify where the state ends and the underworld begins. Such connections also make understanding who is responsible for any given murder difficult.
However, gangs are responsible for the region’s most widespread and brutal extortion rackets, which create deep psychological and economic strife for poor Central Americans while also causing countless murders.
The upshot is that many Central Americans trying to enter the United States are literally running for their lives.
That includes Pedro, whose uncle and two brothers were gunned down on a crowded Guatemala City street in 2015 because, he believed, his cousin had stolen from a drug-trafficking organization. Like others I’ve interviewed who are fleeing violent persecution, he requested anonymity to protect himself and family still living in Guatemala.
Pedro said he moved with his wife and two daughters to another part of the city to escape detection. But then police discovered his 13-year-old daughter’s body in an alleyway.
Her assailants had raped her, burned her with cigarettes and knifed her to death. Pedro said that no one would tell him who did it, but he fled with his family to ensure their safety.
Or Alejandra, from a mid-size city west of the Guatemalan capital, who told me she was in her final year of a nurse training program and spending Christmas holidays with family when she witnessed her uncle gunned down in his front yard while he strung up party lights.
The uncle, she said, had refused to pay extortion money to a criminal group run by active and former police officers. The next day, Alejandra received threatening messages on Facebook. She didn’t want to leave the country, but moved in with a friend in another town and tried to lie low.
A few weeks later, Alejandra claimed, the group sent a kid with a handgun to kill her. She escaped by throwing herself from her motorbike. That’s when she decided to give up her career and flee Guatemala.
Central American migrants being held by U.S. Customs and Border Protection after requesting asylum, in El Paso, Texas, March 28, 2019. REUTERS/Jose Luis Gonzalez
The price of staying
For financial or personal reasons, many Central Americans are unable or unwilling to flee in the face of such threats. That can exact a steep price.
One evening in late 2018, a woman named Sofia said that members of MS-13 caught her when she was walking home from work in San Pedro Sula, Honduras. She’d moved to the city months before with her 12-year-old daughter, because her husband, Pablo, had fled the country to escape the gang’s threats.
Pablo had worked driving a produce truck, but then MS-13 killed his boss for refusing to pay extortion. Gang extortion is believed to be a leading cause of murder in Honduras and though the majority of the country’s extortion victims are poor, they pay about $200 million a year to protect themselves.
MS-13 told Pablo he was next.
The family’s funds were just enough to get Pablo out of Honduras. Maybe, they hoped, if he was gone the gang would leave the family alone. Once in the States, he could send money home.
The plan didn’t work. Four gang members forced Sofia into a car, drove her to the countryside, beat her and raped her repeatedly. “This is what will happen to your daughter,” they shouted at her over and over again, “if you don’t pay us what your husband owes.”
Ethics and survival
The images and stories of Central Americans caged at the border awaiting processing expose how the U.S. immigration system was never designed to deal with this many people fleeing these kinds of problems.
In the hopes of getting better treatment at the border, some migrants have resorted to pretending to be part of family units, or lying about their age.
This kind of “gaming the system” may be ethically questionable, but viewed from the perspective of survival, it makes perfect sense.
Such strategies speak most of all of collective desperation, begging a question posed by many of the Central American migrants I have met over the years: “If you were me, what would you do?”
At the height of the
migrant caravan crisis (which has not gone away) in November 2018, the daily
Salvadoran newspaper La Prensa Gráfica produced an article of ‘Stories of
forced displacement due to violence’ written by Ricardo Flores. There were six
personal stories in the article and ENCA member Jill Powis translated them for
the ENCA Newsletter (no.75) which for reasons of space could only include four
of them. All of them are included here on The Violence of Development website.
We are grateful to Jill for her translations.
1
Nelson was disappeared and then murdered for
refusing to leave his home. The first warning came in 2014 from a neighbour, a
woman who had links with members of the Barrio 18 (18th Street)
gang. She told him that he had to close
down his business, which supported his family of seven, on the grounds that
“he was selling the same product as her.” After that came more
warnings, including death threats, to make him leave, together with his whole
family. It was October 2015 when they decided to leave, to stay with relatives,
but Nelson, a fictitious name to protect his [family] identity, decided to stay
“to guard the house.” His
relatives believe that he was killed because, before he was threatened, he
worked for a community organisation running violence prevention schemes to
improve life within the community.
Prior to Nelson’s death, the family had sought
protection from the Human Rights Ombudsman’s Office (Procuraduría para la
Defensa de los Derechos Humanos – PDDH), but this opened a case file only
after his murder. The PDDH informed the
police and the Public Prosecutor’s Office (Fiscalía), and all that
happened was that some family members who gave evidence were named as key
witnesses in the legal process.
Cristosal [see
note below] lodged an application for protective measures for Nelson’s
family with the Constitutional Court on 9 June 2017. The application was accepted four months
later, but by this time they were already out of the country. They had lost
their jobs, their homes, the right to freedom of movement and the young people
were forced to abandon their studies.
2
This is the story of a family 35 strong,
including children and adolescents, who were victims of threats, physical
attacks, sexual abuse and rape by gang members – all for being relatives of
members of the armed forces. The gang attacked the family on various dates and
different places. The threats became so
bad that they were forced to leave the town.
The family moved to relatives living in an area
of the country without gangs. However, there they suffered violence again, but
this time from the state. Police officers carried out an operation in the
community, shooting “to intimidate”. A bullet hit a woman from the
family, killing her instantly. This forced them to move again.
The family reported all the attacks by the gang
to the authorities. The police and the Public Prosecutor’s Office solely
designated them as key witnesses in the legal process so that they could
testify – there was no progress on the cases. One of the victims of the forced
displacement also filed a complaint with the General Inspectorate of the
National Civil Police about his mother’s death at the hands of the officers who
carried out the operation. The local police’s official version was that the
woman died “in the context of a confrontation with gang members.”
This was the only one of the six cases where the
Constitutional Court issued a final judgment in favour of a family displaced by
the violence in El Salvador, following a
an application for protection measures filed by Cristosal. However, the measures ordered by the Court
benefited only a few members of the family, with the rest leaving the country
under the international protection system.
3
Margarita and Luisa (not their real names) were
threatened with rape if they did not leave the community. The two women, mother
and daughter, had a food business which involved visiting various apartments.
The threats began when some gang members came to live in the area.
In response to the threats, which were also
directed at Margarita’s husband and another daughter, the family decided to
move, but when they settled down in another place, they again suffered
extortion from another gang.
When the family reported the gang to the
Anti-Extortion Unit of the National Civil Police, it stated that its response
would be limited to arresting the suspects and starting legal proceedings
against them “because it does not have enough officers to provide the
family with protection.”
4
Sofia was held captive and raped by a gang for
being the daughter of a policeman. When the teenager disappeared, her father
went to the police, but they failed to respond immediately. When they finally
found her, the police accused Sofía (not her real name) of being a member of
the gang.
The Public Prosecutor’s Office offered
protection measures, but only for Sofia, a minor; and so the family, five
people in total, preferred to move, where they remained in hiding. Despite not
leaving the house, the gang members managed to find them and continued to issue
them with death threats. This meant that
they were forced to move house again until they got help to leave El Salvador.
In view of the poor response by state institutions, the
Constitutional Court accepted the application for protection measures for all
five members of the family, but by this time they had already left the country.
5
A large family requested international
protection measures in the wake of the murder of a young woman and her sister,
as well as the kidnapping of a baby girl who was only months old. The
investigation of the case produced evidence that the crimes were committed by
gang members with the aim of “getting the baby.” The other members of
the family were threatened so that they would leave, and so after the funeral
for the two women, the family abandoned their belongings, homes and jobs.
Cristosal concluded that the State does not have
the capacity to protect a large family.
6
Victoria, her adult daughter and two children
lived in a house where they had a family business. One afternoon, an armed gang
came to the store. Victoria (not her real name) was shot dead at the scene, while
her daughter suffered bullet wounds to various organs. Her relatives had to
take her from the hospital because the gang continued to look for her and they
feared that she would be found. When she recovered, three months later, she
decided to move with the two children to a house belonging to another relative.
However, an informer from the gang found her and warned them to leave the area
“if she did not want to have any problems”.
As a result of this fresh threat, the woman was
forced to move again with her children to another relative in another region of
the country. Unlike the other cases, this family did not want to take advantage
of the government shelter system, but instead wanted measures that would allow
them to be protected by the authorities in the place where they had relocated.
Cristosal presented their request to the
Constitutional Court and it was accepted on 11 July 2018, when it ordered
protective measures.
The trial for Victoria’s murder resulted in the
conviction of those responsible, who are currently awaiting sentencing.
Note: Cristosal works
to advance human rights in Central America through rights-based research,
learning, and programming. They accompany victims of violence to provide
protection when they need it most, repair the lingering effects of human rights
violations, and build human rights frameworks to create conditions where peace
is possible. https://www.cristosal.org/
Por Ricardo Flores, La
Prensa Gráfica, El Salvador
28 Noviembre 2018
Estos son
los relatos que seis familias desplazadas por la violencia le contaron a
Cristosal, la organización que documenta y atiende los casos y que ayer
presentó un sistema de monitoreo del problema. Estas historias llegaron hasta
la Sala de lo Constitucional de la Corte Suprema.
1
Nelson fue
desaparecido y luego asesinado por negarse a abandonar su casa. La primera
advertencia le llegó en 2014 de una vecina que tenía vínculos con pandilleros
del Barrio 18, quien le dijo que debía cerrar el negocio del que sobrevivía la
familia, conformada por siete personas. La queja de la mujer era que
“vendían el mismo producto que ella”. Tras esa intimidación, llegaron
más avisos que contenían amenazas de muerte para que se fuera del lugar junto
con toda la familia. Corría octubre de 2015 cuando decidieron huir hacia donde
otros parientes, pero Nelson, nombre ficticio para proteger su identidad, decidió
quedarse “para resguardar la vivienda”. Los parientes creen que fue
asesinado porque antes de ser amenazado trabajaba en una organización
comunitaria que tenía proyectos para prevención de violencia para mejorar las
condiciones de vida en la comunidad.
Previo a la
muerte de Nelson, la familia había acudido a la Procuraduría para la Defensa de
los Derechos Humanos en busca de protección, pero la institución abrió un
expediente del caso hasta después del homicidio. El acompañamiento de la PDDH
los llevó a la Policía y la Fiscalía, donde la respuesta fue que algunos
miembros de la familia que sirvieron como testigos recibieron nombres claves en
el proceso.
Cristosal
decidió presentar el 9 de junio de 2017 un amparo ante la Sala de lo
Constitucional. Cuatro meses después, la sala admitió la demanda y ordenó
medidas de protección para la familia de Nelson. Sin embargo, el grupo ya
estaba fuera del país. Los sobrevivientes perdieron el empleo, el desarraigo a
su patrimonio familiar, el derecho al libre tránsito y los jóvenes abandonaron
sus estudios.
La organización
internacional sostuvo que es “urgente” ese reconocimiento por lo
crítico que se ha vuelto esta problemática en El Salvador.
2
Esta es la
historia de una familia conformada por 35 personas, entre niños y adolescentes,
que fueron víctimas de amenazas, agresiones físicas, abuso sexual y violación
de parte de pandilleros. Todo por ser parientes de miembros de la Fuerza
Armada. La pandilla cometió ataques contra la familia en distintos lugares y
fechas. Las amenazas se agravaron hasta exigirles que abandonaran el municipio.
La familia
buscó apoyo en otros parientes que residían en zonas del país sin presencia de
pandilleros. Cuando lo lograron sufrieron nuevamente violencia, pero esa vez de
parte del Estado: ocurrió cuando policías realizaron un operativo en esa
comunidad con disparos “para intimidar”. Una bala impactó a una mujer
de la familia, lo que le ocasionó la muerte inmediatamente. Eso los obligó a un
nuevo desplazamiento.
La familia puso
la denuncia de todas las agresiones y ataques que sufrió de parte de los
pandilleros. La Policía y la Fiscalía se limitaron a asignarles nombres claves
en los procesos para que atestiguaran; sin embargo, los casos no prosperaron.
Una de las víctimas del desplazamiento forzoso también interpuso ante la
Inspectoría General de la Policía Nacional Civil una denuncia por la muerte de
su madre a manos de los agentes que realizaron el operativo. La versión oficial
de la policía de la zona fue que la mujer murió “en el marco de
enfrentamiento contra pandilleros”.
Este ha sido el
único de los seis casos en que la Sala de lo Constitucional emitió sentencia
definitiva a favor de una familia desplazada por la violencia en El Salvador,
después del amparo interpuesto por Cristosal, aunque el beneficio de las
mediadas de protección dictadas por el tribunal superior solo fue para unos
pocos miembros de la familia, pues la mayoría salió del país bajo el sistema de
protección internacional.
Organizaciones,
como Cristosal, piden a la CIDH que intervenga y solicite a los países del
Triángulo Norte de Centroamérica una mejor atención a las víctimas.
A Margarita y
Luisa (nombres cambiados) las amenazaron con violarlas si no se iban de la comunidad.
Las dos mujeres, madre e hija, pasaban en su negocio de comida en unos
apartamentos. La amenaza inició cuando unos pandilleros llegaron a vivir al
lugar.
Ante la
advertencia, que incluía al esposo de Margarita y a otra hija, la familia
decidió cambiar de domicilio, pero al establecerse en otro sitio, volvieron a
sufrir extorsión de otra estructura de pandilleros.
Cuando la
familia le contó a los miembros de la Unidad Antiextorsiones de la Policía
Nacional Civil lo que los pandilleros les exigían, la respuesta fue que las
acciones estaban limitadas a las capturas de los denunciados y abrir un juicio
“porque no cuentan con personal suficiente para brindar protección a la
familia”.
4
Sofía fue
privada de libertad y violada por un grupo de pandilleros por ser hija de un
agente. El policía buscó ayuda de la PNC cuando la adolescente desapareció,
pero no obtuvo respuesta positiva de inmediato. Cuando finalmente la
encontraron, los agentes acusaron a Sofía (nombre cambiado) de ser parte de la
pandilla.
La Fiscalía
ofreció medidas de protección solo para la menor, pero la familia, cinco
personas en total, prefirió desplazarse a otro sitio, donde permanecía en
confinamiento. A pesar de no salir de la casa, los pandilleros los ubicaron y
volvieron a amenazarlos con la muerte, por lo que volvieron a movilizarse hasta
obtener ayuda para salir de El Salvador.
La Sala de lo
Constitucional admitió el amparo del caso debido a la pobre respuesta de parte
de las instituciones del Estado, y otorgó medidas de protección para los cinco
miembros del grupo familiar; pero ya estaban fuera del país.
Las víctimas de
desplazamientos forzado atendidas por la ONG incrementaron un 53% entre 2016 y
2017. Cristosal reitera que el Estado sigue sin reconocer el problema.
Una familia
numerosa solicitó medidas de protección internacional a raíz del asesinato de
una joven y su hermana. Además del secuestro de una niña que tenía solo meses
de edad. La investigación del caso arrojó evidencia que los hechos fueron
cometidos por pandilleros con el objetivo de “quedarse con la niña”.
Los demás miembros de la familia fueron amenazados para que abandonaran el
lugar, por lo que después de enterrar a las dos mujeres, dejaron sus
pertenencias, vivienda y sus fuentes de empleo.
Cristosal
comprobó que el Estado no tiene la capacidad para proteger a una familia
numerosa.
6
Victoria, su hija
adulta y dos niños vivían en una casa donde tenían un negocio familiar. Un día
por la tarde, pandilleros llegaron a la tienda a disparar. Victoria (nombre
cambiado) falleció en el lugar, mientras que su hija resultó con lesiones de
bala en algunos órganos. Familiares tuvieron que sacar del hospital a la herida
porque pandilleros continuaban buscándola y temían que fuera ubicada. Pasaron
así durante tres meses, hasta que logró recuperarse. Luego decidió desplazarse
con los dos niños por sus propios medios hacia una casa de otro pariente. Sin
embargo, un palabrero de la pandilla la ubicó y les advirtió que salieran de la
zona “si no quería tener problemas”.
Esa nueva
advertencia provocó que la mujer se desplazara otra vez junto a sus hijos a
otro sector del país con otro pariente. A diferencia de los otros casos, esta
familia no quería ingresar al sistema de albergue gubernamental, sino que una
medida que les permitiera la protección de las autoridades en el sitio en que
se había reubicado.
Esa petición fue
planteada por Cristosal ante la Sala de lo Constitucional en un amparo que
terminó admitiendo el 11 de julio de 2018, cuando ordenó medidas de protección.
El proceso
judicial por el homicidio de Victoria culminó con la sentencia de los
responsables. El proceso en la sala sigue pendiente de una sentencia
definitiva.
El Economistarecently published an article based on the
findings of a report entitled ‘The Future of Central America: Challenges for a
Sustainable Development’. The report was produced by a collaboration between
the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and the Latin American Centre for
Competition and Sustainable Development (CLACDS, by its Spanish initials) of
the INCAE Business School. Short extracts from the article are translated below.
The recent hardening of the United States’ immigration policies is
putting at risk a significant ‘escape valve’ for the economies of the Northern
Triangle of Central America: namely remittances.
“An important factor for these societies [El Salvador, Honduras and
Guatemala] is the fact that there is an escape valve for social and
demographic problems, and a source of income,” said the Dean of the INCAE
Business School, Alberto Trejos, to El Economista, regarding migration
and remittances.
The report points out that there are at least 3 million migrants from
the Northern Triangle in the United States and that their remittances represent
20 per cent of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of El Salvador and Honduras and
12 per cent of the GDP of Guatemala. Our societies in the region
According to the report, in 2017 Salvadoran migrants in the United
States accounted for 23 per cent of total population of El Salvador, and the
respective proportions of Honduras and Guatemala were 8 per cent and 6 per
cent.
The report warns that the hardening of immigration policies in the
United States could have a substantial impact on remittances and, through them,
on the economies of El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala.
The report’s estimates indicate that remittances could decline by 7.6
per cent per annum due to recent and proposed immigration policies changes and
that the elimination of Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Honduran and
Salvadoran citizens [illegally residing in the USA] could imply a
further reduction in remittances of 6 per cent per annum in the medium term. It
also estimates that a further 7 per cent of migrants who currently reside in
the USA could decide to return to their country of origin.
Those migrants would return with savings of around 3 per cent of their
country’s GDP which would generate a temporary positive effect which would be
converted into an additional demand for jobs. For these jobs to be filled would
require that the economies of the Northern Triangle countries would have to
grow by one percentage point more than is expected or predicted.
For the INCAE Dean, remittances are an important escape valve, but the
current remarkable migration has negative consequences due to the flight of
humans who are at their most productive ages. “We have to stop thinking of the
phenomenal migration from the perspective of remittances, even though it
appears to represent the inflow of money. But we have to admit that this money
flows in because we cannot provide alternative prospects to young people so
that they might stay.”
“At the same time that this money flows in, the productive capacity of
these people disappears. Society loses the income that these people would have
generated, we lose the contributions of the skills of these migrants and that
leaves us with a society that is demographically and economically different.”
For the INCAE Dean, the conditions which prompt people to migrate “are
not a good thing,” and although migration may generate some positive effects on
the economy, it cannot be called a good thing. Trejos warned that a mass return
of migrants at this time would necessitate “a very disruptive adjustment.”
A 13th September report in the Salvadoran daily
newspaper La Prensa Gráfica described
yet another motive behind the exodus of people from Honduras: namely drought.
This illustrates well the thesis in the article ‘How Climate Change Forces
Central American Farmers to Migrate’ – also
uploaded to this website this month, September 2019 – that drought and the
unreliability of climate are forcing many rural farmers to consider the
possibility of migration as a way out of their predicament.
Several Honduran departments have been declared as emergency
zones due to the scarcity of water. Some of these zones have not had any
rainfall for ten months and over 50 per cent of basic grains like corn and
beans have been lost, according to official sources.
In the eastern department of Olancho 1,000 head of cattle
have died due to the drought. Farmers with some capital behind them can
purchase alternative feeds for their cattle such as the waste products of
African palm oil which are rich in protein. But for the majority the grass is
simply not growing due to the drought. Some sources are suggesting that this
climate trend means that in the medium and long terms farmers must adapt to
raising a much smaller number of cattle on their land.
The drought has also affected urban areas such as the
capital city Tegucigalpa, and residents are having to purchase tanks of water
for activities such as washing as well as drinking. Clearly in such
circumstances the poor are more likely to be adversely affected by the drought.
As if Hondurans don’t have enough to contend with: a
narco-state run by organised crime; security forces whose main modus operandi
is violence against the people they are supposed to be protecting; a gang
culture and protection racket which pervade so many of the activities of
Honduran society and economy; a system of production which displaces Hondurans
from their land for the benefit of transnational corporations and local elites;
and a complete lack of opportunities for Hondurans. Add climate change to the
mix, and who could be surprised that so many Hondurans try to escape their
country of birth to find opportunities elsewhere in the world?
The following article is taken from ‘Towards Freedom’,
an organisation that takes “a progressive perspective on world events” –
https://towardfreedom.org/ We are
grateful to Toward Freedom and Edgardo Ayala for permission to reproduce the
article here.
Gilberto Gómez stands next to the cow he bought with the support of his migrant children in the United States, which eases the impact of the loss of his subsistence crops, in the village of La Colmena, Candelaria de la Frontera municipality in western El Salvador. This area forms part of the Central American Dry Corridor, where increasing climate vulnerability is driving migration of the rural population. Photo Credit: Edgardo Ayala/IPS
CANDELARIA DE LA FRONTERA, El Salvador (IPS) – As
he milks his cow, Salvadoran Gilberto Gómez laments that poor harvests, due to
excessive rain or drought, practically forced his three children to leave the
country and undertake the risky journey, as undocumented migrants, to the
United States.
Gómez, 67, lives in La Colmena, in the municipality of
Candelaria de la Frontera, in the western Salvadoran department of Santa Ana.
The small hamlet is located in the so-called Dry
Corridor of Central America, a vast area that crosses much of the isthmus, but
whose extreme weather especially affects crops in Guatemala, Honduras and El
Salvador.
“They became disillusioned, seeing that almost every
year we lost a good part of our crops, and they decided they had to leave,
because they didn’t see how they could build a future here,” Gómez told IPS, as
he untied the cow’s hind legs after milking.
He said that his eldest son, Santos Giovanni, for
example, also grew corn and beans on a plot of land the same size as his own,
“but sometimes he didn’t get anything, either because it rained a lot, or
because of drought.”
The year his children left, in 2015, Santos Giovanni
lost two-thirds of the crop to an unusually extreme drought.
“It’s impossible to go on like this,” lamented Gómez,
who says that of the 15 families in La Colmena, many have shrunk due to
migration because of problems similar to those of his son.
The Dry Corridor, particularly in these three nations,
has experienced the most severe droughts of the last 10 years, leaving more than
3.5 million people in need of humanitarian assistance, a report by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO)
warned as early as 2016.
Now Gómez’s daughter, Ana Elsa, 28, and his two sons,
Santos Giovanni, 31, and Luis Armando, 17, all live in Los Angeles, California.
“Sometimes they call us, and tell us they’re okay,
that they have jobs,” he said.
The case of the Gómez family illustrates the
phenomenon of migration and its link with climate change and its impact on
harvests, and thus on food insecurity among Central American peasant families.
La Colmena, which lacks piped water and electricity,
benefited a few years ago from a project to harvest rainwater, which villagers
filter to drink, as well as reservoirs to water livestock.
However, their crops are still vulnerable to the
onslaught of heavy rains and increasingly unpredictable and intense droughts.
In addition to the violence and poverty, climate
change is the third cause of the exodus of Central Americans, especially from
Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, according to the new Atlas of Migration
in Northern Central America.
Between 2000 and 2012, the report says, there was an
increase of nearly 59 percent in the number of people migrating from these
three countries, which make up the so-called Northern Triangle of Central
America. In Guatemala, 77 percent of the people living in rural areas are poor,
and in Honduras the proportion is 82 percent.
In recent months, waves of citizens from Honduras and
El Salvador have embarked on the long journey on foot to the United States,
with the idea that it would be safer if they traveled in large groups.
Travelling as an undocumented migrant to the United
States carries a series of risks: they can fall prey to criminal gangs,
especially when crossing Mexico, or die on the long treks through the desert.
Another report published by FAO in December, ‘Mesoamerica in Transit’,
states that of the nearly 30 million international migrants from Latin America,
some four million come from the Northern Triangle and another 11 million from
Mexico.
The study adds that among the main factors driving
migration in El Salvador are poverty in the departments of Ahuachapán, Cabañas,
San Vicente and Sonsonate; environmental vulnerability in Chalatenango,
Cuscatlán, La Libertad and San Salvador; and soaring violence in La Paz,
Morazán and San Salvador.
And according to the report, Honduran migration is
strongly linked to the lack of opportunities, and to high levels of poverty and
violence in the northwest of the country and to environmental vulnerability in
the centre-south.
With respect to Guatemala, the report indicates that
although in this country migration patterns are not so strongly linked to
specific characteristics of different territories, migration is higher in
municipalities where the percentage of the population without secondary
education is larger.
In Mexico, migration is linked to poverty in the south
and violence in the west, northwest and northeast, while environmental
vulnerability problems seem to be cross-cutting.
“The report shows a compelling and comprehensive view
of the phenomenon: the decision to migrate is the individual’s, but it is
conditioned by their surroundings,” Luiz Carlos Beduschi, FAO Rural Development
Officer, told IPS from Santiago, Chile, the U.N. organisation’s regional
headquarters.
He added that understanding what is happening in the
field is fundamental to understanding migratory dynamics as a whole.
The study, published Dec. 18, makes a “multi-causal
analysis; the decision to stay or migrate is conditioned by a set of factors,
including climate, especially in the Dry Corridor of Central America,” Beduschi
said.
For the FAO expert, it is necessary to promote
policies that offer rural producers “better opportunities for them and their
families in their places of origin.”
It is a question, he said, “of guaranteeing that they
have the necessary conditions to freely decide whether to stay at home or to
migrate elsewhere,” and keeping rural areas from expelling the local population
as a result of poverty, violence, climate change and lack of opportunities.
In the case of El Salvador, while there is government
awareness of the impacts of climate change on crops and the risk it poses to
food security, little has been done to promote public policies to confront the
phenomenon, activist Luis González told IPS.
“There are national plans and strategies to confront
climate change, to address the water issue, among other questions, but the
problem is implementation: it looks nice on paper, but little is done, and much
of this is due to lack of resources,” added González, a member of the
Roundtable for Food Sovereignty, a conglomerate of social organisations
fighting for this objective.
Meanwhile, in La Colmena, Gómez has given his wife,
Teodora, the fresh milk they will use to make cheese.
They are happy that they have the cow, bought with the
money their daughter sent from Los Angeles, and they are hopeful that the
weather won’t spoil the coming harvest.
“With this cheese we earn enough for a small meal,” he
said.
Freedom United is an organisation dedicated to ending human trafficking and modern slavery. In February this year we received the following report from Freedom United outlining the difficulties faced by (mostly) Central America migrants trying to make their way to the United States. We are grateful to Freedom United for permission to reproduce their short report here.
Key words: migration; Medecins Sans Frontières (MSF); asylum processing; kidnapping; sexual violence; Migrant Protection Protocol (MPP); human rights.
13 February, 2020
Medical charity, Medecins Sans Frontières (MSF), has reported that migrants from Central America are being “treated as if they aren’t really people” as a staggeringly high number are being kidnapped, raped and trafficked in Mexico.
This comes during a U.S. government crackdown to limit the number of migrants entering the country.
President Donald Trump has threatened to put tariffs on its imports into Mexico, pressuring its neighbour to increase its efforts to stop migrants reaching the U.S. border.
Most migrants from Central America fleeing their home countries as a result of violence or poverty hope to reach safety in the United States where they may have support networks.
Instead, their journey may come to an end in Mexico’s Nuevo Laredo city. According to MSF, nearly 80% of migrants treated in Nuevo Laredo in the first nine months of 2019 were victims of kidnapping or other forms of violence.
Mexico coordinator for MSF, Sergio Martín, said that “they’ve suffered violence … and what they find on their journey is more violence.”
“In September, 18 of 41 patients in Nuevo Laredo who had been sent back to Mexico to wait for U.S. asylum processing told MSF they had recently been kidnapped.
“We think that as a direct result of many of these policies there are people who are suffering more violence,” said Martín.
“It’s easier for them to fall into human trafficking networks or into extortion networks, and no one look for them.”
MSF found 78% of almost 3,700 patients in Mexico who sought mental health care in 2018 and 2019 showed signs of exposure to violence, including assault, sexual violence and torture.
Some patients said they had been kidnapped in Mexico for long periods for forced labour, sexual exploitation or recruitment to work for criminal groups.
Almost one in four female migrants told MSF they had experienced sexual violence on their journeys.”
Mexico’s National Guard has been deployed to prevent migrants crossing the border into the U.S. whilst also increasing numbers of detentions and deportations.
To date, the U.S. has sent 57,000 non-Mexican migrants to Mexico as they await their U.S. asylum hearings whilst also restricting asylum criteria and reducing the number of claims being received at each U.S. port of entry.
The Migrant Protection Protocol, otherwise known as MPP, is the U.S. programme that aims to keep asylum seekers in Mexico with the support of the Mexican government.
A spokesperson from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security said that the “MPP is one of the most important and effective tools we have implemented to confront the crisis on the border and we will continue to strengthen and expand.”
While Mexico’s immigration authority and interior ministry did not comment immediately, President Andres Manuel López Obrador expressed his desire for enforcing immigration laws as long as migrants’ human rights are respected.
WASHINGTON, DC — Legal pathways for Mexicans and northern Central Americans seeking to enter the United States have grown in recent years, as the U.S. government has increased its focus on managing migration cooperatively with neighbours in the region. With an emerging body of research suggesting that access to legal channels may reduce irregular migration pressures, a new fact sheet out today explores the permanent, temporary and humanitarian legal pathways that exist for citizens of Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, how widely these pathways have been used and how these numbers have changed over time.
The fact sheet by Migration Policy Institute (MPI) analysts Ariel G. Ruiz Soto and Andrew Selee draws on U.S. government data to provide an analytical overview of U.S. permanent and temporary visas and humanitarian pathways available to Mexicans and northern Central Americans.
Family sponsorship for an immigrant visa (also known as a green card) is a significant route for the arrival of Mexicans and, to a lesser extent, northern Central Americans, with the number ranging from about 80,000 to 120,000 annually for much of the past decade out of an average 469,000 green cards issued yearly to all new arrivals to the United States during the fiscal year (FY) 2014-2023 period.
Non-immigrant visa issuance more than doubled for Mexicans and northern Central Americans between FY 2012-2019, increasing their share of overall non-immigrant visas from 9 percent to 16 percent. As of 2023, their share stood at 20 percent of all non-immigrant visas, which includes the H-2 seasonal agricultural and non-agricultural visas, F visa for international students, H-1B specialty occupations visa, TN professionals visa and the L-1 intra-company transfer visa.
Mexicans still dominate the categories of H-2A visas for temporary agricultural workers and H-2B visas for temporary non-agricultural workers, receiving more than 90 percent of H-2A visas and over 70 percent of H-2B visas since FY 2010. While this reflects long-established recruitment practices and networks, a small but increasing share of H-2 visas are going to northern Central Americans. Salvadorans, Guatemalans and Hondurans accounted for 18 percent of H-2B visa issuance in FY 2023, up from 5 percent three years earlier and representing a more than eightfold increase in the overall number of H-2B visas issued to these nationals.
Refugee resettlement and humanitarian parole are increasingly important mechanisms to provide Mexicans and northern Central Americans entry, in particular temporary humanitarian parole,facilitated by the CBP One app to schedule admissions at a port of entry. Mexicans were the fourth largest nationality receiving appointments through the CBP One app between January 2023 and March 2024. Combined, Mexicans and northern Central Americans were 28 percent of CBP One appointments during that period.
“The pathways available for Mexicans and northern Central Americans seeking to enter the United States legally have grown gradually in recent years. These include visas for seasonal work and, in the case of Mexican citizens, high-skilled work; green cards for family members of those already living permanently in the United States; and refugee resettlement and humanitarian parole for people seeking safety,” Ruiz Soto and Selee write. “These pathways account for a small but growing proportion of all migration from these countries; unauthorized migration remains larger, but they hold the potential to increase over time and provide lawful alternatives to otherwise dangerous journeys.”
For a policy analysis by MPI and the International Organization for Migration (IOM) of legal pathways within the entire Western Hemisphere, click here.
The Migration Policy Institute is an independent, non-partisan, non-profit think tank in Washington, D.C. dedicated to analysis of the movement of people worldwide. MPI provides analysis, development and evaluation of migration and refugee policies at the local, national and international levels. For more on MPI, please visit www.migrationpolicy.org
Key words: migration; Darién crossing; Panama; President elect Mulino; repatriation.
A January 2024 AFP (Agence France Presse) report relates that over 520,000 migrants crossed the Darién jungle zone of Panamá during 2023. Of these, Panamá’s Ministry of Public Security reported that 120,000 were minors. This is more than double the next highest rate of the passage of Darién migrants which was in 2022.
On its X social network account, the Ministry said that it takes migrants between three and six days to cross the natural border between Colombia and Panamá which is 266 km long and covers 575,000 hectares of land. For humans, the area is one of the most inhospitable on the planet and migrants face many natural dangers as well as exploitation by criminal gangs. In November 2023, Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said it had treated more than 400 cases of migrants who were victims of sexual assault, 97 per cent of them women, some of them girls. Despite the dangers, crossing the Darién remains an attractive route, and already this year (by the end of April, 147,000 migrants had entered Panama overland from Colombia.
The Ministry also gave details of the origins of the migrants. The greatest number of nationals crossing the Darién are from Venezuela who accounted for around 60 per cent of the total. They were followed by Ecuadorians, Haitians and Chinese with smaller numbers from Vietnam, Afghanistan and numerous African nations.
The situation has forced the Panamanian government and some international organisations to establish migrant care centres at various points in the country. In recognition of the fact that most of the migrants are trying to reach the United States of America, the Panamanian government’s initial response to this phenomenon was to arrange buses to transport the migrants through the country to its border with Costa Rica.
More recently, however, the government has been taking an increasingly hard line in its treatment of migrants who entered the country irregularly. President elect José Raúl Mulino (who takes over the presidency on 1st July this year) has said he will try to shut down the Darién migration route.
Whether Mulino can effectively reduce the numbers passing through the Darién is uncertain. The large extent of the Darién has limited governmental presence and control. Giuseppe Loprete is the Chief of Mission in Panama of the United Nation’s International Organisation for Immigration and has pointed out that if the government manages to block the legal and well-trodden routes, “migrants run the risk of turning to criminal networks, traffickers and dangerous routes.” One such alternative route could be the dangerous sea route from Colombia to Panama.
Another possible policy option for Mulino would be to massively repatriate the migrants, but Adam Isacson of the Washington Office on Latin America says that “… in mathematical terms I don’t know how they hope to massively deport migrants. …. A daily plane, which would be extremely expensive, would only repatriate around ten per cent of the flow (about 1,000 to 1,200 per day). The United States only manages to do about 130 flights monthly in the entire world.”
Sources:
AFP News Agency, 10 May 2024, Update, https://twitter.com/AFP/status/1788780797757186550
Tico Times, 7 January 2024, ‘Record Migrant Surge Sees 120K Minors Enter Panama Jungle’, San José.
Alma Solís, 11 May 2024, ‘Panama’s next president says he’ll try to shut down one of the world’s busiest migration routes’, APNews.
Both Panama and Costa Rica are under pressure from the wave of migrants passing through the inhospitable Darién Gap at the south of the region heading, mostly, for the border between Mexico and the United States, to the north of the region. In the years from 2014 to 2020, we heard of the primary sources of immigration to the US being the Central American countries of the so-called Northern Triangle of Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador. But in more recent years, the wave of migrants from the Northern Triangle has been swollen by a new wave originating from south of the Central American region.
According to official sources in Panama, up to early September 2023, more than 348,000 people had crossed the Darién Gap into Panama, a figure 100,000 greater than the figure for the whole of 2022. Of these, 60,000 were children. Almost a half of this total were Venezuelan, and other significant South American and Caribbean nationalities included Haitians, Ecuadoreans and Colombians. There was also a growing number of people from China and the African continent, especially from Cameroon.
In September, the government of Panama announced that it aimed to intensify its deportation of migrants who enter the country via the Darién Gap from Colombia in an effort to put a stop to irregular immigration into the country. These numbers continue to increase despite the fact that the US has warned that it will not allow entry into the US to anyone who entered Panama through irregular channels.
The Panamanian director of Migration, Samira Gozaine, stated that “within our capability and our budget, we shall increase actions to gradually and progressively increase the deportations and expulsions of migrants who irregularly enter the country.” But she warned of a lack of resources to carry out the newly strengthened policy to the full: “obviously we have limited resources. If 3,000 people enter, we would like to deport those 3,000, but that’s not an operational possibility.”
The Panamanian government has also said that it will strengthen security measures in the frontier settlements and will change the locations of some police control posts. When they cross the frontier, the migrants still have to contend with wild animals, wide rivers, dense jungle and criminal gangs, although with the help of international organisations the government has established a number of posts throughout the country to help migrants.
In September this year, the Costa Rican government declared a state of emergency in response to the excessive number of migrants (more than 386,000 since January) who have entered the country through its southern border with Panama.
Similar to the efforts of the Panamanian government, the Costa Rican President Rodrigo Chaves announced that deportations and security measures would be increased. Rights groups such as the Human Rights Watch, on the other hand, described these measures as: “misguided and will contribute to more precarious situations for migrants in transit.”
Human Rights Watch Americas director Juanita Goebertus explained that the most serious issue underlying this hardened policy is that “people whose lives are at risk, whose personal integrity is at risk, cannot access the protections they have a right to.” Even former Costa Rican President Laura Chinchilla described the state of emergency as “misguided” and “highly counterproductive”.
In July, the University of Costa Rica’s fact-checking project, Doble Check, found that President Chaves’ public statements about foreigners in the country “presented a distorted image of the number of migrants in Costa Rica and the state resources directed toward that population,” while failing to recognise the economic contributions made by immigrants.
The United Nations Office for International Migration has called for collective action between Central American governments to provide humanitarian assistance.
Sources:
Manuel Bermúdez, 08.09.23, ‘Panamá seeks to put a stop to the passage of irregular immigrants through the Darién jungle’, Semanario Universidad, San José.
NACLA staff, 28.09.23, Untitled email note, North American Congress on Latin America, New York.
United Nations News, 05.09.23, ‘Record crossings of perilous Darién Gap underscores need for safe migration pathways’, United Nations.
