Instead of a large-scale regional cooperation policy, the future American president has announced a tightening of immigration controls. This strategy can only lead to a new escalation of violence and humanitarian crises in many countries in Central and South America, warns this Brazilian journalist.
The United States has always expelled, and a lot. Under both Democratic and Republican administrations. And it has always been futile since undocumented immigrants always find ways to reach their destinations. As border controls have tightened over time, new routes and strategies have emerged. Recent specific examples illustrate this. The Darién Gap, once an impassable jungle between Panama and Colombia, has become one of the busiest migration routes. Various tourist paradises in the Caribbean are currently being stormed by migrants heading north on fragile boats.
On Friday, November 8, in an interview on NBC, the future president of the United States, Donald Trump, renewed his promise to break records in expulsions. Without a counterbalance to such measures, particularly through a cooperation policy with the countries of origin of migrants, he will only provoke cascading humanitarian damage. No one risks their life on a dangerous journey unless fleeing from a situation of instability.
The Clinton Precedent
In the 1990s, a massive expulsion plan [notably through a series of laws under the Clinton administration] resulted in the arrival of Central American immigrant children in the land of their elders. Many did not speak a word of Spanish. Fresh out of civil wars, Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras were not equipped to accommodate this untrained population. Thus, the maras were born, criminal groups that now count more than 100,000 members, with connections across the region and operational centers in both Latin America and the United States.
An even more intensive expulsion program will only exacerbate security issues, particularly in Ecuador, for example: it is one of the countries experiencing the largest exodus, with its residents fleeing the violence caused by clashes between cartels from Mexico, Colombia, and even the Baltic states. Sending delinquents back to countries where prisons regularly witness massacres guarantees further bloodshed.
Venezuela, where hunger and political persecution seem destined to persist with Nicolás Maduro clinging to power, will offer its refugees only prison or suffering. And let’s not forget Haiti, where awakening each morning is nothing short of a miracle, or Nicaragua, where opponents of Daniel Ortega’s dictatorship, when not imprisoned, are in exile, their property and citizenship confiscated.
Mexico on the Front Line
Mexico will feel the most immediate consequences of U.S. policy. Trump made headlines during his previous term by pressuring both Mexican presidents at the time, Enrique Peña Nieto and Andrés Manuel López Obrador, to have their country accommodate migrants from the south.
This will be a significant challenge for Claudia Sheinbaum in her early months of presidency: to negotiate or oppose. Her position is particularly delicate, as the Mexican economy is highly dependent on trade with its northern neighbor. In recent years, the Democratic government in Washington had allowed the entry and stay of half a million Venezuelans and more than a million Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, Salvadorans, and Hondurans in American territory, thereby taking note of the worsening economic and political crisis in their countries.
If Trump reverses this policy, a new escalation of violence and humanitarian crises is inevitable. The only solution to this serious problem lies in a large-scale regional cooperation policy. Otherwise, immigration will continue to rise, along with xenophobia, hate crimes, and delinquency.
