By: Daniel Alberto Saenz
About the author: Daniel Saenz is a second year Master's student at the Elliott School of International Affairs in Washington DC, specializing in transnational security and latin America. He has received recognition by the Society of Professional Journalists for his coverage of both Latin America & the Middle East.
With the help of former Attorney General Jeff Sessions, White House aide Stephen Miller has helped to craft the cruelest immigration policy imaginable. Under President Trump’s Zero Tolerance Policy, children at the U.S. border have been separated from their parents. As of now, 545 parents have yet to be found. Other children have been placed in unsanitary detention centers where substantial numbers of them claim to have been sexually assaulted by staff. Whistleblowers have also broken news that women in these detention camps are suffering forced sterilizations. President Trump has announced the end of Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for over 300,000 people, with Salvadorans making up the largest share of recipients.
President Trump has also gone as far as cutting hundreds of millions of dollars in aid until Northern Triangle governments take decisive actions to stop irregular emigration. Despite attempts to detain and deter potential asylum seekers, new caravans are departing the region. This reactive approach has trivialized the push factors leading to emigration from the Northern Triangle. First, the Trump administration should stop in its efforts to block access to asylum. Then, the U.S. should increase the number of immigration judges who can hear cases. Temporary Protected Status (TPS) should also continue, albeit with a set timetable.
The U.S. should also take more proactive steps to address food insecurity caused by climate change, address rampant violence in the region, and foster economic stability. Such drivers are outside migrants’ control, so to punish them for fleeing their situation would be inhumane and would fail to reduce the number of asylum seekers from the Northern Triangle.
Countries compromising the Northern Triangle are some of the poorest in Latin America. Land possession and economic status have been historically dominated by a small group of elites. Thus, the region continues to face extreme inequality. Free market policies during the 1980s and 1990s did help to diversify the region’s predominantly agricultural economies. However, economic gains from these policies have not improved the living conditions for many of the region’s citizens. Many families rely on remittances from relatives living abroad, with remittances making up 18% of the three countries’ economic output.
While remittances may provide stability for certain families, they do nothing to increase jobs. Violence is prominent, leading people to flee. Altogether, the three countries have achieved a 95% impunity rate for homicides. This means that governments in the region do not provide justice or programs that offer attention to victims of violence. Police are underfunded, poorly coordinated, poorly trained, and monitored to properly respond to security threats.
Gangs such as MS-13 and 18th Street have been able to acquire swaths of territory in poor regions. Poverty, broken family units, and a lack of job opportunities have left youth vulnerable to gang recruitment. In the 2000s, Northern Triangle implemented the hardline Mano Dura (iron fist) policies that expanded police powers. Mano Dura policies also employed stricter sentencing for being a crime member and mobilized military personnel to conduct police functions.
Despite the public approval, Mano Dura has not only failed to lower crime rates, but may have accidentally helped with gang recruitment. Prisons that were already overcrowded and underfunded found themselves serving as recruitment centers for gangs.
Climate change has become a pressing driver behind migration as well. Irregular weather patterns in the Central American Dry Corridor have been destroying crops. According to the World Food Programme, droughts have caused 1.3 million people to need food assistance. Food insecurity has forced family units to go in debt, sell off land, or just leave. 30% of households in the affected areas have cited climate-induced food insecurity as their main reason for emigrating.
While processing asylum claims and TPS candidates, the U.S. should resume aid to the Northern Triangle.
In addition, agencies such as the Department of Justice and USAID should work to provide interactive training for each level of the justice and policing system. There should be emphasis on internal and external police oversight. This will help create a sense of stability that will allow businesses to open without intimidation. USAID should also look to stabilize vulnerable local economies. Finally, the U.S. should help facilitate alternate farming practices for farmers in areas affected by climate change.
There should be collaboration, information sharing, and implementation of new programs that will show farmers how to adapt to the climate. By addressing the challenges in the region, candidates who do not qualify for asylum or whose TPS expires will have a relative sense of stability upon returning home.
Regarding TPS, the Trump administration has argued that the political and natural disasters in the recipients’ countries are over. Therefore, TPS has been extended for the 300,000 has been renewed beyond its need. Regarding the detention centers and child separation, President Trump has denied any culpability, arguing that it was the Obama administration that built the cages. The administration has also defended its move to cut aid from the Northern Triangle, maintaining that the governments are too corrupt and unreliable to properly handle the money.
While the Obama administration did create the shelters, they were not used as part of an official child separation policy, and the U.S. border patrol did not separate the children from their parents. Under the Trump administration, child separation has been more systematic and constant. Regarding TPS, the previously mentioned data shows that those countries have not recovered from natural disasters or political violence. For this reason, cutting aid to the region is irresponsible as it will leave already weak states unable to address the drivers behind migration. Deterrence policies do not mean anything if they do not address the root causes.
In short, our immigration policy is inhumane and counterproductive. It punishes asylum seekers for circumstances outside their control and prevents them from properly making their case in court. It is also set up to where people are deported without any regard for circumstances that led them to emigrate. Instead, the U.S. should increase the amount of immigration judges, resume TPS (with a set timeline), and address the drivers behind migration from the Northern Triangle. Otherwise, we will continue to grapple with this issue at the border.
President elect Joe Biden has unveiled his proposed immigration policy. The policy would end Trump's asylum measures immediately. It would also aim to surge humanitarian resources to the border. This would entail having NGOs, faith-based shelters, legal non profits, and refugee assistance agencies. The Biden administration would bring back TPS and even offer a path to citizenship for recipients who have lived in the U.S. for an extended amount of time.
This approach is a step in the right direction. By aiming to address the drivers behind migration, the U.S. will be closer to controlling irregular migration. By ending President Trump's asylum policies, we will guarantee that migrants from the caravans are fairly evaluated while being treated humanely.