Growing economic opportunities in places like San Pedro Sula, Honduras, are one method of solving the complex problem of migration from the countries of the Northern Triangle of Central America. Photo: Trevor Williams
In the midst of yet another crisis of unaccompanied minors arriving in large numbers on the US southern border, politicians find it easy to inform one another about what has become a simple wedge problem.
But when decades of successive administrations and failed approaches have produced something, it will not be quick or easy to fix the “root causes” of emigration from Central America in order to borrow the term du jour.
Georgia corporations and nonprofits tried to be part of the solution. You’ve worked for decades in a region where news coverage has become a nuisance to the U.S., but provides cultural and economic richness to those productively involved, experts told Global Atlanta’s Latin American Crossroads conversation in early May.
Much of the attention has turned to the so-called Northern Triangle countries of El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, which are summarized in an abbreviation that tends to express their differences in recognizing their common challenges of governance, corruption, drug trafficking and legacies to disguise war.
Watch the full conversation:
President Joe Biden tasked Vice President Kamala Harris with addressing the problem, ironically taking up some of the same solutions that he was in the same role under the Obama Administration – Funding to support civil society organizations, billboards to encourage people to stay home, and efforts to drive economic growth.
The Trump administration ditched these approaches, adopting a tougher stance that focused on building a physical wall and forcing Central American asylum seekers to “stay in Mexico” while their applications were processed – a signature Trump policy that Mr Biden just finished earlier this month. said Charles Kuck, founding attorney at Kuck Baxter Immigration, who co-sponsored the Transforming the Triangle event with the series sponsor Emory Executive Education at Emory’s Goizueta Business School.
While Trump’s family segregation policies have been condemned as cruel and poorly executed by activists, the idea of arresting migrant children is not new, and the complex origins of the problem are not easy to blame.
“Everyone put children in cages because they didn’t know how to handle it, but initially didn’t understand exactly why it happened. Once (the Obama administration) found out that they had a plan and the plan worked, the Trump administration ended that plan and started building a wall. She thought a wall would keep people away, which it obviously isn’t. Said Mr. Kuck.
One issue is the temporary protection status, which was enacted in the 1990s following the disastrous effects of Hurricane Mitch, which allowed some Hondurans to make life in the United States while legally traveling back and forth. Now many of her Honduran born children ages 13-15 are heading north as caretakers die and pressures such as violence and criminal gangs increase.
But Trump’s policies made matters worse, said Mr. Kuck. It ended an Obama-era rule that gave refugee quotas to children from Honduras who enjoy temporary protection, and was then developed as a guideline encouraging parents trapped in Mexico to send children unsupervised.
“If you send your children over on their own, they will take the children with you. Many of you have seen the movie ‘Sophie’s Choice’ – this is Sophie’s Choice. What are you going to do? Living in a tent in Mexico, where it is fundamentally guaranteed to be kidnapped and released? “Mr. Kuck said during the event.
A lesser-known culprit for migration is climate change, which has exacerbated long-standing economic trends in countries like Guatemala, said JT Way, history professor at Georgia State University and author of “Agrotropolis: Youth, Street, and Nation in the New City” Guatemala . “
Two hurricanes that hit Honduras last year, as well as the economic uncertainty of the pandemic, drove the northward movement. In Guatemala, even before today’s crippling drought that made subsistence farming even less attractive, the intrusion of large export-oriented farms, the slicing of family properties, and other trends drove urbanization, even though many people have maintained ties to the land. An “upper lower class” of farmers has emerged who have been tasked with growing cash crops. They send their children to school in the cities and further detach them from the countryside, said Dr. Way.
“There is work for some of them. But for most of them there just aren’t any jobs. And so, these are these villagers, many of them migrating to the United States in a flood, to the point where remittances are the second largest source of foreign currency in Guatemala. And arguably most of the development is paid for in money transfers, so it becomes an endless kind of feedback loop, ”said Dr. Way.
He also blamed a decades-long trend of government decentralization, promoted by aid groups, local activists, and foreign benefactors alike, which has failed by creating small fiefdoms across the country.
“The problem lies in a weak new democracy, torn by the wounds of war and all the vengeance that goes with it, and which is permeated by organized crime of all kinds. It has made city government a seat of corruption, transplant and violence in a way that I can’t imagine anyone, but that’s a major driver, ”said Dr. Way.
This so-called “narco governance” can be a factor in asylum cases, said Kuck. While governments are required under international law to weigh the claims of those who fear returning to their countries, successful cases under US law depend on the ability to prove persecution based on religion, politics, or membership of a particular social group . As gangs increasingly control the apparatus of local government, some asylum seekers may have legitimate claims that they are being targeted for their political views.
In some cases, countries that have made progress are now seen as relapsing. Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez is charged (not yet charged) with being linked to organized crime while El Salvador is populist president Here is a look, recently driven by law removing constitutional judges from the country’s Supreme Court.
This has jeopardized the stability of business operations in a country where YKK, the Japanese-owned zippered multinational company that operates its American business from Metro Atlanta, has achieved great success.
“I can talk to you about the revolution, I can talk about the dangers of kidnapping and the fear of gangs and embezzlement and all these tropes,” said Jim Reed, president of YKK Corp. of America. “One thing that we should really focus on is that our operations in Central America continue to be very good investments with high profits. It’s a smart business move. ”
Corporations, he said, can give people a reason to stay by working to the highest standards and getting deeply involved in their communities. in the San Salvador, Where YKK has been operating since the 1970s, it meant providing a local doctor, school supplies for working-class children, a subsidized lunch, and practical measures like adjusting shift times so people don’t go home in the dark.
“One of the best things a company can do is operate down there. And if you can offer a fair wage, people won’t migrate. They provide this stability. If you focus on compliance and honesty and don’t falter, you set an example and you can create a culture, ”Reed said.
Fund and hope for other raw materials in short supply in rural Central American communities, said John Burrough, a former NFL player who now runs HOI, formerly known as Honduras Outreach International.
The organization has a working ranch in northeast Olancho that has housed hundreds of volunteer mission workers from the United States over the years. But it also offers structured programs in hundreds of communities that focus on economic and spiritual empowerment and work with businesses and, yes, the government where possible.
To “cement” hope in the region, Burrough said during the panel discussion, organizations need to have a holistic view of personal development, addressing poverty not only in a material sense, but also in terms of relationships, identity and community membership. Migration occurs when the opportunity seems open.
“This is just a symptom of a much deeper problem going on in the Northern Triangle. When hope is absent, when hope is far, you cannot see a brighter future. The desperation will set in with the families … and when the despair sets in, the despair will take root and people will make really difficult choices when they live in such an environment, ”he said. That said, money is a big part of the equation, which is why HOI works on community finance networks and growing micro-businesses in Honduras.
Equally important is building entrepreneurs and contributing to the growth of innovation ecosystems in each country, said Monica Novoa, research faculty and program manager of the Laboratory for Economic Development at Georgia Tech’s Enterprise Innovation Institute.
EI2, as the institute is known, has welcomed more than 20 Central American entrepreneurs through the U.S. Department of State-sponsored La Idea Business Incubator program and also offers the Soft Landings program to help overseas businesses decide whether and so how they should break into the US market.
“Building entrepreneurial capacity locally is so important because entrepreneurs in Central America have potential,” said Ms. Novoa, a Venezuela Studies show that investors are seeing promising results from the region’s businessmen. “But they need the entrepreneurial skills and financial training. You need the mindset to think globally because every country in Central America is a very small market. If they can solve a problem that has a global reach, they can be integrated into the supply chain and grow and have a stronger ecosystem in the area. ”
