The mass exodus of children from Central America into the United States offers the perfect metaphor for the relationship between the two regions, with the United States taking on the role of the reluctant caregiver and Latin America playing the petulant child. The policies enacted in relation to Latin America, as well as the media coverage of events transpiring within the region, have been consistent with this approach.
When over 57,000 migrant youth sought asylum in the US this past May, the influx was portrayed as a problem occurring seemingly out of nowhere, the result of the kind of violence one would expect from a nation like Honduras (which is now being regarded as a failed state). What is carefully left out of the national dialogue is the role of the United States in dismantling the Honduran government, funding a military coup in 2009 that deposed President Manuel Zelaya and paved the way for the violent regime of gangs and drug trafficking that has made Honduras the murder capital of the world.
Juan Orlando Hernández, the new president inaugurated in January, was himself involved in the military coup. He has constructed a platform based on ideas of a highly militarized state, despite the fact that the Honduran military has itself been tried for corruption and human rights violations. Combined with the economically crippling affects of the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA), Hondurans have been left with poverty, violence and a steadily mounting death rate.
As stated by Dana Frank, professor of History at UCSB and an expert on U.S policies in Honduras, “Poverty doesn’t just happen. It, itself, is a direct result of policies of both the Honduran government and the U.S. government, including privatizations, mass layoffs of government workers and a new law that breaks up full-time jobs and makes them part-time and ineligible for unionization, living wage and the National Health Service.” When we are faced with thousands of children that have been left with no options, it is because the US has had a hand in taking them away.
Given that this recent influx consists almost entirely of children, we are met with a somewhat unique situation: these children are refugees, fleeing the kind of conditions that are reminiscent of a warzone. Children that have trickled into the US come bearing stories of forced drug trafficking, rape, mutilation and street executions occurring several times a week. These are not immigrants that are coming here in search of a job and a better life (a category of people much easier to scapegoat and hate). These are children, and as such, they are the one group that should garner compassion from every side of the political spectrum.
However, they are consistently referred to as “illegal immigrants” rather than “refugees,” despite overwhelming international laws and evidence that classify them as legally in need of asylum. This is no accident- refugees cannot be turned away, but immigrants can be deemed illegal and speedily deported. In the United States, the term “immigrant” has long been laden with a heavy connotation, invoking rage and indignation from people who believe immigrants are taking their jobs and burdening the economy.
An easy scapegoat for politicians and corporations alike, immigrants can be used to deflect the social unrest that emanates from corporate policies such as outsourcing, fragmenting the workforce along racial lines and preventing popular mobilization against the corporations and faulty government regulations that are the true source of social ill. Labeling children that are fleeing violence as “immigrants” rather than “refugees” justifies a course of action that overrides due process and deports them back into a nation that the U.S. itself has destabilized.
We have a humanitarian obligation to accept these children into the United States, and a social responsibility to the nations we have repeatedly undermined and subverted. As a nation that derives its very origins from “illegal immigrants,” it is time we stop lamenting over fickle constructs of citizenship and open our borders to the human beings that are, quite literally, being sentenced to death.
BOTH PARTIES ARE LYING TO YOU, BACKED UP BY THE MAINSTREAM PRESS THAT ARE EITHER ORIENTED TOWARDS THE HARD-CORE LEFT OR THE EXTREME REPUBLICAN RIGHT AND THERE SPECIAL INTERESTS. THE SPLINTERING NATIONAL TEA PARTY WANTS THE REAL SECURE 700 MILES, DOUBLE LAYER FENCING AND STRICT ENFORCEMENT AT THE BORDERS AND ICE INTERNALLY?
So why did President Obama hold off issuing some form of backdoor amnesty for 8-10 million illegal aliens? The reasons being it would have massive negative effects on Democratic incumbents, as the reality is American taxpayers are strongly against another kind of immigration reform?
IF YOU ARE DISTURBED ABOUT YOUR COUNTRY UNDER OBAMA IMPERIAL RULE AND HIS PAWNS check this site that has the phone Numbers and Mailing Addresses of Members of Congress at: http://www.contactingthecongress/ to stipulate an end to illegal immigration, the dismantling of our laws, sovereignty, citizen rights and even our military is being cut back, which we frantically need for protection against our enemies foreign an domestic. Illegal Immigration is rapidly becoming the top precedence for Americans, because they see its impact on the barren economy and lost jobs. Large corporations and big business are laying-off birthright, naturalized citizens and green card holders, making an avenue for lower paid illegal aliens. This is the number for the central switchboard for every member of Congress to address your objections at 800-224-3121.Time is imperative for American taxpayers to do something. There are many organized groups, such as the rapidly growing National branches of the TEA PARTY; such as NumbersUSA. These pro-sovereignty entities main concern is to stop the illegal immigration invasion. This country is being colonized by people who don’t speak English and with no intentions of becoming American. What they are doing is feeding financially of the rest of us.
They were actually blaming seniors for causing such dramatic rises in teen unemployment. Most of the statistics are publicized by the labor Department, which can never be expected to tell the truth from any agency. Although their maybe some credence that many Seniors have returned to the work place; no facts can deny that Social Security payments or retirement benefits have remained the same, when the dollar is losing its value and inflation is showing its ugly head. Even so the larger proportion for any working taxpayers, Obama’ is playing along with pressure from radical groups as ‘La Raza’, his cronies and other special interests to restrain from a 100 percent deportation. In fact he is stealthily releasing illegal alien criminals back into the population. Among those millions of illegal aliens are scores of convicted criminals and felons—people of the worst kind including murderers, rapists, pedophiles, and drug dealers. Of course if you want to believe the rampant propaganda that senior citizens and not illegal immigration are hitting teenager job search hard. With the rise of minimum wages by the Feds it has made it easier for many companies to hire illegal aliens, because there are no federal controls on immigrations.
Actually, Professors from Rutgers and Howard Universities has denied claims by the high-tech industry that more guest labor is needed due to a shortage of Science, Engineering, Technology and Mathematics (STEM) workers and said the industry’s craving for cheap foreign guest workers is cutting off the “upward mobility to the middle class, especially for so many of the working class kids.”
The entire cost over this first generation of immigrants is estimated at a staggering $6.3 trillion in terms of total lifetime government welfare benefits over and above the taxes the immigrants will pay in http://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffreydorfman/2014/08/14/comprehensive-immigration-reform-is-a-balance-of-compassion-versus-cost/
More than 30% of the nation’s welfare recipients are Californians – even though California has just 12% of the nation’s population. It is not surprising, therefore, that California is ranked number one in poverty. California taxes are 42% higher than Texas. The Southwest are also suffering from a 3 year drought water shortage! http://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasdelbeccaro/2014/08/19/calfiornias-economic-collision-course-immigration-and-water/