EL PASO - Poverty, food insecurity, gang violence, and weather-related disasters are root causes for continued mass migration to the United States, a trend now compounded by the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a report released Monday by Hope Border Institute.
Further, the migration is not expected to slow down anytime soon, and may in fact, keep rising as conditions worsen throughout Latin America, particularly in Central America and Mexico, which surprisingly, showed a dramatic increase of “internally displaced” Mexican migrants due to violence that’s pushing people out of key states like Michoacan, Guerrero and Guanajuato.
The report, No Queda de Otra (There’s No Other Choice): An Exploration of the Root Causes of Migration to the Southern Border. The report surveyed 51 people over a two-month period in three different migrant shelters in Ciudad Juarez, across from El Paso.
As the Biden administration faces criticism for its border and migration policies from all sides, this study provides a first-hand account of the migrants, seeking to explain their determination to reach the United States.
Among the findings: About 60% of those surveyed migrated as part of a family. And about 60% were internally displaced in their country of origin before attempting to migrate to the US.
The report, Hollandbyrd added, will be shared with Vice President Kamala Harris, who’s been charged with studying root causes, said Hannah Hollandbyrd, author of the report and policy specialist at the Hope Border Institute, a non-profit organization that advocates on behalf of migrants and asylum seekers.
“I think the Biden administration needs to understand that deterrence is not a solution,” Hollandbyrd said “And root causes will require a big investment of effort, but it’s not compatible with a deterrent approach. We need a coherent migration policy approach that focuses on why people are leaving rather than criminalizing them once they’ve already taken that step.”
While in recent years, attention has been focused mostly migration from Central America, Mexicans fleeing violence has often been overlooked, Hollandbyrd said.
“For the Mexicans we interviewed, migration was mostly tied to extortion and violence,” she said “For Central Americans, there was more a diversity of causes. A lot of people mentioned poverty and just not having access to basic needs like health care, food, lack of work, and climate change.
“A lot of Central Americans lost homes, businesses, crops during natural disasters, like hurricanes. The pandemic only added layers of insecurity on top of the situations that they’re already experiencing. The pandemic for these people already on the edge, this was the final straw.”
Another key conclusion, she added, was for people experiencing violence, particularly women and the LGBT community, “was the lack of government protection. The government was completely absent in their lives.”
Overall, Hollandbyrd added, while “we interviewed people at these shelters, there were many, many more and it was clear that with these push factors in place, it’s inevitable that more people will be forced to migrate.”
The report outlines a series of recommendations that include rebuilding the U.S. asylum process and bolstering legal paths for Central American migration; supporting local efforts by members of civil society to hold governments accountable; expanding visas for family reunification and creating apprenticeship, work and study visas for young Central Americans while simultaneously partnering up with key sectors of the private sector to provide opportunities for them.
The report, released during a webinar Monday, also featured expert testimony from two researchers, Ursula Roldán Andrade, a researcher and coordinator at the Institute for Migration Research and Policy Management at the Rafael Landívar University in Guatemala, and Sister Nyzelle Juliana Dondé in Honduras. She is the coordinator for the Pastoral de la Movilidad Humana, the Honduran bishops’ migrant ministry.
“Change,” said Juliana, about climate change, “will require change from civil society from the ground up.” She pointed to a lack of basic needs provided by the government in migrants’ homelands, like water and sanitation. “So you need education that begins at an early age. Until we create an ecological understanding at an early age, it will be very difficult to make the change.”
Roldán added, “We all know the great polluters are the big developed countries. However, our own countries in Latin America and specifically Guatemala, where I live, we need to educate our own government and the general population about the risk we face globally.”
While the report underscores the challenges and reasons why migrants are forced to flee, at least one story captures the timeless essence of migrating: To follow a dream.
Such is the story of Yenis, a 41-year-old from Camaguey, Cuba. He was raised on a farm by his mother. He loved bull rings and rodeos. To follow his dream, he migrated first to the Mexican city of Saltillo, Coahuila, followed by Ciudad Juarez. He now wants to go to Tampa, Florida where he has a friend connected to the rodeo scene.
His story, writes Hollandbyrd, is a “reminder that wanting to expand one’s horizon, hone life skills and try something new is a migratory experience that should be honored and made possible by legal pathways apart from asylum.”
