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A migrant caravan in Central America.
As the Biden Administration seeks to resolve the causes of migration from Central America, migrants are finding a new militarized response as they seek refuge in the United States.
“The objective is to make it more difficult to make the journey, and make crossing the borders more more difficult,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said in a press conference on April 12. “We worked with them [the governments of Mexico, Guatemala, and Honduras] to increase law enforcement at the border to deter the travel, which is a treacherous journey . . . where many lose their lives.”
This militarization has pushed migrants into taking more dangerous routes in the hopes of entering the United States.
This announcement was quickly walked back days later by Northern Triangle Special Envoy Ricardo Zuniga, who told the House Foreign Affairs Western Hemisphere Subcommittee that there were no new agreements to militarize the borders of Mexico, Guatemala, and Honduras. Guatemalan officials quickly issued a statement that they had not signed any agreement related to the deployment of soldiers on their borders, and that the deployment of soldiers was only temporary.
Yet despite the assurance that there are no agreements, the countries of the region are indeed quickly militarizing their borders to stem migration to the United States. The 2018 creation of a new Mexican National Guard, which combined elements of the Mexican Federal Police with the military, escalated a war that has been going on for decades against migrants, creating a militarized focus on migratory routes.
“We have never seen this before,” Fernando García, the executive director of the El Paso, Texas, based Border Network for Human Rights, tells The Progressive. “We had seen militarization for many purposes in the past, but never a whole quasi-military force to go after immigrants.”
The dangers migrants face in Mexico and further south in the region are highlighted by the history of militarization along the U.S. border with Mexico, which has been going on for decades. This militarization includes the use of new technologies, including sensors and drones, mixed with security forces.
“There is a war mentality at the border,” García says. “When you look at how much money is spent on the border, this would make the U.S./Mexico border one of the most militarized borders in the world.”
This militarization has pushed migrants into taking more dangerous routes in the hopes of entering the United States.
“The toll is very high,” García says. “We are clearly connecting migrants dying at the border with these border operations.”
He adds, “Immigrants are being diverted into more isolated and unpopulated regions in the desert and in the mountains where they are dying. [The United States] is using military tactics to deter immigrants from crossing the border.”
A 2021 report by the University of Arizona also found that migrants were taking longer, more dangerous routes in hope of avoiding detection when entering the United States. At least 7,000 migrants have died trying to enter the United States through the Arizona border since 1998, with more than 200 known deaths in 2020 alone.
Two recent events further highlight this human rights crisis. On May 2, a boat carrying migrants attempting to enter the country capsized near San Diego, California, leaving four people dead and others injured. A few months earlier, in January, nineteen migrants and their guides were massacred by Mexican Police in a remote part of the northern State of Tamaulipas, Mexico, near the border with the United States. The massacre is the worst to occur since 2010, when seventy-two migrants were killed by members of the Zeta [Drug] Cartel in the same state.
Now a militarized wall is being constructed to stop migrants from reaching the United States. This militarization is creating a low-intensity war against migrants, turning them into an external enemy to U.S. national security.
“The experience of the United States/Mexico border was transferred to the Mexico/Guatemala border,” García says. “That history of militarization, that history of impunity, the history of enforcement-only mentality was transferred to Mexico.”
In March, Mexico announced the deployment of 10,000 National Guard troops, along with members of the Mexican military, to the country’s southern border with Guatemala. The announcement came as rumors of another caravan of Honduran migrants and asylum seekers circulated on social media and in the news.
“I predict that we will see more Central Americans dying at the Mexico/Guatemala border. It is what already happened at the U.S.-Mexico border. Now people are going to start going through the jungles and oceans to not go through the highways.”
The soldiers remained even though the caravan was dismantled prior to reaching the Guatemalan border with Honduras. Mexico has maintained the closure of their border with Guatemala for non-essential travel ever since. Though, according to Enrique Vidal, who works with the Tapachula-based human rights organization Fray Matias de Cordova, the once-busy crossing along the Suchiate River for vendors remains normal.
The militarization of the border between Guatemala and Mexico is now shifting routes that migrants take, placing themselves at risk. While the Suchiate river remains constant for those living along the border, the crossing is now avoided by migrants.
“There are historical statistics for the number of people requesting asylum between January and March 2021,” Vidal tells The Progressive. “These people are crossing in other points that are more invisible, where the most violence is occurring.”
Vidal notes that Fray Matias de Cordova is unable to carry out human rights monitoring at these crossing points due to the activity of local criminal groups.
As I have written previously, the militarization of the borders in the region has expanded further south. In October 2020 and January 2021, Guatemala utilized military and police forces to dismantle caravans from Honduras. The security forces used wooden poles and tear gas against the migrants.
Migration through Central America continues to be a perceived threat to the national security of the United States during the Biden Administration.
During the April meeting between Vice President Kamala Harris and Guatemalan President Alejandro Giammattei, Harris announced that the United States would be funding and training a border security task force in Guatemala. Harris promised that the increase in aid would help “manage migration in an effective, secure, and humane manner.”
But the experience at the U.S. border with Mexico creates fears that the further expansion of militarization of the region will only lead to more deaths.
“I predict that we will see more Central Americans dying at the Mexico/Guatemala border,” Garcia says. “It is what already happened at the U.S.-Mexico border. Now people are going to start going through the jungles and oceans to not go through the highways.”
“This is big business for traffickers and smugglers,” he adds.
The measures now being employed are having a direct impact on migrants, who have seen the price of guides, known as coyotes, to lead them to the United States skyrocket in the past decade.
“The costs for coyotes, the time of travel, and the violence they are exposed to are rising,” Vidal says. “And the Coyotes not connected to organized crime have almost disappeared.”
Previously, migrants could use family members or neighbors to guide them to the United States. These coyotes worked for decades guiding internal and external migration for those in search of work.
“The Coyote figure was born from the community or within the family where the person with the most experience offered to explain the route during their travel,” Vidal explains. “It arises as a community strategy to teach and pass on the knowledge of the experience of migrations, and to promote a safe and secure migration, thinking about the security of people. The coyote was someone of confidence, someone known.”
As Vidal sees it, the increased measures against migrants have led to the emergence of criminal groups that control routes. “[Coyotes are] converted into criminals,” he says. “This opens them up to organized crime.”
All of these measures mean that migrants are at even greater risk as they attempt to reach safety in the United States.