We've been here before, haven't we?
For the last thirty years, the United States has made it increasingly difficult for migrants to cross its southern border with Mexico. We have added thousands of border patrol agents, miles of walls, surveillance technology including drones, and laws that criminalize humanitarian action along the border.
As a result, it is not surprising that the journey across our southern border with Mexico has become more dangerous and expensive for migrants seeking to come to the US to find work, connect with family, and escape the violence which often plagues their home communities. To take advantage of the more difficult migratory conditions, what used to be routes run by your friendly neighborhood coyote are now frequently controlled by organized crime.
For the last two-plus years, the US and Mexican governments have added resources to Mexico's southern border with Guatemala. Stop them at Mexico's southern border rather than its northern border. Similar to what occurred after the US emphasized security along its southern border with Mexico, the southern border of Mexico with Guatemala is becoming increasing difficult and costly for migrants from Central and South America and elsewhere in the world to traverse. Robbery, rape, and assorted assaults have become more common along the border and in southern Mexico more generally.
As a result, migrants and refugees are seeking alternative ways through southern Mexico. Nina Lakhani for The Guardian argues that Central Americans have now taken to the Pacific coast to bypass parts of southern Mexico. These routes are perceived to be less dangerous than land crossings. However, travelers are now exposed to the dangerous currents of the Pacific. There have been several recognized deaths of migrants along the coast but it is probably impossible to know the true number of people who have died making the crossing.
The reporting seems to indicate that as of today, migrant trafficking networks are run by fishermen as more of a side business. If that is true, it is only a matter of time before organized crime moves in to take over the coastal trafficking routes.
Back in the 1970s and 1980s, drugs and weapons would go back and forth between the United States and Central America via light aircraft and the Caribbean Sea. The 1990s and early 2000s saw the US crackdown on air and maritime trafficking routes. That, of course, led to an increase in land trafficking which many of us believe contributed to the escalation of violence in Central America and Mexico beginning in the first decade of the twenty-first century. Now we're are about to come full circle with increased enforcement and violence causing migrants and traffickers to return to the sea, perhaps more the Pacific and the Atlantic this time.
Progress.
As a result, it is not surprising that the journey across our southern border with Mexico has become more dangerous and expensive for migrants seeking to come to the US to find work, connect with family, and escape the violence which often plagues their home communities. To take advantage of the more difficult migratory conditions, what used to be routes run by your friendly neighborhood coyote are now frequently controlled by organized crime.
For the last two-plus years, the US and Mexican governments have added resources to Mexico's southern border with Guatemala. Stop them at Mexico's southern border rather than its northern border. Similar to what occurred after the US emphasized security along its southern border with Mexico, the southern border of Mexico with Guatemala is becoming increasing difficult and costly for migrants from Central and South America and elsewhere in the world to traverse. Robbery, rape, and assorted assaults have become more common along the border and in southern Mexico more generally.
As a result, migrants and refugees are seeking alternative ways through southern Mexico. Nina Lakhani for The Guardian argues that Central Americans have now taken to the Pacific coast to bypass parts of southern Mexico. These routes are perceived to be less dangerous than land crossings. However, travelers are now exposed to the dangerous currents of the Pacific. There have been several recognized deaths of migrants along the coast but it is probably impossible to know the true number of people who have died making the crossing.
The reporting seems to indicate that as of today, migrant trafficking networks are run by fishermen as more of a side business. If that is true, it is only a matter of time before organized crime moves in to take over the coastal trafficking routes.
Back in the 1970s and 1980s, drugs and weapons would go back and forth between the United States and Central America via light aircraft and the Caribbean Sea. The 1990s and early 2000s saw the US crackdown on air and maritime trafficking routes. That, of course, led to an increase in land trafficking which many of us believe contributed to the escalation of violence in Central America and Mexico beginning in the first decade of the twenty-first century. Now we're are about to come full circle with increased enforcement and violence causing migrants and traffickers to return to the sea, perhaps more the Pacific and the Atlantic this time.
Progress.
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