The separation of migrant families: cruelty as a migration policy

The institutionalization of barbarism

In an accentuated anti-immigrant context of clear criminalization of Central Americans and Mexicans without migratory documents in their attempt to enter the US, measures on the separation of thousands of families (most of them from Central America) are the new face of the racist nationalism of the American government and its current president. This is framed within the various discriminatory strategies (such as deportations and the expansion of the border wall) with a view to "containing" and "eradicating" irregular migration from the south.

Although the violent and widespread deportations already had and have a clear xenophobic and human rights violation, the aggravating family separation is a new and more acute attack against these forced migrants. This policy is based on four discriminatory prejudices. (1) A biased and disproportionate reading of irregular migration, which went from being a minor offense to "becoming" a serious and highly punishable offense. (2) An erroneous and alarmist perception of migrants, instead of seeing them as "transgressors of the law", it should be recognized that, de facto, they are subjects exposed to conditions of vulnerability and probable aggressions; migrants are victims of adversity in their places of origin, they are not criminals. (3) A flagrant and voluntary omission of international legal frameworks that defend the rights of migrants; They particularly stress that the right to seek asylum and refuge for migrants is violated and, above all, that the right of children to be with their parents and family members is violated. (4) A migration policy that, in fact, does not base or respect many of the laws within the United States; particularly that the law did not have nor is there any regulation that establishes the division of families in an irregular migration situation; there is no legal mandate that stipulates the separation of parents and children.

Like the racial discrimination processes of nineteenth-century European colonialism and Nazi fascism, the current US president hierarchizes and excludes human groups according to their ethnic-national origin and physical appearance, and according to their interests and motivations. ideological For him, migrants are individuals who do not deserve rights, label them and stigmatize as subhuman.

Migrants, the contemporary face of exclusion and global inequality

As he has shown in an irrefutable way, the president of the United States is incapable of transcending his prejudices, only sees migrants as stigmatized subjects and scapegoats. In contrast and in reality, irregular migrants are people who were forced to leave their communities and flee their homes. The president of the United States shows absolute shortsightedness and a complete lack of human sensibility when he does not recognize who the migrants are as social subjects. It is fundamental to understand that migrants do not leave because of their own will or pleasure.

In fact, several reports from pro-migrant NGOs working in Central America and the border with Mexico (REDODEM and MSF) have documented that in recent years migrants have been forced out of three main causes. (1) Adverse economic processes, such as extreme poverty, very low salaries in the region, lack of work and unemployment. (2) The socio-environmental impacts of natural disasters, such as droughts, floods, hurricanes, etc, are also present; The repercussions of these natural events leave thousands of people homeless and without work. (3) The contexts and processes of violence, whether due to the presence of gangs (maras), organized crime and / or individuals in places of generalized violence.

Central America is one of the most violent regions in the world, recently Honduras and El Salvador had one of the highest rates of homicide worldwide and that, in Guatemala, in a post-conflict period of the civil war, there has been an increase in organized crime. If these migrants already experienced a constant denial of human rights in their homes and in the country of transit (Mexico), now with the onslaught of the US president, family separation drastically increases the grievances and violence against Central American migrants.

source : Alainet

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