How U.S. Latinos Became the Gatekeepers of Indigenous Central Americans
Today, Latinos are the face of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) detaining and deporting Indigenous migrants.
Indigenous Central Americans have resisted displacement of their communities despite decades of massacres and terrorism, a violence enabled by foreign entities in the U.S., Canada, and Western Europe and further perpetuated by their home country’s government. Compounding these factors are language and cultural barriers that no country in North- or Central America- will systematically address. We insist on keeping Indigenous groups the most marginalized populations in the Western Hemisphere.
For generations, Indigenous Central American populations have resisted the effects of colonization, enduring displacement, and some of the vilest human rights violations. The very descendants of Indigenous- and mestizo- groups, Latinos, who unironically tout their Indigenous background have nevertheless continued compounding the plight of Indigenous groups. Today, Latinos are the face of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) detaining and deporting Indigenous migrants.
An estimated 50% of CBP officers are Latino. One of the commonly referenced reasons being the bilingual, Spanish-speaking requirement. Ironic. Or is it?
While recruiting individuals from marginalized populations is common in imperialist societies as the feat requires large sums of people, Latinos are provided the incentive of becoming technically “white” (if not really enjoying white privilege) while also fending off the public notion that this is purely a race-based practice.
For context, the concept of “illegal” immigration didn’t exist until the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. Ultimately, it was the 1924 Immigration Act that placed a quota on immigrants based on country of origin that was proportional to the U.S. population (tilting the scales towards immigrants from Northern Europe and de facto excluding almost all others). This policy was a consequence of white supremacist propaganda: The “crisis” of growing numbers of “non-Anglo-Saxon” immigrants in the U.S. It was not until 1965 that the U.S. placed a higher numeric cap on immigrants from countries in the Americas.
In other words, the concept of illegal immigration lies in racism.
Most Central American migrants are coming from Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador, countries with a large share of Indigenous groups. For example, in 2022, CBP reported 231,000 encounters with migrants from Guatemala, a country with an estimated Indigenous population of 50%. Further evidence lies in the top 25 languages spoken among migrants, with three of them Mayan languages.
It’s essential that we understand the differences between Indigenous migrants and Latino migrants, and how immigration policies contribute to the the eradication of Indigenous groups. While both groups’ migration may be rooted in the lack of work opportunities, financial hardship, trafficking, and violence, Indigenous migrants also face compounding factors such as language barriers, forced displacement from owned land, and persecution for their cultural identity.
CBP’s deterrence practices are a continuation of the terrorist tactics used against Indigenous People over the last 50 years
Understanding the history of genocide against the Indigenous groups of Central America over the last 50 years is key to understanding the true root causes for migration. Unlike the eradication methods deployed by the Guatemalan State that devastated Indigenous communities, the methods for marginalizing Indigenous people- and migrants- today are adjusted to fit the current framework of U.S. law. Marginalization rather than outright eradication is a far more palatable approach in the U.S. since there are now relatively few Indigenous people in the U.S. (diminishing the threat they pose to white supremacy and the privileges it grants to the ruling class). Nevertheless, the treatment of Indigenous Central Americans in the U.S. is a continuation of the terrorist tactics used against them over the last five decades in their ancestral land.
In the last four years, we have witnessed CBP’s deterrence practices include encaging families without proper food, water, or medical care as many reported complaints detailed. Migrants in custody have been fatally shot by CBP officers under the legal justification of resisting, stemming from a nebulous investigation conducted by CBP itself. CBP has also removed water stations at the border, and tightened patrol around navigable regions to push migrants toward more hostile, life-threatening ones. In the last year alone, over 500 migrants have died while crossing the U.S.-Mexico border (by comparison, 1,033 people have been shot and killed by police in the entire U.S. in the same period).
Let’s look at what happened 50 years ago: During the height of the Guatemalan Civil War, the U.S.-trained Guatemalan army captured Indigenous Maya groups and forced them into overcrowded, militarized zones after years of stripping these groups of their owned land. Language and cultural differences were ignored as they were forcibly grouped in these regions, which evidently compounded their barriers to freedom. Indigenous groups in militarized zones were forbidden to cultivate land that would allow them to survive, in addition to being forced to partake in executing scorched earth methods including burning vegetation that Indigenous groups in hiding lived from, equating to hunger and malnourishment. The notorious case of Santa Maria Tzeja highlights the village that was built by Indigenous communities in one of the most hostile landscapes of Guatemala as they fled the military. Surviving years was a result of the government’s assumption that no one could survive in such a harsh atmosphere. Despite years of resilient effort to build and sustain their village, the Guatemalan army discovered it and burned it down. Over this period, many Indigenous advocates were murdered with no investigation or justice served. During this period, U.S. President Ronald Reagan touted his relationship with Guatemalan President Efrain Montt who would oversee these extermination tactics.
As capitalism evolves, so do the genocidal tactics
While violence, trafficking, and poverty are the most noted causes for immigration, these fall short of comprehensive. Climate change, diminished land rights, and extractive practices are chiefly applicable to Indigenous groups.
In Southern Mexico, Honduras, and Guatemala, Indigenous communities have faced similar hardship with respect to land ownership. In Chiapas, for example, the selective privatization of land (for extractive or commercial activities) displaces Indigenous communities who are already in a state of poverty, leaving them unable to live off the very same land that offered them sustenance. Ultimately, Indigenous groups formed paramilitary forces to fend off wealthy landowners and Mexican military. In contrast, however, the Mexican military will recruit young men in the neighboring communities who are caught in similar circumstances as Indigenous communities to suppress resistance groups.
This trend parallels one of Texas’ largest employers: CBP. It’s reported that Latino recruits join CBP for career opportunities and financial prospects, without acknowledging the dominant party- and system- that has marginalized them in the U.S. to such difficult circumstances that they should become the gatekeepers to those from their home countries (by ancestry or sometimes even by birth). This was a practice which, in fact, the U.S.-trained Guatemalan army implemented within Indigenous communities, recruiting Maya individuals with the promise of freedom from persecution should they help locate neighboring Maya communities in hiding. While the Guatemalan military gave the reason for their presence being to defend against communism, CBP’s is to defend against drugs and crime. So they say.
Under the guise of anti-communism efforts, the Guatemalan military dismantled bilingual Mayan-Spanish schools. Under the guise of defending against crime, CBP has facilitated the deaths of migrants in custody and at the U.S.-Mexico border.
Further, extractive practices by foreign corporations have frequently left rural Indigenous residents unable to cultivate land. In the Department of Alta Verapaz, for example, hydroelectric projects have left essential land flooded and useless to residents. In El Estor, a mining company polluted Guatemala’s largest freshwater lake. In the wake of protests, the police fatally shot a local Indigenous fisherman. Though these incidences have been in recent years, they are not a new trend: the 1954 Guatemalan coup led by the U.S. was a consequence to the Guatemalan government’s attempt at nationalizing land rights in addition to trying to buy land back from the United Fruit Company.
Unfortunately, when Indigenous leaders execute a successful campaign of defense against foreign- and local- entities, they’re murdered as was the case with Myrna Mack Chang in 1988, and Berta Caceras in 2016. Both women were assassinated by U.S.-trained officers.
Conclusion
Latinos became the gatekeepers to Indigenous people in the U.S. because of the anti-Indigenous sentiment that has existed in the Americas since the 1500s. The xenophobia that exists today is what makes scapegoating migrants for political pawns a palatable tactic to the U.S. public.
Violence and displacement in Central America by local- and foreign- entities has had an unprecedented devastation on Indigenous groups. Yet today, we see the pattern of marginalization and cultural erasure in CBP’s practices, ultimately meant to uphold white supremacy not just in the U.S., but across the Americas.
The reasons for Latinos joining CBP are not ironic. They are repetitive. With rising suicide rates among CBP officers, I wonder if those numbers will deter other Latinos from joining.
The root causes for immigration remain distilled into 30-second remarks among both Democratic and Republican political candidates coupled with the demand for CBP as the line of defense against gangs, drugs, and violence across the border. We rarely acknowledge how we helped create these detrimental elements in the first place, and how we currently profit from the exploitation of historically marginalized groups in Central America. We rarely acknowledge our motivation for gatekeeping at our border has little to do with crime, and more to do with race.
