What’s the real ‘root cause’ of Central American migration? The US.
There’s a lot of chatter about the ‘root causes’ of Central American migration in the US, asking the important question—why do people migrate? Is it in search of jobs? To reunite with family? To seek safety from violence / climate disasters / oppression?
Who is responsible for making people migrate? Is it bad for economies? Corrupt government officials? Bad legislation? Gang violence?
This article will explore the three most common root causes: 1) poverty, 2) violence, and 3) gangs, and show how the cause of these root causes is much closer home than we may think.
Looking behind root causes
Before we start, there are two considerations to frame our understanding of root causes, policies and research.
First, hidden in all discussions on root causes is the belief that migration is a problem. Migration is the movement of people for many reasons, and has been happening since the beginning of humankind. Migration is and has always been normal. What is new is the belief that migration is a problem. Sure, in our modern era, migration requires paperwork, expenses, visas, etc. But that doesn’t make migrants a problem. It’s only when we (falsely) believe that migrants are a security risk that we believe migration is anything worse than bureaucratic formalities.
Migration experts call this the security-migration nexus: that the movement of people across borders has become persistently linked with crime and terrorism fears. Migrants, as a result, have become unquestioningly and unjustly labeled as criminals — especially when data shows that migrants are half as likely than citizens to commit crimes.
A second consideration is the hidden classist and racist tones in root causes discourse. Root causes are always about migrants from the Global South to the Global North. You don’t hear about Mexico passing root causes policies to investigate why American ‘expats’ or ‘nomads’ relocate south. Migrants fleeing ‘root causes’ are believed to be poor, non-white, unskilled, and non-English speaking.
Recent root causes strategies
On 2nd February 2021, newly elected President Biden signed an executive order calling for the development of a ‘Root Causes Strategy’ to address migration from Central America to the U.S. southern border. But this wasn’t the first time the US addressed root causes — from funding to assist unaccompanied children in 2014, to cuts under Trump, and returned funding to assist CBP at the end of Title 42, the US has invested a lot in the ‘root causes’ to the south.
In its policies, the US has focused on three ‘root causes’: poverty, violence, and gangs.
Root causes: poverty & violence
The 1970's and 1980's were tumultuous in Central America, as civil wars and communist revolutions erupted in Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, and Nicaragua. Anxious of growing communist movements to its south, the U.S. was quick to provide economic and military support to the anti-communist groups.
Nicaragua’s instability was seen as an opportunity, and the Reagan administration threw their weight against the Sandinista party, having the U.S. military and C.I.A. train and arm Nicaraguan expats into what became known as the ‘Contras’. Under the guise of protecting American “political and economic interests in Nicaragua and to check the spread of revolutionary socialism in Central America”, this American proxy army caused wide destabilization, escalating in widespread displacement. Expert Douglas S. Massey explains:
During the 1980s, the U.S. government provided aid to right-wing regimes in El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras, to train, fund, and support military units and paramilitary death squads in to suppress popular opposition in these countries, while also funding, training, and arming an army of ‘Contras’ to fight the Sandinistas in Nicaragua itself. In the wake of this intervention legal violence surged, claiming hundreds of thousands of lives and destroying the region’s economy.
The GDP per capita in Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, and Nicaragua fell and did not recover to their pre-intervention levels until 2011. Homicide rates in those same four countries stands at 53.9 per one hundred thousand, compared to 11.9 in neighboring counties that did not experience similar U.S.-backed Contra violence (Belize, Costa Rica, and Panama).
Migration to the US
After US intervention in the Sandinista conflict, emigration accelerated from Central America, but:
not because of direct exposure to violence but because of a broader feeling of vulnerability owing to the systematic destabilization of the Sandinista government and Nicaraguan society generally by the US-backed incursion.
Even after U.S. intervention came to an end in the 1990s, Nicaraguans largely chose to remain North because the political and economic conditions have remained unstable since.
Root cause: gangs
Central Americans displaced by the instability emigrated north to the U.S., where, undocumented, some “found solace and support in gangs…When undocumented gang members were later apprehended and deported, gang violence was exported back to El Salvador and transnational gang networks were created”.
Political rhetoric often condemns Central American gang violence for influencing the US, when the reality is the exact opposite.
Nicaraguans who emigrate to the U.S. today are more likely to be “the sons and daughters, nieces, and nephews of undocumented migrants who left during the 1980s…to reunite with family members in the U.S. or to escape gang violence and economic turmoil at home”.
Why understanding the US’s role in root causes matters
Root causes strategies can be a force for good, but the problem is that they are often done for the wrong reasons. Root causes are not simply humanitarian development funding, but instead policies to prevent Global South migrants from reaching the borders of the Global North. Don’t believe me? Skim through the 20 page US Strategy for Addressing the Root Causes of Migration in Central America. Here are a few highlights:
“The strength and security of the United States depends on the implementation of strategies like this one.” — Cover letter by VP Harris, pg. 2
The cover letter states that the root causes strategy is being done to protect the strength and security of the US, thus depicting migration and migrants as a dangerous problem to be solved.
The strategy is “to build hope for citizens in the region that the life they desire can be found at home.” — pg. 4
The ‘desired end state’ of the root causes strategy is so that people can:
“enjoy opportunities to create futures for themselves and their families at home.” — pg. 5
This is not a call to end root causes funding, but rather that it must not be done with the sole intention of ending migration. Especially in regards to Central America, where the US has a moral responsibility to assist in redevelopment following the devastation caused by its economic and military intervention.
Some of the most pressing ‘root causes’ displacing people today were caused by the US, but yet when people flee poverty, violence, and gangs today, the US responds by detaining, deporting, or closing the borders on them. The US responds to these humanitarian migrants as if they are a dangerous security problem.
Migration expert Douglas S. Massey explains:
we observe a stark policy mismatch being perpetuated by U.S. immigration authorities, who persist in treating what is essentially a humanitarian problem as an enforcement issue requiring the application of ever more repressive actions along the border. In pursuing this policy, the United States ignores its moral responsibility for the horrendous conditions that now prevail in Central America.
Labeling migrants as security threats for fleeing causes that the US caused is ignoring the moral responsibility that the country has for the ongoing destruction caused by US interventions.
Root causes funding is owed—but as reparation, not to keep migrants away.
