3/17/21

By Amy Cohen

YOU THOUGHT MPP WAS BAD? WELCOME TO TITLE 42

Under the banner of an arcane heath code, families with small children fleeing the deadly violence of Central America are being kidnapped, raped, extorted, assaulted, murdered in some of the most dangerous cities in Mexico. Cities designated by the United States State Department as “Category 4” - places to which Americans should never ever travel due to risk of kidnapping and violence.

Sound familiar? These are the border cities of Mexico - the cities to which hundreds of thousands of migrants - those in “MPP” (the “remain in Mexico”) program - were condemned to await adjudication of their asylum claims during the Trump administration. Children regularly witnessed murdered bodies pulled from the Rio Grande. Ransom kidnappings were close to universal. Young women with their little children regularly related stories of such appalling horror that the wounds of their trauma (and, in some cases, the secondary trauma of those who heard them) will never ever heal, their children never recover.

Well, despite the relief of witnessing the rather chaotic - if partial - unwinding of the MPP program, we have nothing to celebrate. It is true that each day small numbers of MPP families are being released from this hell to finally reunite with family. But as they cross the bridges, far, far more families - most with with small children - are being marched in the other direction, toward that same hell, now in some ways even worse.

The border of the United States remains closed but nothing stops organized crime from driving Central Americans from their homes and families, their friends and jobs, their country to keep themselves and their children alive. Worldwide, criminal homicides are responsible for far more deaths than armed conflict and terrorism combined. And the Northern Triangle of Central America - Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala - is home to the countries with some of the highest murder rates in the world. El Salvador is, these days, uniformly #1 (having traded places in the past several years with Honduras). If you live in Honduras, El Salvador, or Guatemala, you are more likely to be murdered than if you live in Syria, Afghanistan, or the Congo.

So people don’t come because - as many Americans think - “everyone wants to live here”. Quite the contrary. They come despite their desperate wish to remain in their homes and communities, close to family and friends, in their jobs and businesses, where the food, the scent and breath of the air is “home”.

They come because to stay would often mean death - to them, to their children, to both. Often adults flee initially without children or with only one or a few of their children because the journey is treacherous and money is scarce. They leave their remaining children with trusted others - sometimes an aunt or uncle with whom the children have grown up - with the intention of having their children join them once it is safe.

To be a “tiny businessperson” - to own a little bodega - in one of these countries should entitle one to be a member of a “protected class”. Those who have these little subsistence businesses which just feed their families are uniformly targeted by members of organized crime syndicates, who demand ever-escalating payments of “protection money” until - finally exceeding the family’s capacity to pay - they demand that the family leave the country or face death. And ALL threats are very publicly carried out so as to make it clear that they mean what they say.

So they come with what they can on their backs. Some try to stay in Mexico but face terrible violence and discrimination. Others already have family in the United States and flee to the place that prides itself as being the “shining beacon on the hill”. They come to be safe, but this is what happens.

If they cross the border with their own children, they are forced back into Mexico. If they cross the border with minor siblings, grandchildren, nieces, nephews, those children are immediately taken from them and the adults sent back across the border. With the ending of MPP, Mexico has closed down many of the shelters and forbidden many of the supportive NGOs to provide food and other necessities to migrants. So those being expelled are left with even fewer resources than were available to those in MPP. People are starving, wandering dangerous streets, ready to be picked off by kidnappers, like the beloved uncle of two children who was forced into Mexico after border officers took the children from him and, nearly immediately snatched by kidnappers who demanded $5000 ransom from his family. Having seen evidence of the freedom of movement of criminals openly attacking and exploiting migrants in full view of police and military officials, we are now hearing of the Mexican police actually handing over families to cartel criminals. Often, these are families with small children whose terrified wailing will, the criminals know, help to squeeze even more money from terrified family members.

This terrorizing of migratns is part of a larger business plan. Because as the dangers sink in, many must make the anguished decision to pay these criminals to take their children on their own to the safety of the United States. Truly unaccompanied minors cannot currently be sent back to Mexico or to their countries of origin.

Today we received a call from a woman in Matamoros who described the manner in which the gate of the encampment (now closed) had been guarded by the local organized criminals, operating side-by-side with Mexican immigration and police officials. The criminals would demand a fee to add a family to the the list of those permitted to enter and live in the encampment. Now, with the encampment closed, these same criminals are reportedly extorting those who - hoping to be safe - have moved into rented rooms. Just as they had faced at home, these migrants are now visited with an escalating demand for “protection money”, thier lives and those of their children imperiled if they cannot pay it.

This is the fate to which we are exposing thousands and thousands of children and families - the majority of migrants fleeing Central American violence. These are refugees - statistically MORE endangered than if they lived in a country ruled by terrorists or torn by war.

And this is the “benign” administration.

Coming up: How we continue to separate and traumatize children - JUST LIKE DURING ZERO TOLERANCE.

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