Goodman writes: "How is the U.S. paying Mexico to stop migrants from coming
north?"
(photo: Nathaniel Parish Flannery/Fusion)
Outsourcing a Refugee Crisis: US Paid Mexico Millions to Target Central
Americans Fleeing Violence
By Amy Goodman, Democracy Now!
14 October 15
As immigration has become a key issue on the campaign trail, we look at a
startling new report that finds "the United States has outsourced a refugee
problem to Mexico that is similar to the refugee crisis now roiling Europe."
In her New York Times opinion piece, "The Refugees at Our Door," Pulitzer
Prize-winning journalist Sonia Nazario describes how the Obama
administration is paying the Mexican government to keep people from reaching
the U.S. borderpeople who often have legitimate asylum claims. We speak to
Nazario about the harrowing stories she heard from Central American refugees
in shelters in southern Mexico.
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: As Democratic presidential candidates kick off the first debate
of the 2016 presidential race tonight, the issue of immigration has emerged
as a key issue on the campaign trail. On Thursday, Hillary Clinton addressed
the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institutes 38th Annual Awards Gala and
called for a more humane immigration policy. She also denounced what she
called the "ugly" anti-immigrant rhetoric coming from Republican
presidential candidates.
HILLARY CLINTON: Its a problem when a leading Republican candidate for
president says that immigrants from Mexico are rapists and drug dealers.
Its a problem when candidates use offensive terms like "anchor babies" or
even talk about changing the Constitution to take citizenship away from
those who were born here. We need people who will stand up to this ugly
rhetoric and extreme thinking, who will saywho will say with our words and
our actions, "Basta! Enough! End this!"
AMY GOODMAN: Earlier this year, Democratic presidential hopeful Bernie
Sanders called for comprehensive immigration reform. This is Sanders
addressing the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed
Officials conference in Las Vegas.
SEN. BERNIE SANDERS: It is not acceptable to me, and, I think, a growing
majority of the American people, that millions of folks in this country are
working extremely hard, but they are living in the shadows. And that has got
to end. ... Despite the essential role that undocumented workers play in our
economy and in our daily lives, these workers are too often reviled by many
for political gain and shunted into the shadows. Let me be very clear as to
where I stand: It is time for this disgraceful situation to end.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, we turn now to a startling new report that examines
Americas broken immigration system, called "The Refugees at Our Door," just
published in The New York Times by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Sonia
Nazario. The article suggests the Obama administration is paying the Mexican
government to keep people from reaching the U.S. borderpeople who often
have legitimate asylum claims, and once deterred in their journey, often
left to die.
Nazario writes, quote, "In the past 15 months, at the request of President
Obama, Mexico has carried out a ferocious crackdown on refugees fleeing
violence in Central America. The United States has given Mexico tens of
millions of dollars for the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30 to stop these
migrants from reaching the United States border to claim asylum. Essentially
the United States has outsourced a refugee problem to Mexico that is similar
to the refugee crisis now roiling Europe."
Well, for more, we go to Los Angeles, where were joined by Sonia Nazario.
She is the author of Enriques Journey: The Story of a Boys Dangerous
Odyssey to Reunite with His Mother.
Sonia Nazario, welcome back to Democracy Now!
SONIA NAZARIO: Thank you.
AMY GOODMAN: Explain what you found. How is the U.S. paying Mexico to stop
migrants from coming north?
SONIA NAZARIO: Well, were doing the exact opposite of what Germany is
doing. And, you know, I should say that I think we can have a debate about
what should be done about economic migrants, people who come here for a
better life, but with refugees, that is someone who is being persecuted, and
they are fleeing for their lives. And in Germany, weve seen these emotional
images of the German people and Angela Merkel opening their doors, welcoming
them at train stations. And what we are doing as a country is we have paid
Mexico tens of millions of dollars to stop these refugees from arriving at
our border and claiming, asking for refuge, asking for asylum. Our State
Department is funding this. And our congressional leaders, the Department of
State has said in a recent document that they want to spend $90 million next
fiscal year, in 2016, to do more of this. And what were seeing is that this
is paying for this incredible crackdown, where the immigration authorities
have increased immensely the number of deportees. Mexico, in the first seven
months, deported 23,000 more Central Americans than the United States, and
it plans to up that amount by 70 percent this year, while the rate is cut by
the United States. So were asking Mexico basically to do our dirty work.
President Obama, for politically expedient reasons, 15 months ago, wanted
this problem, as he saw it, of these immigrant children coming to the United
States alone, this surge, to go away, and so he outsourced his problem to
Mexico.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you tell us the story of July Elizabeth Pérez, who you met
in a migrant shelter in Mexico?
SONIA NAZARIO: Yes, last month I spent seven or eight days in Mexico. I felt
that not enough attention was being focused on this. And July, first, you
know, she lives in one of the most deadly towns in Honduras, which the
homicide rate has recently declined some, but per the last U.N. report,
worldwide, had the highest homicide rate in the world, after Syria. And she
lived in this very deadly town controlled largely by the 18th Street gang, a
gang that, by the way, started here in Los Angeles, where I live. And first,
her brother was abducted, and he was killed. They stole his $91 in rent
money that he was taking to pay. They cut off his feet and his hands when
they killed him. And then they abducted her 14-year-old son. They had asked
him to join the gang. They start doing this to children at very young
agesnine, 10, 12 years old. He was 14. He had gone on a short errand a few
steps away with a friend, been kidnapped. And she frantically searched for
him and found him a few hours later. He had been suffocated to death with a
bag over his head and found in a garbage bag. She fled to another city three
hours away. And seven months lateryou know, the gangs are incredibly good
at intelligence. They beat the CIA by a mile in figuring out whos coming in
and out of towns and wherethe movement of people who are escaping gang
violence. And she got a warning: "We know where you are now."
So, seven months later she fled to Mexico, trying to reach her mother,
grandmother, who were legally in the United States. She applied to the U.S.
Embassy for a visa. They turned her down. And so her only choice to save her
three remaining children was to try to get through Mexico to the United
States. And it took her 20 days to travel 250 miles. These migrants are
walking through Mexico now, because they cannot get on the trainsride on
top of freight trains, as they used to do, because of this crackdown. And
she encountered all sorts of obstaclesimmigration officials shooting at her
on top of the train with her children aboard, having to go around these
enormous number of checkpoints, raids now20,000 raids on immigrants just in
the past year as part of this Southern Border Plan, as its called, that was
pushed by President Obama.
AMY GOODMAN: Is it fair to say the U.S. is bankrolling these Mexican border
guards who, in a number of cases, are guilty of horrendous human rights
abuses?
SONIA NAZARIO: Yes, its absolutely true we are bankrolling thistens of
millions of dollars last year and, as I said, $90 million proposed by the
Department of State this year, and that doesnt count what the Department of
Defense has been kicking in, an unknown amount. And many, many studies have
shown that Mexican officials, both the federal police, the state police, and
immigration officials are complicit in this robbery, rape, killing of
immigrants as they try to travel north to the United States to safety. And
we see children now walking the length of Mexico trying to allude those
officials, and women like July putting their children, her three-year-old,
her six-year-oldher six-year-old walking for days on end, for 12 hours at a
time, putting her three-year-old on her shoulders, trying to get her north
through Mexico to the United States to safety.
I think what we are doing is shameful. Refugees are people fleeing harm, and
we should at least give them a chance of proving that they are refugees. And
if they arent, then perhaps send them back. But we have signed protocols
saying that we will protect refugees. We have urged other countries, like
Germany and the countries surrounding Syria, who have taken in more than 4
million refugees. We get a few tens of thousands, and instead of trying to
comprehend what theyre going through and welcome them, or at least put them
through our judicial system and see if they qualify or not, we have paid
Mexico to send them back to their deaths. There is a study by our social
researcher that just came out showing that in the last 21 months, 90 people,
at least, have been murdered shortly after being returned by the United
States and Mexico to their home countries, in these three very violent
countries in Central America, including a 14-year-old boy returned to
Honduras, Gredis. Within 24 hours of being returned home, he had two bullets
in his head. This is what our policies are causing.
And I think the American people need to say, "This must stop. I do not want
this done in my name. I do not want my taxpayer money funding this." And I
have a letter on my website, EnriquesJourney.com, if you agree, to send your
congressional leader, saying that you want a fairer policy towards refugee
children, in particular.
AMY GOODMAN: Last year, Democracy Now! spoke to Jose Luis Zelaya. He fled
his home in Honduras at the age of 13 in search of his mother. He traveled
unaccompanied through Central America, finally reached Houston four months
later. Zelaya described his journey.
JOSE LUIS ZELAYA: Honduras is a very dangerous country. Once, I was simply
playing soccer, and there was a drive-by shooting, and during the soccer
game I ended up being shot twice in both of my arms. And it was then when I
made the decision that I needed to run away. I needed to leave theI needed
to leave Honduras and come to the United States to find my mother. I didnt
know where she was. All I knew was the area code, 713, which was the Houston
area code.
And I came to the United States. It took me 45 days to come. It was
horrible. It is the worst experience that I have ever witnessedto be
thirsty and not have water, to be hungry and not have food. Not even a
trashcan, to be able to find food, was available in the desert. Whenever
youre riding the train and you see people lose their lives, you see little
girls being physically abused by the coyotes, and you cant do anything
because youre a child. I was 11I was 13 years old when I came. I knewI
wasnt trying to break the law; I was trying to fulfill the law by trying to
reunite with my mother, by trying to reunite with my sister.
And when I came to the United States, I was actually in a detention center,
as well, in Harlingen, Texas, and the experience there were very difficult.
We were only allowed to see the sunlight one hour a week, and we were only
allowed to drink water three times a day.
AMY GOODMAN: Thats Jose Luis Zelaya, who fled his home in Honduras at the
age of 13. You yourself rode, on top of seven freight trains, the length of
Mexico with child migrants a decade ago. How does what they go through today
compare, Sonia Nazario?
SONIA NAZARIO: Well, I think, you know, it was certainly difficult back
then. I still have post-traumatic stress, to indicate how hard it was. And
as Luis mentioned, it was very difficult. Many people are robbed, raped,
beaten, back then. But weve seen just in the last year an 81 percent
increase in robberies. And youre seeing, by the time time people got to the
shelter, the migrant shelterwhich really has become a refugee camp, by the
waya fewjust 200, 300 miles inside the southern border of Mexico, 95
percent now are robbed by the time they get there, some of them multiple
times. The majority of the women are being raped. And so, what youre seeing
is an exponential increase in the harm being done to these migrants, both by
the immigration authorities and by this whole army of delinquents, that have
taken the message from the Mexican authorities: "Its open season on
migrants. You can do whatever you want, because we need to getat the U.S.,
you know, bidding, we need to get this flow to stop, to get these people not
to reach the United States border."
And so, what were seeing is, instead of riding on top of that train, on top
of the freight trains up the length of Mexico, as I did for my book,
Enriques Journey, people are going in places that are harder, that they are
more isolated. And thats where these delinquents have all risen up that are
robbing and raping and killing in extraordinary numbers. Twenty thousand
Central Americans are being disappeared every single year, kidnapped. And
many of these people resurface after someone in the United States has to pay
ransom to release them. But if you cant pay, they will kill you. They will
cut you up in front of the others as a message. Many of them are being
enslaved to work in marijuana fields or digging tunnels, prostituted. They
are finding people14 migrants recently awoke, drugged up, with slits on the
side of their bodies, wounds that had been sewn up. Their kidneys had been
harvested. Its another level and a higher number of robberies, rapes,
killings that are happening today than when Luis made the journey and when I
made the journey. And yeah, you had to convince me that this was a lot
tougher than before, but it is tougher than before. It is extraordinarily
hard.
And thats why people are stopping 200 to 300 miles in at this shelter that
I was at and saying, "I cant go back. They will kill me in my country. But
I cant go forward. They will kill me in Mexico. Im going to try to get
asylum. Im going to try to get a humanitarian visa from Mexico," which, by
the way, Mexico makes extraordinarily difficult to get. They try to put
every barrier possible to apply for asylum. If youre detained, they
basically dont inform you of your right to asylum, which they are supposed
to do, per Mexican law. Only one in 10 people are being informed. If youre
informed, they try to dissuade you from applying. And if youre even able to
apply, which only 2,000 folks were able to do last year, they hold you in
these jails that have rats roaming by day, worms in the food. They try to do
everything possible to discourage you. And only 20 percentyou stay there
months, or even a year, if you appeal. Only 20 percent of people who are
able to apply win their asylum claims, versus 50 percent in the United
States. So Mexico is putting every potential obstacle they can in the course
of people trying to reach our borders and say, "Help me. They are trying to
kill me in my country. I cannot go back. And now I cannot move forward. I am
stuck."
AMY GOODMAN: Sonia, the man we just heard from, the young man who moved here
when hewho traveled here when he was 13, Jose Luis Zelaya, is with the
group United We Dream. And thats the same group that protested Hillary
Clinton. We just played a clip of her speaking in Las Vegas. She was
actually heckled there by United We Dream. And one of the protesters, Juan
Carlos Ramos, issued a statement saying, "Our message to Hillary Clinton is
simple: immigrant youth do not trust you." They were protesting the fact
that private prison corporations donate to Clintons campaign, and they said
she should reject that money. What about the prisons here in the United
States?
SONIA NAZARIO: Well, weve managed to get a law passed in Congress that
34,000 deportable immigrants will be locked up any night in our prison
system. As weve locked up fewer nonviolent drug offenders, we havethe
prison industry has found a way to fill those jails with immigrants. And
thats absolutely true. Its gone from $800 million or so, seven, eight
years ago, that they made off of immigrants, to more than $2 billion. This
is a huge industry for them. And they spend a lot of money at this. And we
can get laws like that passed through our Congress, but when we try to get a
law allocating $50 million to immigrant children so a four-year-old doesnt
stand before our immigration judges being asked to present their asylum
claim all by themselveswe dont allocate immigration lawyers to immigrant
children who come here alone, and so you see these children shaking with
utter fear before that judgewell, that law got shot down by the Senate. So,
its absolutely true that the prison industry wants to keep this going. And
companies like Corrections Corp. of America and GEO have made a lot of money
off of this.
I think instead of what we are doing, we need to push our government to do
what Germany is doing, which is to establish a system, be a leader in terms
of refugees and establish a system to allow these refugees to arrive at our
border and claim asylum, and then redistribute these migrants to Canada, to
Latin America, and, yes, some to the United States, so that they are safe,
while we address the root causes of this violence, help these countries
address the root causes in Latin America. You know, we only take in 70,000
refugees a year. Germany, that dinky country in Europe, will take in more
than 10 times that number this year. I think we can afford to go up to at
least 130,000thats what we took in pre-9/11to allow especially these
children to have a safe harbor in this country. And instead of paying Mexico
to turn them away, we should also pay them to make sure that they are
screened for asylum. Mexico only has 20 asylum officers in the whole
country, three offices. They have purposefully underfunded this.
AMY GOODMAN: You choose to use the word "migrant" and "refugee" rather than
"immigrant." Why, Sonia?
SONIA NAZARIO: Well, I think with a refugee, it is a person who is being
persecuted in their home country, and they are fleeing harm. And this is
what I saw when I went to Honduras 14 months ago. I saw childrenyou know,
we spend billions of dollars to stop the flow of drugs coming from Venezuela
and Colombia up the Caribbean corridor to the Dominican Republic, Jamaica,
Haiti. They were landing there, those drug flights. We spend all this
taxpayer money, and what did the narcos do? They simply rerouted, and
theyre now landing four of five narco flights in Honduras. And so, they are
trying to control that turf to move drugs north to us, the largest consumer
of illegal drugs on Earth. We use one in four illegal drugs on Earth.
And they are recruiting children to control that turf, to serve as lookouts,
to sell drugs in those neighborhoods, and to work as sicarios, to kill
people, ultimately. And I saw children as young as 11. I spoke to an
11-year-old boy in a piece I did 14 months ago in The New York Times. He
said, "Im 11 years old. Im in the sixth grade. And these narcos are
telling me as I come out of my elementary school, which they control, 'You
are going to start using crack. And if you don'tand get hooked on crack and
start working for uswe are going to kill you." And so, your options, for a
lot of these children, are start working for the gangs, start working for
the narcos that the gangs often report to, or flee. Those are the options.
And what were seeing is, the kids coming through Mexico are younger and
younger, a half that are caught in Mexico 11 and younger, and more of them
are girls. The girls I saw in that neighborhood, they were40 percent now of
the girlsof the children caught in Mexico now are girls. They are being
taughttold, "You will be my girlfriend," by the gang leader, the narco
leader, "or Im going to kill you, Im going to exterminate your whole
family." And so, Im seeing many more girls and women coming through Mexico.
At the shelter I was at, there was a 28-year-old woman. She had been
kidnapped by the gang, the 18th Street gang, in her neighborhood, thats
basically the law in her neighborhood. There is no government to turn to in
certain parts of Honduras. And she came out of her job. They grabbed her,
four gangsters, took her to a house. And there was a man tied up there, and
they forced her to watch as they beat this man to death, stabbed him in his
arms and legs, and then cut him up in piecesshe doesnt know if he was
alive or dead when that happenedand then forced her to hold the garbage bag
as they put his pieces into it and told her, "Youre going to be my
girlfriend tomorrow, or this is what will happen to you tomorrow." She fled
without even saying goodbye to her four children, without giving them a hug,
because she thought they would have questions, and that might put them in
greater danger. She fled to Mexico, where she is now at, at that shelter,
trying to get through Mexico and trying to reach safety in the United
States. This is what people are fleeing, and this is very different from
someone who is an immigrant coming here for a better life, like my parents
came here from Argentina. They wanted a better life for themselves, but they
were not fleeing for their lives.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, I want to thank you very much, Sonia Nazario. Your piece
is just astounding in The New York Times. We will link to it, called "The
Refugees at Our Door." Sonia Nazario, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist,
author of Enriques Journey: The Story of a Boys Dangerous Odyssey to
Reunite with His Mother. We will also link to our own Democracy Now!'s Renée
Feltz's award-winning reports [Part 1 and Part 2] on the private immigrant
detention centers run by for-profit corporations on the border of the United
States at democracynow.org.
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(photo: Nathaniel Parish Flannery/Fusion)
http://www.democracynow.org/2015/10/13/outsourcing_a_refugee_crisis_us_paidh
ttp://www.democracynow.org/2015/10/13/outsourcing_a_refugee_crisis_us_paid
Outsourcing a Refugee Crisis: US Paid Mexico Millions to Target Central
Americans Fleeing Violence
By Amy Goodman, Democracy Now!
14 October 15
s immigration has become a key issue on the campaign trail, we look at a
startling new report that finds "the United States has outsourced a refugee
problem to Mexico that is similar to the refugee crisis now roiling Europe."
In her New York Times opinion piece, "The Refugees at Our Door," Pulitzer
Prize-winning journalist Sonia Nazario describes how the Obama
administration is paying the Mexican government to keep people from reaching
the U.S. borderpeople who often have legitimate asylum claims. We speak to
Nazario about the harrowing stories she heard from Central American refugees
in shelters in southern Mexico.
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: As Democratic presidential candidates kick off the first debate
of the 2016 presidential race tonight, the issue of immigration has emerged
as a key issue on the campaign trail. On Thursday, Hillary Clinton addressed
the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institutes 38th Annual Awards Gala and
called for a more humane immigration policy. She also denounced what she
called the "ugly" anti-immigrant rhetoric coming from Republican
presidential candidates.
HILLARY CLINTON: Its a problem when a leading Republican candidate for
president says that immigrants from Mexico are rapists and drug dealers.
Its a problem when candidates use offensive terms like "anchor babies" or
even talk about changing the Constitution to take citizenship away from
those who were born here. We need people who will stand up to this ugly
rhetoric and extreme thinking, who will saywho will say with our words and
our actions, "Basta! Enough! End this!"
AMY GOODMAN: Earlier this year, Democratic presidential hopeful Bernie
Sanders called for comprehensive immigration reform. This is Sanders
addressing the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed
Officials conference in Las Vegas.
SEN. BERNIE SANDERS: It is not acceptable to me, and, I think, a growing
majority of the American people, that millions of folks in this country are
working extremely hard, but they are living in the shadows. And that has got
to end. ... Despite the essential role that undocumented workers play in our
economy and in our daily lives, these workers are too often reviled by many
for political gain and shunted into the shadows. Let me be very clear as to
where I stand: It is time for this disgraceful situation to end.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, we turn now to a startling new report that examines
Americas broken immigration system, called "The Refugees at Our Door," just
published in The New York Times by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Sonia
Nazario. The article suggests the Obama administration is paying the Mexican
government to keep people from reaching the U.S. borderpeople who often
have legitimate asylum claims, and once deterred in their journey, often
left to die.
Nazario writes, quote, "In the past 15 months, at the request of President
Obama, Mexico has carried out a ferocious crackdown on refugees fleeing
violence in Central America. The United States has given Mexico tens of
millions of dollars for the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30 to stop these
migrants from reaching the United States border to claim asylum. Essentially
the United States has outsourced a refugee problem to Mexico that is similar
to the refugee crisis now roiling Europe."
Well, for more, we go to Los Angeles, where were joined by Sonia Nazario.
She is the author of Enriques Journey: The Story of a Boys Dangerous
Odyssey to Reunite with His Mother.
Sonia Nazario, welcome back to Democracy Now!
SONIA NAZARIO: Thank you.
AMY GOODMAN: Explain what you found. How is the U.S. paying Mexico to stop
migrants from coming north?
SONIA NAZARIO: Well, were doing the exact opposite of what Germany is
doing. And, you know, I should say that I think we can have a debate about
what should be done about economic migrants, people who come here for a
better life, but with refugees, that is someone who is being persecuted, and
they are fleeing for their lives. And in Germany, weve seen these emotional
images of the German people and Angela Merkel opening their doors, welcoming
them at train stations. And what we are doing as a country is we have paid
Mexico tens of millions of dollars to stop these refugees from arriving at
our border and claiming, asking for refuge, asking for asylum. Our State
Department is funding this. And our congressional leaders, the Department of
State has said in a recent document that they want to spend $90 million next
fiscal year, in 2016, to do more of this. And what were seeing is that this
is paying for this incredible crackdown, where the immigration authorities
have increased immensely the number of deportees. Mexico, in the first seven
months, deported 23,000 more Central Americans than the United States, and
it plans to up that amount by 70 percent this year, while the rate is cut by
the United States. So were asking Mexico basically to do our dirty work.
President Obama, for politically expedient reasons, 15 months ago, wanted
this problem, as he saw it, of these immigrant children coming to the United
States alone, this surge, to go away, and so he outsourced his problem to
Mexico.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you tell us the story of July Elizabeth Pérez, who you met
in a migrant shelter in Mexico?
SONIA NAZARIO: Yes, last month I spent seven or eight days in Mexico. I felt
that not enough attention was being focused on this. And July, first, you
know, she lives in one of the most deadly towns in Honduras, which the
homicide rate has recently declined some, but per the last U.N. report,
worldwide, had the highest homicide rate in the world, after Syria. And she
lived in this very deadly town controlled largely by the 18th Street gang, a
gang that, by the way, started here in Los Angeles, where I live. And first,
her brother was abducted, and he was killed. They stole his $91 in rent
money that he was taking to pay. They cut off his feet and his hands when
they killed him. And then they abducted her 14-year-old son. They had asked
him to join the gang. They start doing this to children at very young
agesnine, 10, 12 years old. He was 14. He had gone on a short errand a few
steps away with a friend, been kidnapped. And she frantically searched for
him and found him a few hours later. He had been suffocated to death with a
bag over his head and found in a garbage bag. She fled to another city three
hours away. And seven months lateryou know, the gangs are incredibly good
at intelligence. They beat the CIA by a mile in figuring out whos coming in
and out of towns and wherethe movement of people who are escaping gang
violence. And she got a warning: "We know where you are now."
So, seven months later she fled to Mexico, trying to reach her mother,
grandmother, who were legally in the United States. She applied to the U.S.
Embassy for a visa. They turned her down. And so her only choice to save her
three remaining children was to try to get through Mexico to the United
States. And it took her 20 days to travel 250 miles. These migrants are
walking through Mexico now, because they cannot get on the trainsride on
top of freight trains, as they used to do, because of this crackdown. And
she encountered all sorts of obstaclesimmigration officials shooting at her
on top of the train with her children aboard, having to go around these
enormous number of checkpoints, raids now20,000 raids on immigrants just in
the past year as part of this Southern Border Plan, as its called, that was
pushed by President Obama.
AMY GOODMAN: Is it fair to say the U.S. is bankrolling these Mexican border
guards who, in a number of cases, are guilty of horrendous human rights
abuses?
SONIA NAZARIO: Yes, its absolutely true we are bankrolling thistens of
millions of dollars last year and, as I said, $90 million proposed by the
Department of State this year, and that doesnt count what the Department of
Defense has been kicking in, an unknown amount. And many, many studies have
shown that Mexican officials, both the federal police, the state police, and
immigration officials are complicit in this robbery, rape, killing of
immigrants as they try to travel north to the United States to safety. And
we see children now walking the length of Mexico trying to allude those
officials, and women like July putting their children, her three-year-old,
her six-year-oldher six-year-old walking for days on end, for 12 hours at a
time, putting her three-year-old on her shoulders, trying to get her north
through Mexico to the United States to safety.
I think what we are doing is shameful. Refugees are people fleeing harm, and
we should at least give them a chance of proving that they are refugees. And
if they arent, then perhaps send them back. But we have signed protocols
saying that we will protect refugees. We have urged other countries, like
Germany and the countries surrounding Syria, who have taken in more than 4
million refugees. We get a few tens of thousands, and instead of trying to
comprehend what theyre going through and welcome them, or at least put them
through our judicial system and see if they qualify or not, we have paid
Mexico to send them back to their deaths. There is a study by our social
researcher that just came out showing that in the last 21 months, 90 people,
at least, have been murdered shortly after being returned by the United
States and Mexico to their home countries, in these three very violent
countries in Central America, including a 14-year-old boy returned to
Honduras, Gredis. Within 24 hours of being returned home, he had two bullets
in his head. This is what our policies are causing.
And I think the American people need to say, "This must stop. I do not want
this done in my name. I do not want my taxpayer money funding this." And I
have a letter on my website, EnriquesJourney.com, if you agree, to send your
congressional leader, saying that you want a fairer policy towards refugee
children, in particular.
AMY GOODMAN: Last year, Democracy Now! spoke to Jose Luis Zelaya. He fled
his home in Honduras at the age of 13 in search of his mother. He traveled
unaccompanied through Central America, finally reached Houston four months
later. Zelaya described his journey.
JOSE LUIS ZELAYA: Honduras is a very dangerous country. Once, I was simply
playing soccer, and there was a drive-by shooting, and during the soccer
game I ended up being shot twice in both of my arms. And it was then when I
made the decision that I needed to run away. I needed to leave theI needed
to leave Honduras and come to the United States to find my mother. I didnt
know where she was. All I knew was the area code, 713, which was the Houston
area code.
And I came to the United States. It took me 45 days to come. It was
horrible. It is the worst experience that I have ever witnessedto be
thirsty and not have water, to be hungry and not have food. Not even a
trashcan, to be able to find food, was available in the desert. Whenever
youre riding the train and you see people lose their lives, you see little
girls being physically abused by the coyotes, and you cant do anything
because youre a child. I was 11I was 13 years old when I came. I knewI
wasnt trying to break the law; I was trying to fulfill the law by trying to
reunite with my mother, by trying to reunite with my sister.
And when I came to the United States, I was actually in a detention center,
as well, in Harlingen, Texas, and the experience there were very difficult.
We were only allowed to see the sunlight one hour a week, and we were only
allowed to drink water three times a day.
AMY GOODMAN: Thats Jose Luis Zelaya, who fled his home in Honduras at the
age of 13. You yourself rode, on top of seven freight trains, the length of
Mexico with child migrants a decade ago. How does what they go through today
compare, Sonia Nazario?
SONIA NAZARIO: Well, I think, you know, it was certainly difficult back
then. I still have post-traumatic stress, to indicate how hard it was. And
as Luis mentioned, it was very difficult. Many people are robbed, raped,
beaten, back then. But weve seen just in the last year an 81 percent
increase in robberies. And youre seeing, by the time time people got to the
shelter, the migrant shelterwhich really has become a refugee camp, by the
waya fewjust 200, 300 miles inside the southern border of Mexico, 95
percent now are robbed by the time they get there, some of them multiple
times. The majority of the women are being raped. And so, what youre seeing
is an exponential increase in the harm being done to these migrants, both by
the immigration authorities and by this whole army of delinquents, that have
taken the message from the Mexican authorities: "Its open season on
migrants. You can do whatever you want, because we need to getat the U.S.,
you know, bidding, we need to get this flow to stop, to get these people not
to reach the United States border."
And so, what were seeing is, instead of riding on top of that train, on top
of the freight trains up the length of Mexico, as I did for my book,
Enriques Journey, people are going in places that are harder, that they are
more isolated. And thats where these delinquents have all risen up that are
robbing and raping and killing in extraordinary numbers. Twenty thousand
Central Americans are being disappeared every single year, kidnapped. And
many of these people resurface after someone in the United States has to pay
ransom to release them. But if you cant pay, they will kill you. They will
cut you up in front of the others as a message. Many of them are being
enslaved to work in marijuana fields or digging tunnels, prostituted. They
are finding people14 migrants recently awoke, drugged up, with slits on the
side of their bodies, wounds that had been sewn up. Their kidneys had been
harvested. Its another level and a higher number of robberies, rapes,
killings that are happening today than when Luis made the journey and when I
made the journey. And yeah, you had to convince me that this was a lot
tougher than before, but it is tougher than before. It is extraordinarily
hard.
And thats why people are stopping 200 to 300 miles in at this shelter that
I was at and saying, "I cant go back. They will kill me in my country. But
I cant go forward. They will kill me in Mexico. Im going to try to get
asylum. Im going to try to get a humanitarian visa from Mexico," which, by
the way, Mexico makes extraordinarily difficult to get. They try to put
every barrier possible to apply for asylum. If youre detained, they
basically dont inform you of your right to asylum, which they are supposed
to do, per Mexican law. Only one in 10 people are being informed. If youre
informed, they try to dissuade you from applying. And if youre even able to
apply, which only 2,000 folks were able to do last year, they hold you in
these jails that have rats roaming by day, worms in the food. They try to do
everything possible to discourage you. And only 20 percentyou stay there
months, or even a year, if you appeal. Only 20 percent of people who are
able to apply win their asylum claims, versus 50 percent in the United
States. So Mexico is putting every potential obstacle they can in the course
of people trying to reach our borders and say, "Help me. They are trying to
kill me in my country. I cannot go back. And now I cannot move forward. I am
stuck."
AMY GOODMAN: Sonia, the man we just heard from, the young man who moved here
when hewho traveled here when he was 13, Jose Luis Zelaya, is with the
group United We Dream. And thats the same group that protested Hillary
Clinton. We just played a clip of her speaking in Las Vegas. She was
actually heckled there by United We Dream. And one of the protesters, Juan
Carlos Ramos, issued a statement saying, "Our message to Hillary Clinton is
simple: immigrant youth do not trust you." They were protesting the fact
that private prison corporations donate to Clintons campaign, and they said
she should reject that money. What about the prisons here in the United
States?
SONIA NAZARIO: Well, weve managed to get a law passed in Congress that
34,000 deportable immigrants will be locked up any night in our prison
system. As weve locked up fewer nonviolent drug offenders, we havethe
prison industry has found a way to fill those jails with immigrants. And
thats absolutely true. Its gone from $800 million or so, seven, eight
years ago, that they made off of immigrants, to more than $2 billion. This
is a huge industry for them. And they spend a lot of money at this. And we
can get laws like that passed through our Congress, but when we try to get a
law allocating $50 million to immigrant children so a four-year-old doesnt
stand before our immigration judges being asked to present their asylum
claim all by themselveswe dont allocate immigration lawyers to immigrant
children who come here alone, and so you see these children shaking with
utter fear before that judgewell, that law got shot down by the Senate. So,
its absolutely true that the prison industry wants to keep this going. And
companies like Corrections Corp. of America and GEO have made a lot of money
off of this.
I think instead of what we are doing, we need to push our government to do
what Germany is doing, which is to establish a system, be a leader in terms
of refugees and establish a system to allow these refugees to arrive at our
border and claim asylum, and then redistribute these migrants to Canada, to
Latin America, and, yes, some to the United States, so that they are safe,
while we address the root causes of this violence, help these countries
address the root causes in Latin America. You know, we only take in 70,000
refugees a year. Germany, that dinky country in Europe, will take in more
than 10 times that number this year. I think we can afford to go up to at
least 130,000thats what we took in pre-9/11to allow especially these
children to have a safe harbor in this country. And instead of paying Mexico
to turn them away, we should also pay them to make sure that they are
screened for asylum. Mexico only has 20 asylum officers in the whole
country, three offices. They have purposefully underfunded this.
AMY GOODMAN: You choose to use the word "migrant" and "refugee" rather than
"immigrant." Why, Sonia?
SONIA NAZARIO: Well, I think with a refugee, it is a person who is being
persecuted in their home country, and they are fleeing harm. And this is
what I saw when I went to Honduras 14 months ago. I saw childrenyou know,
we spend billions of dollars to stop the flow of drugs coming from Venezuela
and Colombia up the Caribbean corridor to the Dominican Republic, Jamaica,
Haiti. They were landing there, those drug flights. We spend all this
taxpayer money, and what did the narcos do? They simply rerouted, and
theyre now landing four of five narco flights in Honduras. And so, they are
trying to control that turf to move drugs north to us, the largest consumer
of illegal drugs on Earth. We use one in four illegal drugs on Earth.
And they are recruiting children to control that turf, to serve as lookouts,
to sell drugs in those neighborhoods, and to work as sicarios, to kill
people, ultimately. And I saw children as young as 11. I spoke to an
11-year-old boy in a piece I did 14 months ago in The New York Times. He
said, "Im 11 years old. Im in the sixth grade. And these narcos are
telling me as I come out of my elementary school, which they control, 'You
are going to start using crack. And if you don'tand get hooked on crack and
start working for uswe are going to kill you." And so, your options, for a
lot of these children, are start working for the gangs, start working for
the narcos that the gangs often report to, or flee. Those are the options.
And what were seeing is, the kids coming through Mexico are younger and
younger, a half that are caught in Mexico 11 and younger, and more of them
are girls. The girls I saw in that neighborhood, they were40 percent now of
the girlsof the children caught in Mexico now are girls. They are being
taughttold, "You will be my girlfriend," by the gang leader, the narco
leader, "or Im going to kill you, Im going to exterminate your whole
family." And so, Im seeing many more girls and women coming through Mexico.
At the shelter I was at, there was a 28-year-old woman. She had been
kidnapped by the gang, the 18th Street gang, in her neighborhood, thats
basically the law in her neighborhood. There is no government to turn to in
certain parts of Honduras. And she came out of her job. They grabbed her,
four gangsters, took her to a house. And there was a man tied up there, and
they forced her to watch as they beat this man to death, stabbed him in his
arms and legs, and then cut him up in piecesshe doesnt know if he was
alive or dead when that happenedand then forced her to hold the garbage bag
as they put his pieces into it and told her, "Youre going to be my
girlfriend tomorrow, or this is what will happen to you tomorrow." She fled
without even saying goodbye to her four children, without giving them a hug,
because she thought they would have questions, and that might put them in
greater danger. She fled to Mexico, where she is now at, at that shelter,
trying to get through Mexico and trying to reach safety in the United
States. This is what people are fleeing, and this is very different from
someone who is an immigrant coming here for a better life, like my parents
came here from Argentina. They wanted a better life for themselves, but they
were not fleeing for their lives.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, I want to thank you very much, Sonia Nazario. Your piece
is just astounding in The New York Times. We will link to it, called "The
Refugees at Our Door." Sonia Nazario, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist,
author of Enriques Journey: The Story of a Boys Dangerous Odyssey to
Reunite with His Mother. We will also link to our own Democracy Now!'s Renée
Feltz's award-winning reports [Part 1 and Part 2] on the private immigrant
detention centers run by for-profit corporations on the border of the United
States at democracynow.org.
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