The Next Immigration Time Bomb - Ambassador Nealon

Thursday, April 09, 2020

Former U.S. Ambassador to Honduras James D. Nealon

The Trump Administration is finally, and correctly, focusing on controlling and mitigating the consequences of the coronavirus here in the United States.  Every country in the world has to take immediate and draconian steps to protect its citizens in the first instance, and the rest of the planet as a second-order effect.

That said, as we all take the necessary measures to flatten the curve and minimize the devastation, we can begin to see what some of the longer-term consequences will be beyond health and the economy.

One such consequence will be on irregular migration to the United States.  While the immediate impact of lockdowns and quarantine will be to freeze people in place, we need to look now at how coronavirus could spur another and perhaps greater surge of migrants heading our way, particularly from the vulnerable countries of the so-called Northern Triangle of Central America, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras.

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While we don't yet know how severely the Northern Triangle will be affected by coronavirus, all three countries have an increasing caseload, and all have taken some form of dramatic steps to try to control it.  In Honduras, for instance, lockdown orders are in effect in the capital of Tegucigalpa and other large population centers, though anecdotal evidence indicates that some form of business, as usual, goes on outside of the largest urban centers.  Even supermarkets were shut down for a time, though they have been allowed to re-open on a very limited basis.  Border controls have been tightened, though we know that those borders are porous in the best of times.

While the effects of coronavirus are already being felt in developed countries like the United States, imagine the impact of a pandemic in a country like Honduras.  Two-thirds of Hondurans live below the poverty level, many dependent on day wages to eat.  The healthcare system is precarious in normal times, with medicine and protective gear in short supply.  Food security is an issue for a large percentage of the population.  If COVID-19 hits Honduras hard, it could be the final straw for many who have contemplated migration.

What can the United States do to try to avoid another migration crisis on our southwest border?  Every decision to migrate is an individual decision, comprised of "pull" factors, like jobs, which attract people to the United States; and "push" factors, like violence, corruption and lack of jobs, that impel people to seek a better life elsewhere.  The Trump Administration's approach to irregular migration has been all about enforcement, tightening the border, minimizing the number of people who can even request asylum, forcing people to remain in Mexico before filing a claim, or while they await a hearing, sending asylum seekers to unsafe countries like Honduras and Guatemala, and famously, separating parents and children.  There is no doubt that the asylum system needs drastic reform, but most of that can be resolved through resources - more judges and resources would equal faster resolution of cases, and an end to the incentives that the current system offers to would-be migrants.  Those reforms will be a tough sell in our hyper-partisan Congress.

But a much easier sell should be addressing the push factors - investing in programs designed to keep people at home.  The Trump Administration cut off assistance to the Northern Triangle, the very assistance designed to improve those push factors, and that assistance should be resumed immediately.  A couple hundred million dollars to help avoid another migration crisis is peanuts when we're now talking about a second multi-trillion dollar stimulus package.  Besides, which is cheaper and better for the United States?  Investing a relatively modest amount of money in the Northern Triangle, or paying the cost of processing, housing, and feeding hundreds of thousands of desperate people at the border?  No team wants to play defense on its own one-yard line, and we shouldn't either.

Just a few years ago, U.S. assistance programs to the Northern Triangle, intended to reduce violence, improve governance, and create economic opportunities, enjoyed widespread bipartisan support in Congress.  Now is the time for Congress to act and stop the next migration crisis before it starts.

James D. Nealon was U.S. Ambassador to Honduras from 2014 to 2017, and Assistant Secretary for International Engagement at the Department of Homeland Security from 2017 to 2018. He is a graduate of Brown University.
 

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