Twin Cities construction is booming, and human traffickers are coming to feed

Yimer Iriarte first dreamed of America at age 16, after growing rawboned from raising vegetables in Honduras’ valley lands. It was this work that incapacitated his father before him, forcing Iriarte to drop out of school after the fifth grade to help support four younger siblings.

With no interest in joining the gang that controlled his neighborhood—which robbed and killed young men who refused to join their ranks—his only option was to work with his hands.

Yet Honduras was in the throes of a constitutional crisis. President Manuel Zelaya, a modest leftist, had raised the minimum wage in an attempt to salve one of Latin America’s largest wealth gaps. He’d also fraternized with Venezuelan socialist Hugo Chavez, a red flag to Honduras’ elite.

So the military kidnapped Zelaya and packed him off to Costa Rica. Protests erupted. The insurgent government fired into crowds and assassinated union leaders, human rights activists, and journalists. Civil liberties were suspended.

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