Latin America
Related: About this forumWe Reap What We Sow: The Link between Child Migrants and US Policy
We Reap What We Sow: The Link between Child Migrants and US Policy
Written by Diego Cupolo
Friday, 01 August 2014 16:21
Seven-year-old children wandering alone through desert landscapes are the result of a long string of events that are now demanding a closer look from mainstream media and a wider audience in the United States.
How did it get this bad? is the phrase repeated daily by television pundits as they seek out explanations for the current immigration crisis along the U.S. border, often placing the spotlight on criminal gangs and corrupt governments in Central America.
Yet, How did these gangs and governments come to power? is the follow-up question largely absent from mainstream debates. In effort to guide a more accurate discussion, a growing chorus of activists, journalists and historians are pointing to U.S. foreign policy in the region as the root cause for mass migration movements in recent years if not decades.
Every major wave of Latino migration has been very directly connected to actions taken by the United States in Latin America to either further the countrys economic or military interests, said Eduardo Lopez, co-director of Harvest of Empire, a film based on a book by journalist Juan Gonzalez that links immigration trends to U.S. intervention in Latin America.
More:
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/international-archives-60/4965-we-reap-what-we-sow-the-link-between-child-migrants-and-us-policy
Peace Patriot
(24,010 posts)...and It is a must-read for anyone trying to form an opinion about the migration problem.
It is right on.
Here is a sample:
As Central American children continue streaming into detention centers along the U.S. border, government officials in Washington are confronted with the consequences of their own decisions. By supporting corrupt governments and unsustainable economic models, the U.S. has helped create conditions so horrendous, the United Nations claimed most child migrants qualify for refugee status and should not be sent back home.--from the OP
This is the heart of the matter. Track U.S. military and U.S. Transglobal Corporate policies in the countries that the current group of child-migrants are coming from--Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador--and you find the reasons the societies in those countries have failed these children: U.S. destruction of democracy (coups against leftist democratic governments; support of fascists), U.S. militarization of the police (billions of our tax dollars), Big Ag destroying local farming, Big Retail destroying labor unions, and on and on. And then there's the corrupt, murderous, failed U.S. "war on drugs."
These societies have been destroyed. Their economies have been devastated. Their arable land has been usurped. Their public services have been privatized or eliminated. Their resources have been plundered. And their young people have no future. WE did this--or, rather, it was done in our name for the benefit of vile profiteers who also exploit us.