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Reflecting on the Migrant Experience

Below we share a reflection from Heidi Cerneka, a Maryknoll Lay Missioner who participated in Quixote Center's Solidarity Travel to Panama in March 2024. Heidi's testimony vividly captures the challenges and the trauma migrants experience when they traverse the Darien Gap. Our Solidarity Travels offer a unique experience for people interested in learning more about why people leave their homeland and how U.S. policies affect the lives of the people who migrate north from Latin America and the Caribbean. Heidi's reflection is reprinted with permission from Maryknoll Lay Missioners ([link removed]).

 

The Most Dangerous Part of Migrants' Journey
by Heidi Cerneka

In March of this year, I traveled to Panama to hear firsthand from migrants who have survived the trek through the jungle of the Darién Gap and from humanitarian aid and faith-based workers at the front lines. I also wanted to see the reality and the harm that U.S. anti-immigrant policies have wrought in the lives of children, women, and men who ask for protection from persecution and/or a better life.

I traveled with two colleagues from the Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center in El Paso, Texas, and several other U.S.-based immigration advocates and policy experts. The trip was organized by the Quixote Center. We came to learn more about this reality and begin to think about how to challenge it. We were hosted by the Franciscan Network on Migration (see our report about this trip (chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/[link removed]) here).

Last year a record number of migrants -- more than half a million -- made the journey north through the Darién jungle. In the first half of 2024, it was over 212,000 people ([link removed]). They are part of a global reality where more than 120 million people ([link removed]) live in situations of forced displacement, having left their homes involuntarily due to violence, economics and environmental disasters.

Most of the Venezuelans, Colombians, Cubans, Ecuadorians and other migrants making their way to the U.S. have had to trek 60 to 100 miles through the Darién jungle on the border between Panama and Colombia. The Darién Gap is the only land bridge from South America to Central America, and migration policies have forced hundreds of thousands of asylum seekers and other migrants fleeing violence, economic despair, and environmental crises to trek this dangerous route.

On the way, people risk their lives with tropical weather, mud, insect and snake bites, unsafe water, not enough food, and drowning. They climb mountains on muddy terrain, sometimes with mud so deep and so thick that when they pull their foot out, the shoe stays behind and they must continue barefoot. Many vulnerable migrants also suffer violence and sexual assaults at the hands of members of organized crime groups, individuals, and even border and law enforcement authorities.

One woman said that she had been told the journey would take two days, so her family shared their food with people who were going hungry after the second day. In fact, the journey took four days, and they walked the next two days with no food and dangerously little water. We heard so many stories of hunger, dehydration and deprivation in the jungle.

Others talked about sexual assault and family members they lost on the way. Once their cell phones were stolen, they had no way to know whether the family member was ahead of them, behind them, or left for dead. Many spoke of the horrors of seeing dead bodies, and of people who just gave up when they could go no further. Every person we met had some traumatic story to tell of the jungle or of the Panamanian "reception centers" run by the government.

This is a complex issue that has roots and branches in U.S. immigration policy and the realities of people in movement all over the world. It expresses the depth of despair that chases people from their homes and nations, and the power of hope for safety or for a better life.

And there is fear -- the fear of those fleeing and the fear of those in the receiving countries. Sometimes the fear is real, and sometimes it is manufactured and inflated by political or economic interests. Social media plays a significant role too, when it spreads anti-immigration lies about the hordes invading the border and false messages to migrants saying, "It's easy to cross!"

I work with migrants who have left their homes in Uganda, Senegal, Venezuela, Haiti and much of Central and South America. No one leaves their home, their language, food, family, culture and customs easily. The journey is hard and it's expensive. Fear of what threatens you at home or hope of a better life for you or your kids is what motivates most people.

Filippo Grandi ([link removed]), the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, insists that the root of this migration crisis is political and not humanitarian. Yes, we need humanitarian aid to assist people who need food, shelter and safety, but long-term solutions are only possible through policy decisions at the national and international levels.

But instead of political solutions, we have prohibitive policies that aim to keep migrants from reaching safety and from reaching Mexico and the U.S. by blocking borders and pushing migrants south to Guatemala and other countries. The truth is, as a report from the Black Alliance for Just Immigration ([link removed]) states, that "restrictive policies do not stop migrants from seeking safety abroad. Instead, they jeopardize the safety of migrants in need of protection and exacerbate dangerous conditions faced while in transit."

Why do people risk their lives crossing the jungle? Prohibitive visa requirements make it impossible to seek asylum in the U.S. through any other route. Externalizing our asylum and immigration policy, the U.S. has convinced -- and sometimes bullied -- Mexico, Panama, Guatemala and other countries to implement more prohibitive policies that make transit almost impossible. Additionally, asylum in those countries is often not a real option for safety or economic reasons or because the country does not have the capacity to consider asylum cases.

Historically, the U.S. welcomed refugees and those fleeing persecution, especially political or religious. Now the U.S. government's stated policy ([link removed]) is to reduce the number of migrants coming to the U.S., indifferent to what they are fleeing or why they have come.

Between 2005 and 2020, the number of migrants hosted in Latin America and the Caribbean went from 7 million to 15 million, and over half reported leaving their homes due to insecurity, threats and violence (International Organization for Migration, UN ([link removed])). Can we really fault someone for wanting a safe life for themselves or their children? Or a chance to succeed away from organized crime or rampant unemployment and abusive working conditions?

The one thing that I learned over and over in the Darién Gap is that everyone makes money off the migrants. They pay to camp before entering the jungle. They pay for the boat from the camp to the entrance to the jungle. Because it is extremely dangerous to travel without a guide, they pay for a guide on the Colombia side and then again for a guide on the Panama side. They pay in the middle of the jungle when they are stopped and extorted or threatened if they don't hand over money. They pay to get from the edge of the jungle to the reception center in Panama. They pay again to get a bus to the Costa Rica border. They pay 30% more to receive money wired through Western Union money so that they can pay all these extortions.

And after all that, they still have to cross Costa Rica, Honduras, Guatemala and Mexico. The police make money, as do the bus companies, organized crime groups, governments and the villages along the way.

The U.S. has externalized our southern border to the borders of other countries, financing abusive policies and forced repatriation with no chance to ask for asylum in Mexico, Panama, Guatemala and other nations.

Now José Raúl Mulino, the new president of Panama, has started putting up barbed wire ([link removed]) to block the exit out of the Darién jungle, and receives U.S. money for enforcement, deportation flights and spoiled food in the extremely overcrowded migrant camps. Migrants will not stop coming as long as the reality in their countries of origin causes them to believe that all the risks they will face are a better option than the one they are leaving.

What should we do differently? Protect those coming to the U.S. to exercise their right to ask for asylum. Fight to end policies that push migrants south into unsafe lands or situations and that externalize our own policies and southern borders to other nations. When we, the United States, force migrants to wait in Mexican border towns for months before they can ask for asylum, we force them into situations of vulnerability that are ripe for human trafficking, kidnapping, extortion, violence and dire living circumstances. We can do better as a nation, as people of faith, and as individuals.

Data shows that, per capita, migrants commit fewer crimes and use fewer healthcare resources than native-born U.S. citizens. Studies also show that as more migrants have entered the U.S., the crime rates have gone down in recent years, and that we desperately need more workers. But all of that is for another article.

Yes, as Filippo Grandi has pointed out, this is a political issue, and so we need engage in political solutions that will stop punishing human beings who are fleeing horrific violence and untenable living situations, and start working for solutions that create real options for a dignified living situation across the globe.

Among the policies that our fact-finding group is now advocating our government for (and please join us in this advocacy) are the following:
* Stop the "legal" and illegal trafficking of weapons from the U.S. to cartels and organized crime groups south of the border (in Haiti, Colombia, Honduras, El Salvador, Mexico).
* Stop the use of economic sanctions that eliminate jobs and livelihoods for regular people (especially in Nicaragua, Venezuela and Cuba)
* Support migrant work visas that allow workers to come legally to the U.S. to fill much-needed labor opportunities.

 

Join our Solidarity Travel to Southern Mexico

You can still join the Quixote Center and the Franciscan Network on Migration on our biannual Solidarity Travel from November 10th to 16th, 2024 as we examine first-hand the impact of U.S. policy on Mexico's southern border, and to meet with immigration rights advocates providing shelter and other services to migrants. Click on the Learn More button below for more information on how you can participate. There are only a few spots available and we will no longer accept applications after October 4th.

Learn more Click Here ([link removed])
To apply Click Here ([link removed])

Read reflections from previous trip participants
People Walk to America ([link removed])
Mexico is a Cemetery for Migrants ([link removed])
An Immigration Advocate on the Meaning of Solidarity ([link removed])
An Advocate's Reflection on the Quixote Center's Solidarity Trip ([link removed])
A Teacher's Reflections on the Quixote Center's Solidarity Trip ([link removed])

More information here ([link removed])

 

Artist Corner
The Origin of the Panama Hat

Did you know that the famous "Panama hat" is actually NOT from Panama?
This ancient tradition of weaving toquilla straw into beautiful hats is Ecuadorian and became popular during the building of the Panama Canal in the early 20th century. They are lightweight, breathable and are carefully handwoven into a great variety of designs which renders them particularly appealing in the summer time.
Most Panama hat weavers in Ecuador can be found in the province of Azuay. In this week's artist corner we wanted to showcase the work of the Ecuadorian artisan Oliva Jimenez from the Asociacion Toquilleras de Ludo. This ancestral tradition is transferred from one generation to the next and continues to support the livelihood of thousands of Ecuadorians. You can find out more about Oliva's work here ([link removed]).

 

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