Rights Action
February 9, 2021
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"Our privileges are located on the same map as their suffering,
and may -in ways we prefer not to imagine- be linked to their suffering.
As the wealth of some implies the destitution of others."
(Susan Sontag)
President Biden’s administration is beginning to undo some of the harmful, hateful programs put in place by the Trump administration. They are promising to address, again, certain societal divisions and inequalities inside US borders – particularly that of racism. This reckoning will not be easy. These divisions and inequalities are historic and systemic in nature. As always, citizen-led activism will be required to push Biden beyond promises.
On February 2, 2021, President Biden announced a pathway to citizenship for 11 million undocumented people living in the US and a strategy to rollback what he calls the Trump administration’s chaotic, cruel and confusing border policies.
The accompanying executive orders and task force creation are part of a good, long overdue policy direction - which is an about-face for Biden. The Obama administration, with Biden as vice-president, deported more forced migrants and refugees (mainly Mexicans and Central Americans) than any other administration.
Biden’s announcement alone does not mean that this is a done deal. As with the battle to properly address racism inside US borders, it will take substantial citizen activism to hold Biden’s administration to this promise.
Elephant in the room
In taking on the urgent issue of forced migrancy and undocumented people, there is an elephant in the room not being addressed.
In the New York Times, Miriam Jordan wrote: “But the big stumbling block remains whether providing amnesty to those who have broken the law will encourage more people to try their luck.” For her piece, Jordan interviewed Lora Ries (Heritage Foundation) who whined that: “Legalizing countless millions of illegal aliens — even discussing it — rings the bell for millions more to illegally enter the U.S. to await their green card.”
No, fear-mongering about “countless millions of illegal aliens entering the US” is not the elephant in the room. This is misleading, denigrating commentary by privileged people in a rich powerful country, blaming poor and desperate people for being poor and desperate, for doing what they can to try to secure a decent life for themselves.
This reporting is somewhat typical of the media and “experts” they choose to interview, while ignoring the many ways that the US government and lifestyle of many Americans contribute directly to why “countless millions” are forced to flee home and country around the world – particularly from countries like Honduras and Guatemala.
Support for ‘shithole governments’
The real elephant in the room rarely gets discussed in Washington, rarely gets reported on or analyzed in the media, and is ignored by many NGOs and advocacy groups working in support of forced migrants and refugees.
In January 2018, ex-president Trump said: “Why do we want all these people from shithole countries coming here?" While Trump’s denigrating, racist comments were denounced, the fact is the US, Canada and other countries and actors in the so-called international community maintain full and beneficial economic, military and political relations with many ‘shithole governments’ – anti-democratic, military-backed, corrupt governments, like in Honduras and Guatemala.
“Somoza is our son of a bitch”
In 1939, President Franklin D. Roosevelt reportedly said "Somoza may be a son of a bitch, but he's our son of a bitch", referring to the military-backed dictator of Nicaragua the US government was propping up.
‘Juan Orlando Hernandez is our narco-trafficking son of a bitch’
In 2021, one can imagine President Biden and Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau saying that ‘Juan Orlando Hernandez is a narco-trafficking son of a bitch, but he is our narco-trafficking son of a bitch’, referring to the military-backed dictator of Honduras, illegally in power since (pretty much) the 2009 US and Canadian-backed coup, plunging the country into what Tyler Shipley and others identify as an ongoing human rights catastrophe.
 ‘Juan Orlando Hernandez is a narco-trafficking son of a bitch,
but he is our narco-trafficking son of a bitch’
The fact is the US (backed by Canada and North American companies) funds, arms and/or otherwise supports military coups and murderous interventions (including Honduras 2009, Guatemala 1954) to help put back in power ‘shithole governments’ that toe the US line politically, in international matters, and that offer up their country’s richest lands, resources and exploited labor to global companies and investors – re-creating and exacerbating the conditions of violence and destitution that force countless numbers of people to flee into exile, every year.
For the rich country governments and other ‘international community’ actors, Honduras and Guatemala are places where:
- they can have entire communities illegally (often violently) evicted from lands that Canadian and US companies covet to produce goods and extract resources for faraway consumers (mainly in rich countries);
- they pay little attention to environmental practices or standards;
- they use repression against and violate the human rights of land, human rights and environmental defenders;
- they exploit grossly underpaid, non-unionized labor, paying few if any benefits.
Signing of the first “free trade” agreement
The lives of a majority of Hondurans and Guatemalans are dominated by this violent ‘race-to-the-bottom’ model of global development economics which, for the young in particular, works to abuse them, kill them and expel them into exile.
Survival flight
Anybody would flee home and country for the reasons so many flee Honduras and Guatemala, year after year:
- inter-generational land dispossession, exploitation and destitution;
- unchecked government and private sector violence against the general population, particularly human rights, environmental and land defenders;
- infiltration of organized crime (including drug-trafficking) into the executive, legislative, judiciary, military and police branches of state and government;
- impunity for the wealthy and powerful sectors (national and international) when they commit crimes, carry out violent evictions and violate human rights.
‘Refugee-producing’ policies and actions of the US, Canada
By design and operation, Guatemala and Honduras have long been ‘refugee-producing countries.’ Never addressed (let alone remedied) are the ‘refugee-producing’ policies and actions of the US, Canada, other governments and ‘international community’ actors.
Though the US policies and actions in the region are dominant, Canada – through government and private sector involvement - is also deeply imbedded in perpetuate and maintain the intolerable social and political conditions in which every day people find themselves in Guatemala and Honduras.
No matter how courageously Honduran and Guatemalan people work to defend their human rights, land and the environment, to restore real elections and democracy, and to restore the rule of law and justice, as long as their ruling economic, political and military elites maintain enriching and empowering relations with other governments and a host of international actors, these regimes will manipulate or outright steal elections, and use repression, corruption and impunity to keep in place the exploitative, violent economic model that force 10s of thousands of people to flee every year.
“Economic migrants” are refugees
Work in support of refugees and forced migrants in the US (Canada and beyond) must include:
- more public discussion about how US and Canadian public and private sector policies contribute to the underlying causes of forced migrancy from countries like Honduras and Guatemala;
- more actions to hold the US and Canadian governments accountable for policies and actions that contribute to exploitation and destitution, violence and repression, corruption and impunity in countries like Honduras and Guatemala – and forced migrancy;
- more education and activism to increase consumer awareness work so that Canadian and US citizens take responsibility for the source of our consumer products, and in the conditions in which they are produced;
- more actions to hold companies and investment firms legally accountable whose operations contribute to and profit from exploitation and destitution, repression, corruption and impunity – and forced migrancy.
There is also a serious, overdue challenge to work related directly to forced migrants and refugees. One repeatedly hears that “economic migrants” cannot apply for political asylum.
But, in many regions of the world, particularly in exploited, abused countries of the global south (such as Honduras and Guatemala), the global economy is imposed violently, corruptly and illegally on vast numbers of people. The resulting conditions are political violence and they are life-threatening.
(Feel free to share and re-post this article. A version of this was published in the December 2019, CAMINANDO magazine of CDHAL, Committee for Human Rights in Latin America. Grahame Russell is a non-practicing Canadian lawyer, adjunct professor at University of Northern British Columbia, and director of Rights Action: [email protected]; www.rightsaction.org)
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