Economic destitution and horrific drug violence in Central America, combined with a broken-down immigration system, are creating the conditions for a new migrant crisis. Illegal crossings have spiked for children and families from the Northern Triangle — Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala — reawakening fears of an emergency similar to the one that rattled Americans two years ago.
In such a situation, messaging matters. And the messages on immigration being received by desperate Central American families are counterproductive in the extreme.
Despite some effective U.S. programs aimed at gangs and drug crime, El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala remain three of the world’s bloodiest nations, each with stratospheric homicide rates. That helped drive the spike in unaccompanied minors who flooded through Mexico and into the United States in 2014.
The Obama administration dampened that flow mainly by jawboning it, cautioning migrants about the danger they faced from smugglers and the likelihood of deportation while pressing Mexico to interdict Central Americans as they headed north. Barely a year later, that policy was in shreds after federal courts rejected the administration’s attempt to deter underage border-crossers by detaining them, and Mexico proved an ineffective buffer.
Worse, the logjam in U.S. immigration courts made a mockery of President Obama’s warning that migrants would be sent back. In fact, relatively few are. Cases are pending for more than half the 117,000 minors sent to immigration courts over the past nearly three years. Of that total, just 23,000 underage migrants were ordered deported — most of them no-shows at their hearings — and just a fraction have been located and removed.
The effect has been to signal Central American youths, who often arrive with their mothers, that if they can make it across the border they will be able to stay in the United States for at least a few years.
Hillary Clinton, who initially joined Barack Obama in advising underage migrants to stay home, hasn’t helped by switching positions. In March, she promised not to deport migrant children or their family members. It’s no excuse that she flip-flopped under pressure from Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., who favored an open door for Central American youths. She has through her remarks contributed to the spike in illegal border crossings by minors, which have already reached 2014 levels.
Some measures to address the problem over the long term are underway: Congress has appropriated $750 million to help lift Central America from its misery. More immediately, however, U.S. officials should be unclogging immigration courts by hiring more judges and implementing a “rocket docket” to hasten minors through the system, not just to a preliminary hearing.
Terrible conditions in Central America cannot mean a suspension of border security. If images of thousands of migrants pouring northward become common, so will centrist support for mass deportations. That would be the worst outcome, and the end of any hope for an overhaul of the immigration system.
