2016 Migratory Report by Matias Cavoti Part 3: Mexico and the Central American Northern Triangle (El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras)

Mexico  and the Central American Northern Triangle (El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras): The  Fatal Journey of 2015 report establishes that Mexico is a transit country that has a characteristic of having an  internal vertical border that goes from south to north, where Central Americans migrants experience total illegality, vulnerability, marginalization and suffering at the hands of criminal organizations praying on them the whole way extorting, enslaving, torturing, kidnapping migrants holding them for  ransom. To understand the level of violence migrants have to deal with,  for example,  more Honduran nationals have died in their trek north from homicides related to organized crime than from riding on top of trains like the Beast. Another example of gangs ominous presence on the routes, it is known that the Mara Salvatrucha controls whole sections of the transit routes and migrants must pay to pass. Now what is fascinating to discover when working on this subject is that in the TIP report only makes marginal mention of this situation with the Maras or with any other form of organized crime, and the report in general is too soft on Mexico  omitting some major issues, the whole section on this country is pretty short even though it is a major transit country for mix migratory flows that have had some major problems during 2014-2015, like the massive arrival of unaccompanied Central Americans minors.     

It must be noted that in most of the sources used for this report mentions that trafficking in persons in this region has become a major issue, while  the State Departments TIP study qualifies all of these countries, Mexico, the Northern Triangle States and Nicaragua, as Tier 2, even though human trafficking is a problem especially smuggling and forced recruitment into gangs. Adding to this these States have major institutional and structural limitations fighting these migratory crimes, having to deal with deep-rooted corruption among public officials. But the US Report chooses not to criticize these countries especially Mexico, possibly  because they are collaborating with the Obama administration trying to stop the flow of migrants from arriving at the United States Sothern border even overlooking some problems and possible human rights violations  so they do not have to downgrade any of these countries TIP classification from Tier 2 to Tier 2 watch list. In the case of Mexico, there have been accusations in various reports and new articles of heavy-handed policing, poor treatment towards irregular migrants, lack of infrastructure for detention centers for deportation, corruption of State officials and not taking petitions for asylum from possible refugees.    

Before we move on, we must explain what are these "tiers", in the TIP report it is a grading system for the Human Trafficking situations of each country in covered in its pages. Tier 1 is for States that meet the requirements are at least the minimum standers of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000 (TVPA) which its sole purpose is to fight Human Trafficking and raise awareness. Tier 2 countries are those that do not meet the minimum standard but are putting in a great effort to do so. Tier 2 Watch List, are States even though they are putting effort into battle trafficking in persons but the lack of progress leads to the country downgrade, if a country is more than two years in a row in this classification it will be downgrade again to tier 3. And finally tier 3, these are  States that do not meet any of the TVPA's minimum standards and are not making any or very little effort in stopping human trafficking. 
What characterized the migratory situation in Mexico  and the Southern border of the United State last few years was  sudden and massive flow of unaccompanied minors from Central America, in 2014 Mexican authorities intercepted 68.631  minors transiting through its territory, United States border guards stopped 52.000 minors in 2014 and 28.387 in 2015 (Ahmed NY 2016). Gang violence, lack of opportunities, severe drought affecting the agricultural sector of their respective countries and searching for family member already established in the US, had generated a mass exodus of minors from central America adding to the rest of the already existing flow of economic migrants, asylum seekers, refugees and stateless people.

Now this phenomenon of the unaccompanied minors as explained in a report by the Congressional Research Services establishes the way that this situation manifested itself was a sudden surge of people arriving in a very similar fashion as one would see with massive displacements after a natural disaster or a military conflict, but having its own particular dynamic to itself, a flow of children that are particularly easy targets for traffickers to exploit and for gangs in the area to force into their membership, so if this situation wasn't addressed quickly things could get worse and quickly.

With a potential crisis looming US government engaged and pressured Mexico to step up control and stop as many migrants possible in their transit through its territory. Mexico's deportations jumped from 78.000  in 2013 to 170.000 in 2015 (Ahmed NY 2016), filtering large amounts of migrants from getting to the US border in the first place, acting as a buffer. Mexico with financial help from the United States, started heavy policing on its southern border adding more security at its 12 points of entry in the south with its borders with Guatemala and Belize, controlling freight trains heading north, like the Beast and other cargo vehicles and creating 100 mobile checkpoints throughout its territory.  But in the context of this heightened control irregular migrants especially those headed north ended up pushing migrant off the normal route they were taking, choosing more risky options in their transit, possibly using services of smugglers and having to deal with gangs, police or State officials.    

The US government put into motion Operation Coyote in 2014 and Operation Coyote 2.0 in 2015, working with Mexican authorities to bring smuggler to justice taking extra steps to try and capture them at the border, and also trying to dismantle the networks in Mexico.

Now let us briefly address the push factors from the Northern Triangle States and Nicaragua,   gang violence and major criminal activities in these countries  can be traced back to the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigration act 1996 were the United State deported 46.000 convicts between 1998 to 2005(Ahmed NY 2016), including members of the Mara Salvatrucha and the 18th Street gangs, setting the groundwork for organized crime flourish in these unprepared countries. Adding to this situation the fatal journeys study establishes that Mexico War on Drugs, pushed their organized crime south to these countries, while South American drug cartels started to use this region for transit of their goods, pretty much disrupting these societies with a strong spike in violence and crime in these nations, this added to the poor  economic situation of these States were already going through. These push factors have been so persistent since the 80's has generated a culture of migration in these countries.  All three northern triangle States made the UN's top ten countries with the highest homicide rate in the world in 2014, with Guatemala in fifth place with 39.9 (per 10.000), El Salvador is in fourth place with 41.2 and Honduras in first place with 90.4 (CNN 2014).   

The US government also engaged with these countries to try different types of way not only sending these nations 750 million dollars Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador to help these countries to address this problem. The Obama administration has invested trying to create public awareness in these countries of the dangers of irregular migration, using billboards and public service announcements.

A big issue for the families that are left behind in the Central American countries are there missing love ones that migrated north, but never contacted them again possibly having died in the transit.  And in the Fatal Journey 2016 study I must be noted there is no coordinated system for tracking migrants deaths in Mexico of  Central Americans, there are no centralized statistics on migrants, little effort to identify or repatriate bodies.  So Central American countries have established a joint project to identify missing migrants collecting information on bodies found along the route comparing it with the info given by the families. This is a collaboration with national governments of El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala, with the Mexican State of Chiapas, NGOs and family associations, these are bottom-up initiatives started by the citizens in their respective State pushing the governments into action.