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News > Latin America

Central America and Mexico Respond to Trump Deportation Regime

  • A demonstrator wears a hat that reads

    A demonstrator wears a hat that reads "Immigrants Make America Great " during a protest against Donald Trump, Salt Lake City, Utah, Nov. 12, 2016. | Photo: Reuters

Published 22 November 2016
Opinion

The Northern Triangle and Mexico will support its citizens in the United States with a hotline to help them get support and know their rights.

In the face of pledges from president-elect Donald Trump to deport up to 3 million undocumented migrants immediately after he takes over the White House in January, the governments of Mexico, Honduras, Guatemala and Salvador have joined forces in the name of protecting the rights of their populations in the United States and tackling the migration crisis on home soil.

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Representatives of the four countries met in Guatemala City on Monday where they discussed the need for ramped up border security measures while tackling the causes of mass migration from the so-called Northern Triangle — El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras — and working to support the thousands of migrants already in the U.S. who fear deportation under a Trump presidency.  

The talks also stressed the need for increased communication between the countries in the region in the face of these challenges.

“Today more than ever we are convinced of the importance of maintaining communication that is fluid, constant and above all very, very open,” said Mexico’s Foreign Affairs Secretary Claudia Ruiz Massieu.

Mexico already organized a hotline service last week through its consulates in the United States for millions of its citizens living undocumented north of the border to call if they are in need of consular support or information about their rights.

The Northern Triangle countries are set to join in the initiative with an extension of the service. One of the first concrete actions emerging from the agreement to put forward a shared strategy will be the launch of a joint consulate service in McAllen, Texas, in December, representatives announced.

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The emergency phone line parallels action taken by Central American nations in January amid a major crackdown on undocumented migrants with waves of raids and mass arrests by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. During the spike in raids — aimed at rounding up by the thousands undocumented Latinos primarily from Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador — Central American countries issued “know your rights” advice as widespread fear and confusion bubbled over in many migrant communities. Governments from the region also urged U.S. immigration authorities to respect the human rights and dignity of those facing deportation.

Now, the immigration enforcement systems used by the Obama administration to deport record numbers of undocumented immigrants will soon be in the hands of Donald Trump, who campaigned on promises of building a massive wall on the Mexican border and deporting all 11 million undocumented immigrants in the country. President Barack Obama has already earned the damning nickname “Deporter in Chief” for kicking out of the country more than 2.5 million undocumented people during his two terms in office. Fear of deportation has sharply escalated since Trump’s election.

A steady stream of migration from Central America’s Northern Triangle, suffering high levels of violence and inequality, spurred the Obama administration to roll out the US$750 million Alliance for Prosperity for the region. The controversial aid package, focused on security initiatives, proposes to tackle the migration crisis at its roots. But critics argue that the plan follows in the footsteps of the failed war on drugs with militarized solutions that contributed to the crisis in the first place.

Meanwhile, Northern Triangle countries recently launched a tri-national security force to combat gangs in the region. Though not explicitly linked to issues of migration, the initiative parallels the Alliance for Prosperity as a bid to improve regional security through centralized intelligence and increased border policing.

Part of the regional strategy to tackle migration has also seen a shift in immigration patrols from the United States to Mexico through the Southern Border Plan, which has ramped up security on Mexico’s historically-porous southern border with skyrocketing levels of deportation of Central American migrants.

According to the Pew Research Center, undocumented migrants make up 3.5 percent of the U.S. population and 5.1 percent of the U.S. labor force.

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