DECONSTRUCTING THE CALL FOR A WALL
Is there a crisis at the USMexico border? Catesby Holmes, global affairs editor of The Conversation US, offers some answers from immigration experts.
FOR three years, first as a presidential candidate, then as president of the United States, Donald Trump has insisted the country must stem immigration by building a wall along its southern border – an expensive gambit that few Americans support and that Democratic lawmakers virulently oppose.
Now, he has even shut down the Federal Government over this unmet campaign promise. In a televised address last week, Trump insisted it would stay closed until Congress agreed to a $US5.7 billion ($NZ8.4 billion) steel barrier to “protect the country”.
But is there a crisis at the southern border?
Unlawful border crossings have actually declined since 2014, when 569,236 people — most of them Central American — were detained at the southern border, according to US
Customs and Border Protection. Last year, 521,090 migrants were caught trying to enter the country unlawfully.
Here, immigration experts explain who is trying to get into the US, what they want, and why immigration — even undocumented immigration — actually benefits the country.
1. Most Central American migrants are asylumseekers
Central American migration is heavily driven by fear, according to researcher Jonathan Hiskey, of Vanderbilt University.
“An increasing number of individuals are now arriving at the US southwest border because of crime, violence and insecurity in Central America,” he writes.
With 60 murders per 100,000 people in 2017, El Salvador was the deadliest place in the world that was not at war. Almost 4000 people were killed there in 2017. That year New York City, which has a much larger population, saw 292 killings.
Honduras’ murder rate has plummeted since 2014, but with 42.8 murders per 100,000 people in 2017, it is still one of the world’s most dangerous places.
People who have been victims of crime multiple times are most likely to emigrate, Hiskey says. Rather than trying to sneak across the US border, refugees from violence typically surrender at the border and ask for asylum.
2. Central American teens face particular risk
While overall crime and violence have declined across Central America in recent years, one population is in more danger.
“Youth homicides in the region are now more than 20 per 100,000 – that is four times the global average,” immigration researcher Julio Ernesto Acuna Garcia says.
Homicide rates among people aged 19 or younger have been steadily rising since 2008, largely due to gang violence.
Those stunning statistics explain why so many children and families keep arriving at the USMexico border, despite harsh deterrence.
3. Most migrants are turned away
The majority of asylumseekers at the USMexico border today will not be allowed to stay.
Central Americans fleeing gang violence are rarely granted asylum, Abigail Stepnitz, of the University of California, Berkeley, says.
Asylum seekers must demonstrate persecution based on race, nationality, religion, political opinion or social group. Central Americans typically “struggle to fit their experiences into the boxes created by the law”, Stepnitz says.
More than 75% of asylum claims filed by Salvadorans, Hondurans and Guatemalans are denied.
4. The border is not a national security threat
Trump tends to ignore the fact that most Central American migrants are refugees from violence.
Instead, administration officials falsely claim immigrants are criminals, or that Middle Eastern terrorists are infiltrating the country’s southern border. In doing so, they create the impression the border is a national security threat.
This strategy is called the “politics of insecurity”, writes University of Saskatchewan policy researcher Daniel Belan, and it is a favourite of populists worldwide.
In “creating or exacerbating threats they seek to protect ordinary people against” leaders can fabricate a sense of urgency that justifies extreme measures, Belan says.
Governments often “downplay, inflate, or even fabricate perceived threats to increase their electoral and political support”.
5. Immigrants don’t cause crime
The Salvadoran street gang MS13, in particular, has played a starring role in many Trump threats, as it did in his recent televised address.
Anthony Fontes, a professor at the American University School of International Service, studies MS13. He says conservative politicians often leverage the brutal image of this Salvadoran street gang to serve their political agendas.
“Because its membership is primarily Latino, MS13 helps Republicans make a crucial link between immigration and violence in voters’ minds,” Fontes says.
That association is factually unfounded.
“Numerous studies show that immigrants actually commit crime at a lower rate than nativeborn Americans,” Fontes says.
“Large cities with substantial immigrant populations have lower crime rates, on average, than those with minimal immigrant populations.”
6. Immigration is good for the economy
Immigrants, even those who enter the country unlawfully, often benefit the American economy, too.
An estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants living in the US have become vital to key US industries, says Mary Jo Dudley, director of the Cornell Farmworker Programme at Cornell University.
Undocumented immigrants make up more than half of the nation’s farm workers and 15% of construction labourers.
The rise in border enforcement and immigration raids under the Trump Administration has particularly hurt farmers, Dudley says.
One New York apple grower said that due to labour shortages and dwindling prices, he planned to let his 100yearold orchard go, because any investments in production would result in significant economic loss. — theconversation.com