Butterflies and swallows and flamingos have forever spread their wings to flee the cold, the way whales swim in search of seas, and salmon and trout seek out their rivers. Year after year, they all travel thousands of miles on the open roads of air and water.
The roads of human flight are not free.
In immense caravans they march, fugitives fleeing their unbearable lives.
They travel from south to north and from rising sun to setting sun.
Their place in the world has been stolen. They’ve been stripped of their work and their land. Many flee wars, but many more ruinous wages and exhausted plots of land.
These pilgrims, shipwrecked by globalization, wander about, unearthing roads, seeking homes, knocking on doors that swing open when money calls but slam shut in their faces. Some manage to sneak in. Others arrive as corpses that the sea delivers to the forbidden shore, or as nameless bodies buried in the world they hoped to reach.
Los emigrantes, ahora
Desde siempre, las mariposas y las golondrinas y los flamencos vuelan huyendo del frío, año tras año, y nadan las ballenas en busca de otra mar y los salmones y las truchas en busca de su río. Ellos viajan miles de leguas, por los libres caminos del aire y del agua.
No son libres, en cambio, los caminos del éxodo humano.
En inmensas caravanas, marchan los fugitivos de la vida imposible.
Viajan desde el sur hacia el norte y desde el sol naciente hacia el poniente.
Les han robado su lugar en el mundo. Han sido despojados de sus trabajos y sus tierras. Muchos huyen de las guerras, pero muchos más huyen de los salarios exterminados y de los suelos arrasados.
Los náufragos de la globalización peregrinan inventando caminos, queriendo casa, golpeando puertas: las puertas que se abren, mágicamente, al paso del dinero, se cierran en sus narices. Algunos consiguen colarse. Otros son cadáveres que la mar entrega a las orillas prohibidas, o cuerpos sin nombre que yacen bajo la tierra en el otro mundo adonde querían llegar.
(Eduardo Galeano, Voices of Time/Bocas del tiempo, 2007)
CAUSES
MUTUALLY-REINFORCING CAUSES
Woodrow Wilson Center Latin American Program
Why are Thousands of Central American Children Risking their Lives to Reach the United States?: A View from Honduras (webcast)
Instituto para la Seguridad y la Democracia (INSYDE)
Fact Sheet: Niñez migrante no acompañada en la región norte y centroamérica
National Public Radio (NPR)
Honduran Foreign Minister: U.S. Should Address Root Causes of Migration
National Public Radio (NPR)
Central American Leaders: Immigrant Children Are A Shared Problem
Immigration Policy Center
No Childhood Here: Why Central American Children Are Fleeing Their Homes
Stanford University Press Blog
Intervention and Displacement: How U.S. involvement in Central America pushes children and families to migrate
AFL-CIO
Trade, Violence and Migration: The Broken Promises to Honduran Workers
Unaddressed Ravages of Wars
UN Office on Drugs and Crime
Transnational Organized Crime in Central America and the Caribbean: A Threat Assessment – see pages 59-64
Huffington Post
Here's How The U.S. Sparked A Refugee Crisis On The Border, In 8 Simple Steps
Unsustainable Development
University of Texas Press
Contesting Trade in Central America: Market Reform and Resistance
Council of Foreign Relations
NAFTA’s Economic Impact
CEPAL - Comisión Económica para América Latina y el Caribe (CEPAL)
The United States-Central American Free Trade Agreement: Fiscal implications for the Central American countries
Coalición Alto al CAFTA
DR-CAFTA: Efectos y Alternativas (El Tercer Reporte Anual de La Coalición Alto al CAFTA)
International Labor Organization
Proyecto Mejoramiento de las condiciones laborales y de vida de las trabajadoras de la maquila en Centroamérica
Honduras Laboral
Impacto social de la maquila en Honduras
Centro de Derechos de Mujeres
Coalición Hondureña de Acción Ciudadana
Impacto del libre comercio en los derechos laborales de las obreras de la maquila textil en Honduras
Cordaid
Conflictos mineros y pueblos indígenas en Guatemala
Instituto Centroamericano de Estudios Fiscales (Icefi)
La minería en Guatemala: realidad y desafíos frente a la democracia y el desarrollo
Instituto de Agricultura, Recursos Naturales y Ambiente (IARNA), Universidad Rafael Landívar (URL)
Perfil Ambiental de Guatemala 2008-2009: las señales ambientales críticas y su relación con el desarrollo
Trans-border Drug Economy
UN Office on Drugs and Crime
2011 Global Study on Homicide
Organization of American States
The drug problem in the Americas: The Economics of Drug Trafficking
School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) Review of International Affairs
Living in an Illegal Economy: The Small Lives that Create Big Bucks in the Global Drug Trade
Los Angeles Times
Exploitation awaits migrant children on Mexico's southern edge
Violence: Youth and Women
International Migration Review
Everyday Restriction: Central American Women and the State in the Mexico-Guatemala Border City of Tapachula
International Journal of Sociology of the Family
Immigrant Latina Mothers as Targets of Legal Violence
Guatemala Human Rights Commission
Rethinking the Drug War in Central America and Mexico: Analysis and Recommendations for Legislators
Immigration Policy Center
Mexican and Central American Asylum and Credible Fear Claims Background and Context
Immigration Policy Center
No Childhood Here: Why Central American Children Are Fleeing Their Homes
Los Angeles Times
Exploitation awaits migrant children on Mexico's southern edge
Loss of Governments' Capacity to Guarantee Citizen Security
The New Republic
Guatemalans Aren't Just Fleeing Gangs
Nueva Sociedad (NUSO)
Estado y violencia criminal en América Latina: Reflexiones a partir del golpe en Honduras
United Nations Development Program
Citizen Security with a Human Face: Evidence and Proposals for Latin America
Failure of U.S. Congress to Pass Sensible Immigration Reforms
Mother Jones
Why Our Immigration Courts Can't Handle the Child Migrant Crisis
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press
Surge of Central American Children Roils U.S. Immigration Debate
Samuel Walker, University of Nebraska at Omaha
Changing the Culture of the Customs and Border Protection Agency: Lessons form Recent Developments in Municipal Police Accountability in the U.S.
Cecilia Menjívar, Arizona State University
Transnational Parenting and Immigration Law: Central Americans in the United States
U.S. INVOLVEMENT
Análisis Político
Cold War Memories: Latin America Versus The United States
Huffington Post
Unaccompanied Minors? Blame a Century of U.S. Central American Foreign Policy
Southern Studies
Key leaders of Honduras military coup trained in U.S.
Pantheon E-Books
Inside Central America: The Essential Facts Past and Present on El Salvador, Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala and Costa Rica
Latin American Studies Association (LASA) Forum
Crisis in Honduras (Page 6)
Honduras, Obama and the Region’s New Right (Page 8)
Inter-American Commission on Human Rights
Organization of American States
Preliminary Observations on the IACHR Visit to Honduras
Marcelo Bucheli, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Good dictator, bad dictator: United Fruit Company and Economic Nationalism in Central America in the Twentieth Century
Huffington Post
Here's How The U.S. Sparked A Refugee Crisis On The Border, In 8 Simple Steps
FORCED MIGRATION CRISIS
Annual Review of Sociology
A Critical Overview of Migration and Development: The Latin American Challenge
Refugee Survey Quarterly
The New Wave: Forced Displacement Caused by Organized Crime in Central America and Mexico
REFUGEE CRISIS
Women's Refugee Commission
Forced From Home: The Lost Boys and Girls of Central America
HUMANITARIAN CRISIS
Women’s Refugee Commission
Top 10 Critical Needs Facing Refugees and Those Displaced in Emergencies
Brookings Up Front
The Surge in Unaccompanied Children from Central America: A Humanitarian Crisis at Our Border
Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA)
Mexico’s Other Border: Security, Migration, and the Humanitarian Crisis in the Line with Central America
American Immigration Council
Children in Danger: A Guide to the Humanitarian Challenge at the Border
Pew Research Center
Children 12 and Under are Fastest Growing Group of Unaccompanied Minors at U.S.-Mexico Border
SHORT-TERM SOLUTIONS
American Immigration Council: Immigration Impact
HUMANE Act Fails to Address Humanitarian Challenges
TRAFFICKING VICTIMS PROTECTION REAUTHORIZATION ACT (TVPRA)
U.S. Policy Program
The William Wilberforce Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2008: Summary of Important Provisions
HISTORIC JUNCTURE OF U.S.-LATIN AMERICAN RELATIONS
Woodrow Wilson Center Latin American Program
Migration of Central American Minors: Causes and Solutions Webcast
COUNTERACTING THE XENOPHOBIC NARRATIVES
Mother Jones
Child Migrants Have Been Coming to America Alone Since Ellis Island
Moyers & Company
America’s Response to Child Refugees on the Border is Downright Shameful
Discourse & Society
Xenophobic Normality: The Discriminatory Impact of Habitualized Discourse Dynamics
Salon
David Brat’s Xenophobic America: The Deeply Disturbing History of American Immigration
MEXICAN CHILDREN SILENTLY DEPORTED
Institute for the Study of International Migration
Binational Dialogue on Mexican Migrants in the U.S. and in Mexico
Appleseed Network
Children at the Border: The Screening, Protection and Repatriation of Unaccompanied Mexican Minors Appleseed Mexico
Pew Research Center
Many Mexican Child Migrants Caught Multiple Times at Border
MEXICAN GOVERNMENT INITIATIVES, "PAISANO" PROGRAM
Gobierno de México
La ley migratoria de Mexico
Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars Mexico Institute
Understanding Mexico’s Changing Immigration Laws
CIP Americas Program
Forgotten Refugees: Mexico’s Displacement Crisis
HUMAN TRAFFICKING AND SEXUAL VIOLENCE AGAINST MINORS AND WOMEN
International Organization for Migration
La trata de mujeres: una expresión de la violencia contra las mujeres
MEDIUM- TO LONG-TERM SOLUTIONS
FLOW OF GUNS
Colectivo de Análisis de la Seguridad con Democracia
Atlas de la seguridad y la defensa de México 2012
Organization of American States
The drug problem in the Americas: Studies The Economics of Drug Trafficking
School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) Review of International Affairs
Living in an Illegal Economy: The Small Lives that Create Big Bucks in the Global Drug Trade
UN Office on Drugs and Crime
Transnational Organized Crime in Central America and the Caribbean: A Threat Assessment
ENGAGING GOVERNMENT, NEIGHBORS AND NGOs ACROSS BORDERS
Huffington Post
New York City May Begin Housing Unaccompanied Border Children
Boston Globe
Governor Patrick wants Mass. to Host Children
New York Times
With Surge in Child Migrants, New York Forms Task Force on Aiding Them
Woodrow Wilson Center Latin American Program
Migration of Central American Minors: Causes and Solutions Webcast
Woodrow Wilson Center Latin American Program
Why are Thousands of Central American Children Risking their Lives to Reach the United States?: A View from Honduras (webcast)
Nebraska Organizations
Nebraska groups urge Congress to protect children seeking safety
Office of Latino/Latin American Studies (OLLAS) at the University of Nebraska at Omaha
Statement of Concern about the Humanitarian Crisis of Unaccompanied Children
Protect, Don’t Deport Children– and Address Drivers of the Crisis
Foreign Policy in Focus
The Long Road to Immigration Reform
Huffington Post
Progressive Caucus: Don't Take Protections Away From Kids To Address Border Crisis
CBS
In El Salvador, Kids Seek Refuge from the Violence
Red Jesuita con Migrantes Centroamérica & Norteamérica
La migración de los niños y niñas centroamericanos a Estados Unidos: ¿Quiénes son los responsables? ¿Y cuáles son las acciones urgentes?
Alianza para las Migraciones en Centroamerica y Mexico/Central American and Mexican Migration Alliance
Public Statement: Dialogue and Exchange Visit on Unaccompanied Migrant Children
Inter-American Dialogue
Understanding Central American Migration: The crisis of Central American child migrants in context