By Daniel Leone
Thousands of Central Americans women and children are fleeing vicious gang violence in their countries. Their current situation can only be explained by looking back almost twenty-five years in American history. In 1992, the Los Angeles Riots shook the country. The racially motivated riots were the most destructive American civil disturbance in the 20th century, resulting in 55 deaths, more than 7,000 injuries, and about 1 billion dollars of property damage in LA.
The riots were initially caused by the acquittal of four white police officers who were captured on video mercilessly beating an unarmed motorist, Rodney King. However, law enforcement blamed much of the violence and looting on two LA gangs: MS-13 and M18. MS-13 (Mara Salvatrucha) and M18 (Barrio 18) were both founded in the 1970’s and 1980’s when large numbers of Central Americans arrived in Los Angeles after fleeing civil wars in their countries.
After arriving in gang-ruled Los Angeles, these immigrants formed gangs for protection. The gangs were heavily involved in the violence during the riots, and after the violence had subsided, US legislators decided to use the undocumented status of many MS-13 and M18 gang members to crack down on gang violence. The result of this initiative was the deportation of tens of thousands of Central Americans – many of whom were gang members – back to Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador.
With a lack of other opportunities and no social connections except with other gang members, MS-13 and M18 quickly established themselves in these three countries, which are also known as the Northern Triangle. These maras (street gangs) have become better organized and at times more powerful than the weak governments in the region. Currently, these two gangs have a combined membership of more than 85,000 people, and are involved with drug trafficking, extortion, kidnappings for ransom, and human trafficking. MS-13 and M18 act with impunity in the region, leaving death in their wake. They have been known to recruit children before they are ten years old to act as lookouts and messengers, and there are few alternatives to gang life in many cities in El Salvador and Honduras.
Additionally, the US’s crackdowns on traditional trafficking routes have led to more than 80 percent of documented drug flows to the US now passing through Central America, which has necessitated partnerships between Mexican and Colombian drug trafficking organizations and MS-13 and M18, and has at times caused devastating clashes between these foreign organizations and the maras. Battles between the maras and police or military in the Northern Triangle has also been disastrous, as police raids often target anyone affiliated with these gangs, which in many cities in El Salvador and Honduras, is almost every citizen.
Largely due to the presence of these two gangs, El Salvador is currently the most dangerous country in the world by a large margin (excluding war zones), with a homicide rate of around 104 murders per 100,000 residents. To put that number in perspective, the United States had a 2015 murder rate of about 4 homicides per 100,000 residents, and Venezuela, a massively unstable country that had the second highest homicide rate, had around 90 homicides per 100,000 citizens. Honduras and Guatemala both follow shortly behind. In the Northern Triangle region in 2015, there were 17,422 homicides, making the region the most dangerous region in the world not at war.
As a result of this unthinkable everyday violence, over the last 5 years, hundreds of thousands of refugees and immigrants from the Northern Triangle have streamed into the United States. In 2014, the US Border Patrol detained more people at the border from Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador combined than people from Mexico. This was the first time since detailed record keeping started that Mexicans were not the largest group of people entering the US illegally, and this change illustrates the unprecedented and historic nature of the Central American refugee crisis.
American actions clearly precipitated the violence in the Northern Triangle, and yet the US government has shown no sympathy for the families and children seeking asylum. Around 10 percent of the thirty million residents in the Northern Triangle have left the country, mostly seeking safety in the United States by traveling through Mexico. The United States has handled the situation poorly, and has adopted the strategy of putting Central American asylum seekers, many of them children, in detention centers while they wait for their asylum request to be processed in order to deter future refugees.
A federal court has recently ordered the Department of Homeland Security to release asylum seeking children and parents, citing human rights concerns, but abhorrent behavior by the US has persisted. The United States has recently been raiding the homes of Central American families whose asylum claims did not go through, and has been consistently deporting large numbers of asylum seekers.
An investigation by the Guardian into Obama’s deportations of asylum-seekers found that around 83 undocumented immigrants were murdered almost immediately after being deported from the United States between January 2014 and October 2015. Not only has the US irresponsibly deported refugees and detained children for long periods of time, the government has also failed to provide more than 90% of Central American refugee children with legal representation for their asylum hearings, and more than 7,700 children have been deported without a hearing. The myopic and reactive immigration policies of the United States in the 1990’s made the Northern Triangle one of the most dangerous places in the world, and now, the United States is turning its back on the innocent victims of American mistakes.
Daniel Leone is a sophomore at the University of Pennsylvania.
