Experts: Past Strategies Likely Won't Work to Stem Flood of Migrant Children
Experts: Past Strategies Likely Won't Work to Stem Flood of Migrant Children
COA’s Eric Farnsworth points to Centro America’s drug cartels and gang extortions as the main drivers for the migration of unaccompanied children to the United States during a Senate Committee hearing.
WASHINGTON — Past tactics used to stem violence in Mexico and Colombia and stem the flow of migrants from those countries into the U.S. probably won't work as well in addressing the problem of immigrant children entering the country from Central America, experts told congressional lawmakers on Wednesday.
The experts were responding to comments from Democratic Sen. Tom Carper of Delaware, who said the U.S. should work to stimulate Central American economies as it did in Mexico and Colombia....
They said the violence in those countries is too widespread, and dealing with three separate governments makes a solution more difficult.
Violence in Colombia in the 1980s consisted mostly of "targeted" political attacks, said Eric Farnsworth, vice president of the Americas Society and Council of the Americas. The problem in Central America today is that drug cartels extort entire communities and specifically recruit children, enticing some to seek refuge illegally in the U.S., he said.
"For a lot of the communities, you are subject to it no matter what, and there's nothing you can do," he said.
Mexico is a much larger country with the infrastructure to fully engage with NAFTA policies, Richard Jones, a deputy regional director for Catholic Relief Services, told lawmakers. Central American countries cannot take advantage of trade agreements as easily, he said....
