[D66] Fwd: US-Mexico border

[A.O.]

(stond nog in de queue)

http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2018/05/02/cara-m02.html

Democrats maintain silence over persecution of Central American
immigrants at US-Mexico border
By Genevieve Leigh
2 May 2018

In the face of the Trump administration’s sadistic and illegal treatment
of Central American immigrants seeking to apply for asylum at the border
crossing between Tijuana-San Ysidro and San Diego, the Democratic Party
has said virtually nothing, exposing as a cynical fraud its pretensions
of sympathy for the plight of immigrant workers.

For the third day, United States Customs and Border Protection (CBP)
officials at the border checkpoint are holding in limbo a large majority
of the 170 migrants who participated in a caravan from Guatemala to seek
refuge in the US from murderous political and gang violence in their
home countries. In line with President Donald Trump’s racist attacks on
the caravan as an assault by criminal elements against US national
security, the CBP has allowed only 14 of the refugees to cross into the
US and begin the onerous process of applying for political asylum.

The rest, consisting largely of women and children, are being left to
camp out on the Mexican side of the border. This is being done to people
who have endured a months-long trek in an attempt to escape horrific
conditions caused by US imperialist intervention, exploitation and
support for CIA-backed death squad regimes. The deliberate delay in
processing the immigrants is a flagrant violation of international laws
and conventions guaranteeing the right to political asylum.

The 14 immigrants who have been allowed to apply for asylum are being
held in a detention center known as the “hielera,” or “cooler,” where
they could remain for days, or even a week, as border agents question
them to determine whether they have “credible fear” of returning to
their home countries.

Under orders from Attorney General Jeff Sessions, the Justice Department
has filed criminal charges against 11 immigrants, allegedly part of the
caravan, who are said to have entered the US illegally. “The United
States will not stand by as our immigration laws are ignored and our
nation’s safety is jeopardized,” Sessions said in a statement.

The Department of Homeland Security, which oversees the CBP and the
Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE), has announced a policy
of separating children from their parents where families are caught
crossing the border with documents.

Trump has repeatedly railed against what he calls the “catch and
release” policy, a pejorative term for allowing undocumented immigrants
to remain free pending the outcome of their administrative hearings and
determination of their status, instead of locking them up for weeks,
months or even years. Earlier this year, the US Supreme Court ruled that
immigrants held in detention facilities have no right to a bail.

On Sunday, Vice President Mike Pence made a provocative visit to El
Centro California, just 100 miles east of the scene unfolding in
Tijuana, where he toured a construction site for Trump’s border wall.
After lauding the CBP and Homeland Security, Pence accused the caravan’s
organizers of persuading people to leave their homes to advance an “open
borders” agenda.

The silence of the Democratic Party will not shock anyone who has paid
attention to immigration policy over the last decade. The slim chance
these migrants have of being granted asylum is not a new feature of the
Trump administration, but rather a longstanding bipartisan policy. More
than 75 percent of applicants from Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador
between 2011 and 2016, under the Obama administration, were rejected.
Obama deported more immigrants than any previous president. The policies
of the Trump administration are a continuation and intensification of
those of the Obama administration.

In order to reduce the number of immigrants reaching the US, and
circumvent international law regarding asylum seekers, the Obama
administration oversaw a program called “Frontera Sur,” which required
the Mexican government to crack down on Central American migrants before
they could make it to the US border.

Under the program, Mexico relocated hundreds of immigration agents to
its southern border with Guatemala to carry out the diktats of
Washington. Mexican immigration officials set up mobile checkpoints and
conducted regular raids on trains and immigrant safe houses to prevent
Central Americans from reaching the United States.

The Obama administration supported this campaign with training,
technology, intelligence and funding. The US has provided the Mexican
police and military with roughly $100 million to detain and deport
Central Americans.

A year after the program’s initiation in July 2014, apprehensions by the
Mexican government increased by 71 percent over the previous year. The
crackdown has led to the deportation of about 950,000 Central Americans
as well as the detention of many indigenous Mexican citizens living in
southern states like Chiapas. According to a 2015 United Nations report,
the large-scale detention and deportation scheme has also produced
widespread torture.

After the caravan initially left Chiapas over a month ago, Trump
pressured the Mexican government to “break up” the migrants, using the
tools in place from Obama’s “Fronter Sur” program.

The Mexican government obeyed Trump’s order and worked to intimidate the
group. Trump boasted of its actions in a tweet in early April, saying,
“The Caravan is largely broken up thanks to the strong immigration laws
of Mexico and their willingness to use them so as not to cause a giant
scene at our Border.” Shortly afterwards, armed Mexican immigration
agents entered a train carrying over 500 of the original 1,500 in the
original caravan, forcibly removed them from the train and left them to
travel on foot miles from any major city or town.

The Democrats are complicit in the conditions in Central America that
are driving desperate people to become refugees. Over 80 percent of the
migrants traveling in this year’s caravan are from Honduras. In 2009,
the Obama administration, with direct oversight by then-Secretary of
State Hillary Clinton, backed a military coup in Honduras that ousted
the elected president Manuel Zelaya and inaugurated a period of
repressive violence against the working class.

The repression includes arbitrary detentions, beatings, torture and the
murder of members of opposition media. Since the overthrow, the US has
turned a blind eye to fraudulent elections held under state-of-siege
rule so long as they produced victories for US-friendly candidates. The
US government entered into bilateral agreement with the Honduran
government in 2010 to resume the direct flow of US military aid to the
Honduran armed forces and police. Organized gangs in the country are
well known for extorting Hondurans to pay an arbitrary “war tax,” and
some who can’t pay are killed.