To die after crossing a vast portion of the southern desert is a risk people take, mostly from the Northern Triangle, when they set out on the adventure of reaching America as refugees.
The living conditions of many families from El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala activate the myth built by the American mass media around the American dream, a story that the nation’s migratory policies want to disappear, but that only in April involved at least 8,897 unaccompanied minors, who according to the CBP were arrested on “the promised land”.
They are part of the 98,977 undocumented migrants that the authorities stopped in April at the Mexican border. The number of migrants’ detentions of migrants has risen to 460,294 since the beginning of fiscal year 2019, which began last October.
In the midst of this socioeconomic event, which involves the inexperience of the nations involved in handling common geopolitical issues, a humanitarian emergency has overwhelmed the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, which has a record death toll of at least six migrant children in its custody.
A worrying mixture
U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officials have repeatedly stated that their holding facilities have been overcrowded and that they do not have enough personnel to monitor the health conditions of children arriving alone or in the company of adults.
Since Jakelin Caal Maquin´s case in December 2018, the Guatemalan girl who died under U.S. state custody, the alarms have been on, but many support organizations, in conjunction with partisan sectors, claim that not much is being done to protect the children lives.
They are suspicious of the DHS report of a Salvadoran girl who had lost her life while being in custody but was reported nine months after the event.
The next to last report referred to 16-year-old Guatemalan Carlos Gregorio Hernández Vásquez, who died in a detention center in Texas. There has been no official announcement about the cause of his death.
The other children whose deaths are known are Wilmer Josué Ramírez Vásquez, age two; Juan de León Gutiérrez, age 16; and Felipe Alónzo-Gómez, age eight. They add up to six deceased.
Surroundings and circumstances
Many non-governmental organizations and activists in general believe that the government is not interested in improving the controls that prevent these events.
The humanitarian organization Kids in Need of Defense (KIND) recommended to avoid family separation and that minors detained in the U.S. by the Border Patrol on the Mexican border receive care from child welfare professionals.
To add more to the use of death as persuasive propaganda, the Government of Guatemala recently assured that the United States has not reported the result of the autopsies carried out on the five immigrant minors who have died in recent months in U.S. territory.
To extend the spectrum of concern, KIND has reported cases of children left alone in the United States when their parents were deported, or even cases where the authorities cannot report the current whereabouts of many of these minors.
It seems that the evidence of uncontrolled management of the border humanitarian crisis is part of an underhand policy and not the result of incapacity
As a protest, activists, religious leaders and community members began last Monday the Migrant Trail, an annual tour of the route followed by undocumented immigrants through the Arizona desert in order to remember the thousands who have died in the attempt.
“Every year that I have participated in the Migrant Walk I hope it will be the last,” said Mohyeddin Abdulaziz, who has supported this initiative for a decade.
Translated by: José Espinoza
Noticias Newswire
