The Migrant Caravan Crisis

It’s been a while since I’ve written much about Latin America and the Hispanic world in general. However, this doesn’t mean there isn’t anything important happening in all these regions it's just that I’ve been trying my best to find words to best describe some of these situations while backing these words with hard facts. One situation has caused quite a controversy in American politics and even here on my college’s campus. 

The Migrant caravan, a large caravan of over 5,000 from Honduras, are heading towards the southern border of the United States. Reports have said that the caravan has already made it to Mexico City and 1,000 are still trying to head this way. Most of the migrants stopped in Mexico City to rest in a football/soccer stadium whose received food, blankets, and other materials impossible to find anywhere else. Both the governments of Mexico and the United States have been working closely to try and slow down the flow of migrants in order to prevent any illegal crossings. President Trump has announced several times that he’s sent over 5,000 US troops along the southern border to build large barbed wire fences, which they’re still doing as we speak. According to Fox News and Univisión, there are also at least four other caravans also traveling to the southern border. Options have been weighed between Mexico and The US about possibly putting up tent cities along the border, which wouldn’t be too bad of an idea but drug cartels could easily infiltrate these camps. 

This single event has been a hot topic within the United States because the idea of 5,000 migrants coming this way has stirred up a lot of “nationalism” in this country. I’ve seen so many things on Facebook from friends and even family that have nothing nice to say about these migrants fleeing their corrupt country and show absolutely no remorse for the hardships that these migrants face on the daily basis. I’ve also seen people on Facebook share things that are very anti-Trump and slam anyone who wants protected borders. Using the caravan crisis to push your agenda is completely wrong and you should instead find solutions to this crisis. Yet if you’re trying to nationalize this issue and show no support to these fleeing families, you’re just as agenda-pushing as the other side. I’m not picking sides on this issue, I’m simply trying to point out that neither side is correct. I’ve got plenty of friends from different Latino countries and I’m still in the process of hearing from their perspectives on this critical issue. 

I’ll give one good example, I won’t mention names but I recently talked to two of my Latino friends and they gave me wonderful insight. One said it was quote, “illegal” to cross but we need to help those that are truly fleeing corruption and crime. Some other Latinos on Harding University’s had put their input on this matter in The Bison, the schools' newspaper. The Bison wrote an article titled, ”Thousands caravan to the U.S. from Walton Scholars’ home countries.” This created a lot of backlash from the variety of Latino students on campus because those who are in the caravan are only from one country, Honduras. Not the entirety of Latin America is participating in this caravan. I really am disappointed that The Bison would do this but yet people make mistakes. The Bison did right a form of “apology” regards to their mistake but most Walton’s don’t buy it. Don’t get me wrong, the Walton’s that did express concern in the article had legitimate concerns. 

Migrants are suffering from walking for long days, threats from local gangs are huge and political corruption is rampant so the amount of economic opportunities is small. But there are some issues I have with the timing of this caravan and the supposed rumors that the caravan is getting some outside help. I can’t say for sure if that's true, but I wouldn’t be surprised. Another thing that's made be a little suspicious is the video of migrants tearing down fences and breaking things just to cross into Mexico. Not how I'd cross a border, but that's just me. I’m no advocate for open borders, just look at how that went down for Europe in 2014. 

I will continue to ask Latinos across the board on what they think about this, and I myself will do some more digging on this critical issue. I hope I didn’t offend anyone at all, the point of this post isn’t to divide any group, its just to provoke logical reasoning about how we as a nation can solve it all, without hating each other. Thank you and Díos te bendiga (God Bless you)!