Coyotes in ties | Opinion

If they leave Haiti, Iraq, Venezuela, Africa, it doesn’t matter. Or where do they come from, if it is from Chile or Brazil to enter through Ecuador and reach Necoclí, in Colombia, either. The places of origin and transit are only important as a way of understanding the routes of the migratory phenomenon in America and delving into the causes of the failed states that they had to abandon.

What should really matter does not move anyone. It is inadmissible that governments and citizens make transparent those to whom they give alms in the streets without touching their fingers so as not to catch their tragedy, after the migrant smuggling gangs have left them without five, if they were able to survive the brutality.

What is happening in all of Latin America, although it is not new, it is increasingly tragic, inhuman. I cannot get the images of cruelty out of my head, so close to the slavery of whipped beings, as Congresswoman Maxine Waters said, in front of the Haitian migrants persecuted by border agents on horseback in Del Rio, in the State of Texas (United States). Unidos), on the border with Mexico. I imagine myself being chased by the raids at night, running with my daughter to hide from criminals who may rape us and I don’t understand how it doesn’t happen to others, I imagine living with my soul in pieces every day.

In Chile, where for years they found refuge from racism and xenophobia, at the cry of “no more migrants”, joined the fire with which they burned the belongings of the migrants in days past. They arrived in Iquique, in the north of Santiago, they knocked down their tents, attacked them with bottles, and left them reduced to ashes.

In Colombia the situation is divided in two. Venezuelans, who today are already 1.2 million covered by the temporary protection status, and those in Necoclí, who have arrived there from multiple destinations traveling through the thick jungle of the Darién Gap, already known as the Darién Gap, which is literally swallowed the most fragile humans. More than 20 thousand are waiting for a way to get to the North, always to the United States, after having fallen into the networks of organized criminality of the Gulf Clan, in precarious camps. Only so far this year 46 thousand people have passed through this country.

The Joe Biden government and the presidents of the nations that are receiving this mass exodus are turned into accomplices of coyotes as long as they do nothing other than their rejection pronouncements. Amlo broke his promise of a sensible immigration policy, he accepts the measures to control migrants and the express returns of the Trump era that the Democratic government continues to apply without any shame.

The governments of the world have been unable to address migration with honesty and compassion, making it clear that the political agendas of current leaderships privilege their speeches over the people. It is nothing but to see the absurdity of the statements this week when Vice President Delcy Rodríguez from the Nicolás Maduro regime announced the opening of border bridges with Colombia and the reactivation of binational trade, and President Iván Duque thanked the opposition leader Juan Guaidó , while the steps are still closed and people go hungry to stock up on food through the same illegal trails.

Politicians don’t care about migrants. Racism and xenophobia are growing among citizens without seeing an international migratory pact in the way that addresses the situation with long-term measures. In the book Migrants from Another World (2021), by María Teresa Ronderos, Alberto Pradilla and José Guarnizo, among others, together with the Latin American Center for Journalistic Investigation, proposals are made to take into account, understanding that any effective measure passes through the United States, to create humanitarian steps to through ships, and take the business from the traffickers. The current quotas between Colombia and Panama are insufficient.

The exodus of Syrians leaves many lessons on the other hand, such as those raised by Germany. However, the situation is very different for, for example, the Central American case and its quest to reach the United States. What is clear is that the way out is in the construction of a consensus that must be pressured from the South so that the North cannot continue to evade its historical responsibility, when migrants will grow every day after the pandemic.