The Train of Death
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What a lot of folks who work with immigrants up and down the rails in Mexico say is that it would be better if the United States could improve the economies of countries that send a lot of immigrants here – Mexico, Honduras – so that immigration would not hurt neediest Americans, and these women could stay working in these countries alongside their children. And that there should be different ways in which the U.S. uses foreign policies or trade policies aimed at trying to help countries that send most immigrants to the United States. We must address the factors pushing people out of those few countries rather than simply building walls. The building walls won’t work unless other side of equation is addressed. That’s the point that I heard strongest from people who help and work with immigrants along the rails.
MJ: Do you agree with those sentiments?
SN: I’m a journalist: I’m not allowed to have opinions. (laughs) It would obviously be better if the economies of some of these countries improved so that these women can stay home with their children, and these families are not separated. It would not take a miraculous change in these countries. Most women, if they could feed their children and had enough money to send them to school, they would stay. They would not leave them. All they need is a little hope.
MJ: What did you think of the recent surge in nativism and the emphasis on border security?
SN: Efforts to build walls will not be truly effective until you address the real issues that are pushing these women and children to head north. I’m not sure that ultimately those kinds of measures can be very successful. In the last two decades, the border patrol has had its budget tripled and the number of agents tripled. The result has been the number of immigrants coming to the U.S. has grown. By some studies, it has been an ineffective policy. The Senate is proposing more of the same.
MJ: Do you know where Enrique and his mother Lourdes are now?
SN: They both live in Florida. After a honeymoon period, they had some rocky years together, where Enrique felt this resentment surge towards his mother, and felt she had left him for too long a period of time. But they have reconciled, and he’s very loving towards her. He comes over every morning and gets a cup of coffee and a hug from her before heading off to work.
MJ: What do you think will be the ultimate effect of these family separations?
SN: For the families, the journey obviously brings huge economic benefits. But the troubling side is that these children end up in these very conflicted homes. Both in Honduras and in the U.S., people describe that a disproportionate number who are in gangs are from homes where these separations took place. The teenagers end up looking for that love that they thought they would find with their mothers somewhere else. It causes huge social problems. It does not always have a happy ending. In terms of economics, it’s far and above better than trying to eke out a living in Honduras. But in other ways it’s devastating these Latino families and destroying what they most value, which is family unity.
Lisa Wong Macabasco is a writer in New York.
