On my second trip to El Salvador through Campus Ministry’s Winter Immersion Program, one of the Salvadoran guides imparted to my group this very profound and deeply humanizing message: “It doesn’t matter what your thoughts on immigration are. Maybe you think the answer is to let everyone in; maybe you think the answer is deport everyone. However, at the very least, we must all agree that those migrants should be treated with respect and should be treated as humans.”
These words pervade every single headline I read regarding migration, deportation, separation of families, the Berks County Detention Center and kids in cages.
The stories, laughs and meals that I have shared with the people of El Salvador have provided me with the distinct opportunity to humanize people and a place that is so often politicized in our discourse today.
With the Trump administration’s deportation of migrants who were infected with the coronavirus in U.S. detention centers, I can’t help but be reminded of my experiences in El Salvador.
Let’s look at the facts. While U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced the restriction of non-essential travel, alongside U.S. President Donald Trump, across the U.S.-Mexico border on March 20th, Guatemala received 21 planes of deported migrants from the U.S. between March 15 and April 24. Honduras and El Salvador have received 18 and 12 planes, respectively. Eighteen thousand people were deported in March, and nearly 3,000 within the first 11 days of April. Many people contracted the coronavirus in poorly maintained detention centers. It is estimated that about 50-75% of the migrants deported to Guatemala in mid-April were infected with the coronavirus.
The Trump administration’s deportation of migrants who may have contracted the coronavirus does not uphold migrants’ human dignity. Not only that, it fails to uphold the human dignity of all residents of Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras. Those migrants who may have contracted the coronavirus return to their families and communities. They return to countries with scarce, and sometimes broken, health care systems. The deportation of these migrants by the Trump administration is equivalent to someone walking down the street and purposely coughing on everyone they pass. Both are disrespectful, careless, selfish and, as of today, life threatening.
However, these actions by the Trump administration are not only immoral, they are also illogical if one were to assume the president’s perspective. President Trump claims he so vehemently desires to reduce the number of migrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico border, yet he is sending infected deportees back to Central America. This course of action will only result in increased rates of migration in the near future.
Further outbreaks in The Northern Triangle will lead to longer lockdowns, more pressure on tenuous health care systems and elongated economic downturns. Unemployment will rise, supply chains will falter and prices will skyrocket. People will be forced to flee and migrate in order to find work and to feed their families. A spreading virus will lead to fear and uncertainty, leaving many with only one option.
As Latin America becomes the newest “hub” of the coronavirus, President Trump encounters an apropos time to forge this new normal. He can do so by establishing a joint task force of economists, politicians, historians and political scientists from both Latin America and the U.S. charged with one goal: to forge a healthier, more productive and stronger U.S.-Latin America relationship. President Trump must do so not with a hand “reaching down,” but with a hand reaching out, understanding Latin America to be our equal partner in this shared pursuit of a happier and healthier Western Hemisphere.
President Trump, it is time to make America truly great. It is time to recognize that American and Latin American destinies are tied together. It is time to inject the values and practices of servant leadership into the global arena.
