Reforma: Sergio Aguayo*
Oct. 24, 2018
The Central American caravan is a humanitarian tragedy that is being used to influence the U.S. elections with the complicity of Enrique Peña Nieto's government. To face emergencies of this type, a regional and comprehensive policy is required.
It is impossible to doubt the structural reasons behind the exodus. In Central America inequality is brutal, criminal violence imposes its rules and governments are distinguished by their weakness and impotence. Given this context, it is totally natural for a desperate population to respond to the call of a Honduran activist to start a march to the United States, which implies crossing through the hell that is Mexico.
It is inevitable to ask ourselves if we are not facing an exodus provoked to influence the US elections. The hypothesis is fed by the lack of civility and rules of an election characterized by the ferocity with which liberals and conservatives confront one another. With the prospect of the Democrats regaining the House, the caravan is being used by Donald Trump and some Republican candidates to resuscitate a campaign issue that has given them great returns. The same has happened in various European countries.
In Trump's tweets, the thesis of the United States being a fortress besieged by criminals and terrorists reappears. In this story, Mexico ceases to be a commercial partner and ally in security, to become a territory without law or government, where mobs do as they please.
The change of attitude of Enrique Peña Nieto's government is very striking. In the summer of 2014, 70,000 unaccompanied Central American minors arrived at the border with the United States. It was enough such that Barack Obama had a telephone conversation with Peña Nieto so that his government could become a "nightclub bouncer". Since then, the Mexican government has done everything in its power to stop the Central Americans. Among other measures, they managed to increase the speed of the train called "The Beast" [freight train from southern Mexico, which migrants would jump on and ride north atop its cars] and tightened controls [Mexico's Southern Border Program, begun after the Obama call]. So much so that, in recent years, Mexico stops and deports more Central Americans than does the United States.
That toughness disappeared when the caravan appeared. It is true that there are statements [by the Mexican government] regarding legality, but in practice, they are letting them continue their journey to the United States. If in 2016 Peña Nieto helped Trump [during his campaign] by inviting him to Los Pinos [The Pines, the presidential residence and offices], in 2018 he is collaborating with the Republicans by letting the crowds pass and that makes it easier to exacerbate the campaign´s message of fear and xenophobia. Only two weeks remain until the elections and, if the hypothesis that I am proposing is correct, after that date Mexican official policy will harden again.
The absence of policies that address the root of the problem is evident in the government's reactions to the caravan,. Andrés Manuel López Obrador [aka AMLO] proposed a more sensible solution in the presidential debate held in Tijuana. Recently, the now president-elect has once again proposed that Mexico, the United States and Canada join together to finance the development of Central America and thereby reduce the expulsion factors.
The approach is sensible but incomplete. It needs to be linked to the war against organized crime, because criminal gangs have turned the movement of the migrants into arteries that feed their coffers and broaden the scope of criminal actions. For sure, migration also fuels official corruption.
In other words, a migration policy is needed that harmonizes the fight against organized crime with a new relationship towards Central America and the United States. Will Alfonso Durazo [AMLO' choice to head a re-established Secretariat of Public Security] and Marcelo Ebrard [AMLO' choice to head the Secretariat of Foreign Relations] understand that they are obliged to closely coordinate the work of their two secretariats? If they succeed, Mexico could have an innovative approach that would allow it to regain its lost leadership. With such a policy, it will be possible for them to say that they are attacking the causes of migration, organized crime and corruption at their roots.
As long as that does not happen, humanitarian tragedies will continue to be used for other purposes. This is the case with this caravan that, with the complicity of the Mexican government, is feeding the fires of the US election campaign.
With the collaborated of Zyanya Valeria Hernández Almaguer.
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*Sergio Aguayo is a professor of Political Science at The College of Mexico, where he coordinates the Seminar on Violence and Peace. He is a visiting professor at Harvard University and a leading political analyst and commentator in Mexico. He is president of Propuesta Cívica and a participant in the Movement for Peace with Justice and Dignity. Dr. Aguayo obtained his Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins University, which made him a member of its Society of Scholars in the fall of 2018. His thesis was on the history of Mexican-U.S. government relations in the twentieth century, published as Myths and MisPerceptions: Changing U.S. Elite Visions of Mexico. His latest book is Remolino: El México de la Sociedad Organizada, los Poderes Fácticos y Enrique Peña Nieto [The Mexican Enigma: The Mexico of Organized Society, De Facto Powers and Enrique Peña Nieto]. @sergioaguayo