Each of the last three American presidents dealt with a major humanitarian emergency at the border, and each time the American public experienced it as a separate incident. One came in 2014, the next in 2019, the third in 2021. The latest crisis was always the worst, until the next one. But these were all different chapters of the same story, which went back to 1980. (Everyone Who is Gone is Here: The United States, Central America, and the Making of a Crisis, pg. 5)
Jonathan Blitzer, a staff writer at the New Yorker, has written a new book exploring the immigration crisis at the southern border. He focuses on the concrete lives of people who make the journey, demonstrating that for many of them it is not really a decision—either they try to get to the United States or they put their families at risk. From this vantage point, he unpacks the deeper causes of the crisis. He describes how U.S. policy has historically focused on deterrence. He writes, “One of the core premises of US immigration policy—true under Democrats as well as Republicans—is deterrence: turn away enough people, and others will stop trying to come.” (pg 4) At the same time, U.S. immigration policy has not adapted to the changing demographic of migrants. In the eighties and nineties migrants tended to be Mexicans looking for work. Today, the demographic has shifted to Central Americans fleeing gang violence and civil unrest.
To properly address this new form of migration, it is crucial to put it in historical context. Blitzer does this by making the connection between American Foreign policy at the Cold War and the impact of past immigration policies and actions. One example he provides is the history of the notorious MS-13 gang. The gang developed on the streets of Los Angeles in the late eighties and early nineties as El Salvador was being torn apart by a civil war. As refugees from this struggle came to the United States, they struggled to find their place in American society. As many Central Americans settled in Los Angeles, they got caught in the middle of rising gang violence. Blitzer writes:
Some of the refugees tried banding together in self defense. There were two options, and the 18th Street was the more established one..over the years what distinguished 18th Street was its inclusiveness…The gangsters from 18th Street welcomed immigrants and cultivated a more ecumenical Latino identity. (160)
The other option was the Mara Salvatrucha gang, or what became known as MS-13. “MS was a band of outcasts and misfits populated with new arrivals from Central America.” (160) They became a ruthless, violent, gang that eventually turned into an international criminal network as the U.S. deported members back to Central America. Blitzer writes:
American deportation policy had turned local street gangs from LA into an international criminal network. MS-13 and 18th Street fanned across the country (El Salvador) and region; their rivalries spread with them, mutating into something even more violent and ungovernable. The Clinton administration was so eager to demonstrate its toughness on crime that it had deported hardened criminals without warning the Salvadorian authorities…Between 1993 and 1996, four thousand teenagers and young men with thick criminal records were sent to El Salvador. (pg 261-2)
Everyone Who is Gone is Here connects the current crisis to the unintended consequences of past immigration policies in the U.S. and Cold War foreign policy on Central American countries. This is not to minimize the urgency of what’s happening, nor does it preclude enacting measures to secure the border—border security has to be a central part of the overall immigration solution. It does mean, however, that to solve this crisis we must examine the consequences of past decisions and policies. It means thinking about a foreign policy in a way that focuses on the flourishing of Central American countries. It means re-thinking economic policy, not just for the benefit of the United States, but for the benefit of our neighbors as well. When we try to better understand the factors that push people to come to the border, then we can begin to develop a comprehensive immigration policy that is not just reactive ideology.
(To hear a discussion of Blitzer’s book on NPR’s Fresh Air click here.)