There's been a lot of talk in the media about Trump's draconian vow to ban all Muslims from entering the US and sending them back to war torn Syria - where many will face certain death. But did you know that there's an even more hellish place on earth we can send refugees to? Hint: it's right here in our own backyard.
El Salvador and Honduras now have the dubious distinction of being the two most dangerous places on earth - yes, you heard that correctly. It is actually more lethal to be deported to either of these two "peaceful" countries than to be dropped right in the middle of the Syrian civil war or even the failed state of Somalia.
Even more frightening is the the fact that this isn't a "proposed policy;" it's reality. We deport innocent women and children back to this hell hole every day. We do so not because they're terrorist, or pose any type of violent threat to anyone in this country. No, we do it because they're undocumented and in the jurisprudence of many, the mere act of defying the law in order get away from the ceaseless violence is a crime worthy of a de facto death sentence.
How bad can deportation be, you ask?
Consider these grim numbers: Both El Salvador and Honduras are in a virtual dead heat for highest world homicide rate. More than 17,000 homicides were recorded across the three nations of Central America’s “Northern Triangle” — El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala — in 2015, an 11 percent jump from the previous year.
In El Salvador, the murder rate was 104 per 100,000 in 2015, a nearly 70 percent spike over 2014. For comparison, the US homicide rate is only 4 per 100,000. This level of violence has lead to nearly 10 percent of the region's 30 million residents fleeing their homes over the past decade. Many head north.
In just the past two years, more than 100,000 unaccompanied children, and nearly as many mothers and children traveling together, have been caught sneaking into the U.S. along the southwestern border. An increasing number are making claims of asylum, saying they have fled for their lives and face a real danger of being killed if they return to their homeland.
This is the real reason for the massive influx of immigrants last year, (not a mad rush to take advantage of Obama's executive orders on immigration as many conservatives have been spinning.). Want proof? Consider the fact that people from other Central American countries, like Belize and Nicaragua, with much lower murder rates are not coming to the US at the same rate. Furthermore, while the northward flow of migrants from Mexico to the U.S. has dropped in recent years, the numbers have soared from the crime-ridden countries to Mexico’s south. No, this human wave is being driven by an endless cycle of blood and abuse.
These undocumented refugees are not driven to our country to steal jobs, or to rob and rape us. Rather the numbers paint a very different, sobering picture. What's becoming increasingly clear is that this latest wave of immigrants is motivated by fear and desperation. Like the Syrian and Iraqi refugees flooding Europe, these poor souls literally have no where else to turn.
The calculus of this carnage isn't hard to decipher. The countries in question lie in the direct path of the lucrative cocaine smuggling routes out of South America. Competition for this lucrative illicit market has lead to an epic war between the most powerful regional cartels, the 18th Street gang and the Mara Salvatrucha, or MS-13. These vicious street gangs, who trace their origin to Los Angeles in the 1980s, have overwhelmed their countries' military and police forces. With no civil force able to stop them, these violent gangs have turned these once proud nations into virtual lawless states and unleashed a campaign of terror not seen since the horrific civil wars of the 1980s.
The Obama administration has tried to address this festering problem by nearly doubling foreign aid to Central America for the coming three years — with an additional $750 million towards the Alliance for Prosperity in the Northern Triangle aimed mainly at police and prosecutor training and youth outreach. Nevertheless, this had done little to stem the violence. Based on the most recent numbers, the bloodbath shows no signs of dissipating anytime soon.
With conservatives like Trump and Cruz ranting about the need for mass deportations of all undocumented workers and courts blocking Obama's executive orders, many immigrants find themselves detained by ICE and being fed right back into the meat grinder that they fled in the first place.
Recently, a "New" Sanctuary Movement has begun to take hold in churches around the US. The origins of this movement began in the 1980s when 500 or so churches banded together to provide sanctuary for Latino immigrants trying desperately to avoid deportation back to war torn countries like El Salvador and Nicaragua. ICE has traditionally been reluctant to enter places of worship and drag families away in cuffs, so the tactic was successful in saving countless lives.
Sanctuary is once again becoming more and more a necessity. A recent article in the LA Times shed light on the new urgency that many immigrants feel. At the time of this writing, there's an estimated 300 churches around the country willing to provide safe haven for families and individuals trying to avoid deportation.
The story of Giovanni Miranda is a great example of why this movement needs support and help expanding to other cities and denominations. Originally born in El Salvador, Giovanni's passion was cars. He, in fact, spent most of his life in the US, as a legal resident, working hard as an auto mechanic. All that changed when he was involved in a minor traffic accident in 2012. Officials discovered a decades old prior arrest on his record for possessing less than a gram of cocaine and decided to deport him as a "criminal" - even though he had served his time and had committed no felonies in over a decade.
He and his family were subsequently sent to El Salvador, a country he had not lived in since he was a young boy.
“I got here and said ‘WTF,’” he said to a reporter covering his tragic life story for Al Jazera. “I didn’t speak the language, I didn’t know anybody and didn’t have a dime on me.”
Still, Miranda tried to persevere. He managed to open a new auto shop in San Salvador and was beginning to eek out a modest income. Tragedy struck, however, when he decided to rent out a spare room in his tiny house. The man who rented it stopped paying Miranda after the first couple of months. When Miranda put a lock on his door until he paid his rent, the man hired two local street thugs to "settle" the dispute - a practice that is all to common in this lawless city. The men marched into Miranda's shop the next day and shot him dead in front of his wife and newborn baby. According to police accounts, Miranda's blood was splattered all over the infant.
"I never thought I’d end up here again,” said Miranda in June 2015, weeks before he was killed. “My family, my home, my country are back there (in the United States). I made my dreams there.”
And so Giovanni Miranda became another statistic in a mind-numbing, senseless cycle of violence and political jockeying over American immigration policy. His is only one of many stories that are now coming to light.
One can only imagine how much worse things will get if a demagogue like Donald Trump is elected. Miranda's tragic tale will be duplicated untold times as possibly 11 million people are rounded up, put in internment camps, and then dumped on the shores of their original home countries.
This isn't just politics or "enforcing the law of the land." What Trump is proposing is literally a crime against humanity. Not since the era of Stalinist Russia or the Pol Pot regime in Cambodia has such a forced mass movement of entire populations ever been attempted. It's absolutely sickening to think how many hard working, innocent people will suffer if Trump is given the power to enact his twisted, racist vision of "making America great again."
The countries of El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala are already struggling mightily with high unemployment and rampant violence. Dumping millions of displaced refugees into this lethal situation isn't just pouring gasoline on the fire, it's adding a few millions tons of dynamite to the combustible mix. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that the human toll of mass deportation will be devastating on a scale not seen before in the Western hemisphere.
To avert this madness, I urge you to support the New Sanctuary movement. If you belong to a church, reach out to your minister and domination leaders and ask if they're willing to become involved. Find out if there's immigrant families or individuals in your area that need sponsoring. Most importantly, don't just stand around complaining about Trump and Cruz - do something about it.
This website is also a good resource for those who want to find out more and make a positive impact.
If you don't act now, at least save the information for future reference. Come next November, there might be millions who need your help.
For more of Diablo’s random thoughts and artwork visit www.diablocomics.com