Human Rights Watch Criticizes Child Migrant Policies

In a report issued on March 31, Human Rights Watch condemned the Mexican government for granting refugee status to less than one percent of child migrants from Central America. According to the report, only 52 of the 35,704 Central American migrant children apprehended in Mexico in 2015 were granted asylum, while the rest were detained or deported. The Guardian noted that the apprehension rate was 55 percent higher than in 2014 and 270 percent higher than in 2013. As more migrants have continued to stream into Mexico through the first quarter of 2016, fears are rising that another mass migrant crisis is looming. The Mexican government’s actions reflect the spike in migrants fleeing Central America’s Northern Triangle—a region comprising most of El Salvador, Honduras, and Nicaragua—as violence has climbed to historic levels. The murder rate in El Salvador alone has risen 70 percent from 2015, making it, according to The Guardian, the most dangerous peacetime country in the world. Neighboring Honduras and Guatemala also rank among the most violent countries in the world. Reuters noted that the region has not been this violent since its devastating civil wars of the 1980s.

Unsurprisingly, the violence has catalyzed mass exoduses from the region. The United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) has reported that in 2015, nations near the Northern Triangle—including Mexico, the United States, and Belize— faced historic numbers of asylum applications from Central America.

Concurrent with the uptick in migration have been increasing claims that governments have not been doing enough. According to UNHCR, the governments of the

countries most impacted by the incoming migrants need to develop a streamlined way to legalize the migrants’ status, offer assistance to children making solo asylum claims, and develop better infrastructure to house refugees.

The US has begun trying to address the underlying causes for migration. In December 2015, Congress passed a $750 million aid package to help end violence and develop infrastructure in the Northern Triangle.

Unfortunately, these funds will take months to actually reach Central America. In the interim, violent gangs will continue to snatch authority and sovereignty away from the governments of the Northern Triangle at an alarming rate.

In El Salvador, for example, gangs such as MS13 and Barrio 18 have carved fiefs out of the country. With tens of thousands of members and finances propped up by the drug trade, the gangs operate like the self-styled Islamic State in Syria. By imposing curfews, erecting barricades, implementing a new draconian legal system, and providing food aid to the population, the gangs have undercut the legitimacy of the states nominally in charge of the territory. As governments are forced to negotiate ceasefires with the gangs, they gain further trappings of legitimacy.

If left unchecked, the status quo in the Northern Triangle threatens to normalize the role of gangs as permanent and legitimate members of civil society. Should that happen, the violence will persist and the exodus will continue.