Terrence Heath takes a look at the crisis of Central American children coming to America. Warning, the pictures in his post are difficult to look at. Heath discusses how violent Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala have become. Many children are given the choice of working for the drug cartels or being killed. Of course, they flee. What the morning news (and those protesting these kids) don't tell us is the role the USA has in creating the violence.
The USA has repeatedly intervened in the Honduran gov't. The most recent time was in 2009 when we sponsored a coup that ousted a left-leaning president and installed a repressive regime.
The CAFTA trade deal meant local farmers of Central America had to compete with subsidized American agribusiness. Nearly two-thirds of Hondurans live below the poverty line.
The War on Drugs pushed cartels out of Mexico (I didn't think they were gone) and into Central America. The drug trade fuels the violence.
Three-quarters of the kids in American detention are from Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador. If we send them home they return to conditions we caused and will kill them. Are we insisting they be sent home because we can't bear to be reminded of our guilt in their plight?
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