By: David Torres
By: David Torres
Converted into the epicenter of one of the most burning political battles of the moment in the United States, unaccompanied migrant minors are, obviously, an unequivocal symptom of the socio-economic and institutional decomposition of the most impoverished regions from which they come. But not only that, because their presence also highlights the type of destination societies they choose to survive, where they have not always found the refuge they hoped for.
But instead to make value judgments around the decision almost in extremis that thousands of parents make when throwing their children alone towards a road full of vicissitudes towards a better geographic space, it would be convenient to stop and take a look at the reality represented by these movements and which, unfortunately, it seems, no one has wanted to put a humanitarian, permanent, or effective solution.
They —those migrant minors that the media have now turned into “news” – are part of an unstoppable human displacement over the decades and that, right now, along with other International migrants of different ages and origins represent 3.6% of the world population, some 281 millions of human beings in search of a better future outside of their countries, according to data from the International Organization for Migration (IOM).
This data is significant when compared with the figure reached in 1990, when they were accounted for 128 million international migrants, three times more than estimated in 1970, according to the IOM.
On the other hand, the more specific figures regarding migrant minors reveal a reality that is somewhat more overwhelming, when it is known that the number of human beings of 19 years or less currently not living in their home nations due to migration is of 40. 9 million, compared to 29 millions recorded in 1990, according to information from the Department Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA), of the United Nations (UN).
Those young people of 19 years or less represent the 14. 6% of the total migrant population, according to DESA, or 1.6% of all children in the world.
But the phenomenon that in recent years has really shocked and alarmed by the vulnerability in which migrant minors are placed is their arrival at a border without their parents, or guardians, or legal guardians. Just alone.
And the figures vary: according to UNICEF in 2015 – 2016 “there were 5 times more children who migrated alone than in 2010-2011″ in the world. But specifically on the United States-Mexico border, the Border Patrol stopped at 2014 nearly 70, 000 unaccompanied children; in 2015, to about 40, 000, while 60,000 on 2016. And of all those unaccompanied minors in 2016, the 61% were from El Salvador and Guatemala.
The ordeal of unaccompanied minors during the previous government speaks for itself alone, when the policy of separating families on the border was a severe blow to thousands of children who stopped seeing their parents for long and infinite months, and even today family reunification is a pending issue. In fact, the current government’s task force in charge of reunification recently reported the finding of more than 5, 281 possible files of minors separated from their parents.
Meanwhile, the almost 19, 000 minors detected last March, 08, 000 more than in February, they are just a part of the more than 170 1,000 immigrants detained on the border, most of whom are deported from the United States, according to official figures. This, despite the current administration’s efforts to provide shelters to migrant children , improvising facilities to take care of them with humanity and respect.
That is, not only has there been a notable increase in the human need to leave a given country to achieve a better level life in another, but has shown, year after year and decades after decade, that the root causes are always the same: lack of opportunities, low wages, extreme violence, internal wars, corruption, poverty, natural phenomena, etc. In such a way that it is not migration that should be condemned, but the origin of those endless exoduses that are telling us all the time that both local and international governments have preferred to close their eyes to that reality, rather than resolve it.
But all this numerical paraphernalia represents human beings with first and last names, as in the case of the little Nicaraguan Wilton Gutiérrez, from 10 year old, who fortunately was found while walking alone on the inhospitable border. His words are already part of the history of immigrants: “Can you help me? The thing is that I came with a group of people and they left me dumped and I don’t know where they are… I come because if not, where am I going to go? Maybe they can rob me, kidnap me or something… I’m afraid. ”
How difficult a particular family situation must be, to make one of the most difficult decisions of a parent or a mother. But that is not a moral excuse, but a reality to analyze to understand and resolve urgently, because only those who have been in a situation as complicated as this will understand those families who risk everything.