Translated by Marvin Najarro
The most visible imprint of the dictatorships imposed by the United States in Latin America can be seen every day in the thousands of migrants who are forced to leave their own countries trying to save their lives, and obtain shelter and food in the United States, which is presented by the experts in deception as the mecca, as the water that quench thirst; like the dreamland where all dreams come true.
A Latin America impoverished by post dictatorship neoliberal governments, made up of corrupt and mobs of looters who have created drug and human trafficking gangs which operate from the very heart of the state, make this pilgrimage the worst torture for those who manage to survive this journey on their way to the United States. Add to this the actions of the Border Patrol who feasts on the migrants flesh in every way.
But the tragedy is not only on the border between the United States and Mexico, this has become one among the thousand lives the migrants lost in their wanderings as such. The misfortune is in their own country which has mistreated them, denying them the opportunities for development and access to an all-inclusive life. A state that excludes and stigmatizes them; that starves, and exterminates them through social cleansing practices. That it disappears them into human trafficking for the purpose of sexual exploitation, labor and organ trafficking. Dead on the inside, they migrate to die a thousand times more along the way; to become in the country of arrival the cheap labor that is also exploited and abused.
And they die from the moment they decided to migrate; they die before they have crossed the border that will take them away from their nest, their affections and their dreams. And they die once again, when the brother countries mistreat them, discriminate against them, abuse, disappear, and kill them. And they die drowned in the seas, in the small rafts attempting to reach Puerto Rico, when they leave the Dominican Republic. And they die anew when they arrive at the border between the United States and Mexico; when the Border Patrol in a vile act of dehumanization exterminates them. And they die once again when they set foot in the country of arrival which in the migratory misfortune eventually becomes the country of residence.
These migrants, who were forced to leave their own countries, are children who live in the garbage dumps, clean car glasses at traffic lights, carry bundles in the markets; they are those who sniff glue. They are the coffee, vegetables and fruits pickers. Those who expose their lungs in the burned sugar cane fields. Those who break stones. They are the girls debased in brothels and whorehouses –that is, if they manage to escape alive.
They are parents who work from dawn to dusk sweeping streets, cleaning buildings, plastering walls. They are mothers who have languished in sweatshops, in the eateries, in hospitals basements, in the streets.
Workers and peasants of all ages to whom the governments of their own countries have marginalized from their birth, who have for generations been stigmatized, who are part of the living wound of a social fabric fragmented in memory and dignity.
This corrupt mob has trafficked with transnational corporations in auctioning the natural resources of entire communities, seizing land, killing peasants, forcing entire villages to forced displacement, which assume the form of forced migration.
Criminal bosses in governments that carry out raids in poverty-stricken neighborhoods, murdering and disappearing the children and the youth who clamor for opportunities for development, and who instead are forced to get involved in crime or to migrate.
The causes of forced migration are in plain sight: inhuman societies whose harmful classism and racism conceal the state’s abuse towards the most vulnerable. Corrupt governments that kowtow to the agenda of the oligarchies, and the interventionists who see the migrants as victims of the US meddling in the region.
Migrants dead on the inside who die every day in distant lands: raped, beaten, tortured, murdered and disappeared. Stigmatized survivors, who die again every sunrise; in the country of transit; of arrival, residence, and return. Because mass deportations are also part of the violence exercised by the United States, and the rest of Latin American countries with neoliberal governments.
No matter which party the president of the United States belongs to, the immigration agenda is the same. As long as Latin America does not free itself from foreign interference and from neoliberal governments, the only way out for thousands of migrants will continue to be, forced migration.
Meanwhile, who will stand up for those who dead on the inside migrate, to die a thousand times more?
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