Guatemala: December 2008 Archives

Picture: Associated Press

The Associated Press has an article about a town in Guatemala that is getting inundated with deportees after the New Bedford raid.  It's good to see journalism that focuses on the root of the problem. 

Nativists are probably cheering the return of all these migrants.  To do so is short-sighted.  If the U.S. is suffering during this economic downturn, Guatemala is suffering worse.  We no longer live in a world where problems fit conveniently into national borders.  It is the inability of Guatemala to provide for its people that has forced people to migrate to the U.S. in the first place.  U.S. support for many of the brutal policies that have ravaged Guatemala makes the U.S. partly responsible.

Deporting tens of thousands to Guatemala when jobs are being lost makes absolutely no sense.  It's forcing the country backwards.  It was the absence of jobs in the first place that forced people to migrate.  I dream of the day when we approach this issue from a global perspective.  It's the only way. 

Below are some of my favorite passages from the article: