All posts tagged Immigration

Book Excerpt: A Life Before Leaving

Catherine Grau, Research & Data Coordinator of the Immigration Lab

Ernesto Castañeda, Director of the Center of Latin American & Latino Studies and the Immigration Lab

This is an excerpt from an upcoming book, A Mountain of Dreams, an ethnographic exploration of unaccompanied youth migration to the United States between 2019-2022. This project centers a small community of new arrivals in the DC area as they navigate new adulthood, immigration law, and complex relationships.

Note: Names have been changed where needed for interviewee privacy

Photo of cane field on fire in Central America, taken by Catherine Grau.
Photo of cane field on fire in Central America, taken by Catherine Grau.

As the weeks stretched into months, even Sol stopped asking when her father was coming home. Her younger brother was still in diapers. Her mother had been working in the nearby city of La Libertad, El Salvador but she wasn’t making enough to support three kids on her own, so she moved further away. “For a long time, my mother had to go work in the big city, in San Salvador,” Sol expressed. Her mother explained that she was going to find work in the big city and send money to Sol’s sister for anything that they might need. She blinked the tears away as her mother explained why she had to leave, that Sol’s father wasn’t going to live with them again right now, and that her sister was going to be just like her mother and do all the things that her mother wouldn’t be able to do anymore. It made Sol sad to see her mother go, but she thought she understood. Her mother would come back; she just couldn’t be home right then.

Sol remembered, “I got a little bit used to the fact that my mother was gone, but the situation changed because I had my little brother. Now he was the one who was crying when she was gone, it was him who was sad. I felt really, really bad watching him, and aside from that I felt bad seeing that my sister was responsible for both him and me, basically she had to raise us”[1]. They were forced to start acting like adults at a young age. “At that time my sister was fourteen, and well, my brother, older sister, and I lived alone. To be honest, it was very difficult.”2 Her sister tried her best to take care of young Sol and their baby brother. Every morning, Sol’s sister combed her hair before she met her friends for the long walk to school. Her sister stopped attending school.

It was only in the years after her mother left that Sol began to understand how alone she and her siblings really were. They lived in the countryside; their nearest neighbors were little more than distant shapes beyond the fields in the morning. Three children living alone in an isolated house was not a secret that they wanted anyone to discover. They shuddered at each rustle in the sugarcane fields and shrank from the window as slow-moving trucks spat dusty gravel toward their door. For years, Sol and her siblings spent each night waiting anxiously for the morning to come. Eventually, Sol’s mother returned from the big city. Her worn sandals searched for open dirt along the overgrown footpath that led to her children. The door swung open, the barricade forgotten in a corner. Sweet words, small hands, and tight embraces all tumbled together. Once, Sol had been too small to wrap her arms around her mother’s shoulders. But she had grown in the years that had passed. They stood together awkwardly, all four of them, uncertain where one hug ended and the next should begin. The stars seemed a little brighter that night, and the whispers of the sugarcane field seemed a little further away. Then one morning, Sol watched her sister fold the same blouse that she always wore to church. Instead of putting it where it belonged, her sister packed it into a small bag. Sol was confused. Her sister said that she was going to live somewhere else. She said she was sorry. She promised that it was still going to be okay. She said that she would miss Sol very much. She kept talking after that, but Sol never heard what she said. Her ears felt as if the ocean was inside them.

Mothers were supposed to leave for work. Sisters weren’t supposed to leave at all. The bag she was holding looked much too small to carry Sol’s world away. The tears were back, and they wouldn’t stop coming. “When she left, I felt like I lost my other half. And that was where it all came spilling out…I cried every day, I was sad every day for a year,”[3] she said. Sol had grown to accept that her father was gone so long ago that the grief had been replaced by a dull ache. She had nodded her head when her mother left and tried her best to understand. But with her sister gone, Sol felt like a stranger in her favorite places. For years, she had fallen asleep knowing that her sister was only one whisper away. Now she wasn’t.[4] The day that her father appeared on her doorstep, the pandilleros had been waiting for him after work. They wanted money that wasn’t his to give. The man with the money was wealthy enough that everyone in the region knew his name. The Mara Salvatrucha knew it too. They couldn’t reach him, but they could reach the men who worked for him. They found Sol’s father first. “The only person that they could contact was him,” Sol remembers learning. “So, one day they stopped him, out of nowhere”[5]. Everything she knew was explained by her mother, who had heard it from her father. “They threatened him. They told him that he had to make the man pay them an enormous sum of money. I don’t know how much it was, but it was thousands and thousands of dollars and if he didn’t do it, my father, his wife–even though they weren’t together anymore–and my siblings and me, they would kill us all. That was how it all started,” Sol explained.

The first day that the men with tattoos looked at her, Sol told herself it was a coincidence and kept walking. She wasn’t sure on the second day, but her feet didn’t stop moving. By the third, they were calling after her. They told her that her father needed to pay. She kept walking. They told her they weren’t asking. She kept walking. The ocean in her ears wasn’t there to protect her. She heard every word clearly. There was no glass wall to separate her from them. She didn’t turn around. There was no barricade to protect her. She wasn’t even sure she would make it home. They shouted her name, drawing out the last letter into a leer. She couldn’t breathe. Their footsteps were close. She needed to keep moving. All that mattered was the door. She kept walking. “They told me that if they weren’t paid, before they killed us, they would do things to me…,”[6] Sol remembered. She made it home before she cried. That day and every day that came after, she always made it home before she cried. As soon as the door was barricaded, the tears poured out. She shut herself into the furthest corner and refused to talk to anybody. Sol remembers being more afraid than she had ever been before. The panic attacks came next. She gasped for air, choking on fear and desperation and temporary relief all at the same time. In the moments where her lungs simply refused air, she drew small breaths in a low rattle before the next round of sobs forced out more than she could hope to inhale again. Even as her mind screamed, her body refused to seek solace in the arms of her worried mother. “I didn’t want to talk to anybody. I was afraid, but I didn’t want my family to be more scared than they already were.”[7] Even if her mother hadn’t heard Sol crying, it would have been impossible for her to ignore her  daughter’s uniform folded and untouched for days at a time. She knew that Sol had always dreamed of being an architect. But as more and more school days were spent behind a wooden beam at home, they both knew that it was all slipping away. Her first year of secondary school was unfinished. There was no chance for university anymore.

Sol’s teachers never knew what had happened to her. She had been a promising student; she imagined that her teachers would agree. Sol had been among the first to raise her hand when a new question was poised. She sat quietly while her classmates scribbled on the chalkboard and always waited for her turn to speak. Her assignments were always pristine, her uniform neatly pressed, and her words carefully chosen. When her classmates grumbled or folded their arms across their chests, Sol had pressed harder. She had dreamed of a scholarship to university for as long as she had known that they existed. She never missed a day of school. But suddenly, her desk was empty. When attendance was taken, her name went unanswered for weeks. She had never told her teachers about home, so sharing the details of her journey back from school had been unthinkable. By the time she might have wanted to explain or apologize, it hadn’t been safe for her to try. Sol hoped that her grades wouldn’t fall too far with all the assignments she had missed. Of course, if her name disappeared from the roster then it didn’t matter anyway. She wondered if anyone had asked about her. Maybe they just assumed that another empty desk meant another family gone in the night. Sol was still there, hiding in her home. But for all anyone outside knew, she was gone.

The pandilleros laughed as they saw the small family walking down the road to church, sending Sol and her family fleeing back to safety behind the wooden plank. Nothing changed. “You know, in that time we didn’t even think about leaving.” Sol explained, “After insisting and insisting to my father, he finally tried to file a report with the police. And, well, basically the police told him that they couldn’t do anything, that they were sorry, but they couldn’t involve themselves in this”[8].Nothing changed after the police report. Except that the pandilleros burnt the sugarcane fields next to their house. Sol was told that photos of the burned fields had landed in the rich man’s lap with a message that morning. MS-13 wanted silence, and they wanted money. The fields outside Sol’s house were a warning of what would follow if either of their demands remained unmet. “It wasn’t just words anymore,” Sol explained, “they were beginning to act physically…they were already committing actions. And that was when we started to search for alternatives, where to move or what to do, but in El Salvador the gangs are very organized.” Sol knew that their government-issued Documento Único de Identidad cards would prevent them from ever living somewhere that was not controlled by the Mara Salvatrucha. She also knew that moving anywhere controlled by Barrio 18 would mean death. The pandilleros there would see their former municipality printed right below their photos and assume that they were spies. “If we went to another place that also belonged to [MS-13], they would communicate with each other and then kill us,” she said. Their IDs meant that they could never simply disappear into another town. “So, we came to a point where there was nowhere to go in El Salvador, because the police didn’t do anything. The rich man too, he protected himself, but he didn’t protect us. My father didn’t do anything, and we couldn’t do anything”[9].

Sol’s mother called and explained everything to a friend living in the United States. “Thank God, he helped us, he could not pay for us to live in the U.S. indefinitely, but he could help us escape El Salvador if we wanted. We made the decision to accept his proposal, because we were desperate. We had no idea what to do,”[10] Sol remembered. Soon after, Sol, her mother, her brother, and her sister packed their backpacks and left. It was December of 2019, and Sol was sixteen years old.

1. “Pues después de eso, la situación cambió un poco, yo me llegué a acostumbrar un poco a que mi mamá se fuera, pero ahora la situación era distinta, porque tenía a mi hermano pequeño, y ahora él era el que lloraba cuando ella se iba, él que estaba triste, y pues, yo me sentía muy, muy mal viéndolo a él, y aparte me sentía mal viendo que mi hermana estaba responsable de él y mí, siendo ella una niña, básicamente.”

2.“Yo nunca tuve la certeza de si iba a permanecer en un solo lugar en toda mi infancia, y pues era muy triste para mí. Como hija de ellos, ver como ellos discutían y como pasaba todo. Y era muy triste para mí también ver mi mama muy triste ella.”

3. “Entonces, cuando ella se fue, yo sentí como que se fue mi otra mitad, y es donde se derramó todo. En ese tiempo yo estuve, se podría decir llorando todos los días, triste todos los días, como por un año. … Y pues, mi mamá regresó a casa, pero mi hermana fue la que se tuvo que ir, se tuvo que mudar, y pues básicamente yo me crié con mi hermana, y a falta de tener mi figura materna presente todo el tiempo, quien estaba presente para mí era mi hermana.”

4. We interviewed Sol (a pseudonym) in the DMV in 2026 and reconstructed this part of her life as part of a project for the Humanities Truck at American University and a book project we are working on.

5. “Entonces, un día se acercaron a él, así de la nada, entraron y todo. Yo no estaba, yo no presencié eso, pero me lo contó mi mamá, porque él habló con ella. Pero básicamente lo amenazaron. Le dijeron que él tenía que hacer que el señor les dieran una suma muy grande de dinero. No sé cuánto era, pero era una suma muy grande de miles de dólares y que, si no lo hacía, que mi papá, su esposa, me decían ellos que era mi mamá, pero ellos ya no estaban juntas, y sus hijos, que eran mis hermanos y yo, básicamente que nos iban a matar a todos. Y, este, pues para nosotros fue horrible.”

6. “Y empezaban a decirme que, si no les pagaban, de que antes de matarnos que me iban a hacer cosas a mí, ya saben en qué tono, no…lo decían de una forma horrible, sinceramente muy, muy fea. Pues básicamente ellos empezaron a seguirme, a acosarme, a decirme cosas feas, cosas vulgares, y yo me acuerdo de que yo me sentía muy insegura.”

7.“A mí en ese tiempo sí, ahora que me acuerdo me daban ataques de ansiedad. Cuando llegaba a la casa yo llegaba a llorar, me encerraba, no quería hablar con nadie. Porque estaba en yo, que estaba asustada y aparte porque no quería asustar a mi familia más de lo que ya estaba.”

8. “Pues fíjate que en ese momento no pensábamos en migrar, de hecho, en un tiempo, después de tanto insistir e insistir a mi papá, él intentó poner una denuncia, una denuncia con la policía, y pues la policía básicamente dijo que ellos no podían hacer nada, que lo sentían, que es que ellos no podían meterse en eso.”

9. “y ahí fue donde empezamos a buscar alternativas de a dónde movernos o qué hacer, pero en El Salvador las pandillas tenían esto que eran muy organizadas y si tú te ibas para un lado, que era, por ejemplo, era la MS-13, si nosotros nos íbamos para otro lugar que era también de la pues ellos se comunicaban y básicamente nos mataban. Y si nos íbamos a un lugar que no era de la MS 13, sino que de la 18, pues ellos decían que nosotros éramos como espías de ellos y también nos mataban. Entonces llegamos a un punto en el que nos encontramos sin salida en el país, porque la policía no hizo nada, el hombre rico tampoco, él sí se protegió él mismo, pero no nos protegió a nosotros. Mi papá no hizo nada, nosotros no podíamos hacer nada.”

10. “Y mi mamá le contó a un amigo de acá la situación y gracias a Dios, él nos ayudó, nos dijo que él no podía mantenernos pero que nos podía ayudar a salir del país. Y sí, nosotros queríamos venirnos para acá y pues tomamos la decisión de aceptar esa propuesta porque nos encontramos desesperados, no sabíamos qué hacer.

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by clalsstaff on October 20, 2026  •  Permalink
Posted in El Salvador, Uncategorized, United States
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Posted by clalsstaff on October 20, 2026

https://aulablog.net/2026/10/20/book-excerpt-a-life-before-leaving/

Where American Voters Stand on MAGA’s Immigration Policies

Report | October 20, 2026

Asked whether they approve or disapprove of the way President Donald Trump is handling immigration, 52.8% disapprove and 44.9% approve, most interestingly many more strongly disapprove (44.6%) than those who strongly approve (30.5%). This comes from a poll of 5,000 English-speaking registered voters conducted between September 9 and September 25, 2026, by the polling organization YouGov on behalf of the Center for Latin American and Latino Studies at American University. It gathered views on a variety of immigration policy-related topics. The margin of error is: +/-1.5%. The pool of participants was structured to be demographically representative of likely voters. White Americans, those living in the South, highly educated Americans, and people aged 65 and over are slightly overrepresented. Because the survey was only conducted in English among registered voters, most of whom voted in the last two presidential elections and midterms, the views of Spanish-only speakers, permanent residents, and non-citizens are not included. The results presented here are, therefore, conservative estimates.

Respondents also differently support the government deporting people in different migration statuses: 37.3% strongly support deporting individuals who are undocumented, 24.8% strongly support people with Temporary Protected Status until recently, while 50.5% somewhat or strongly oppose; 17.7% strongly support while 53.4 oppose deporting those who have applied for asylum; and 59.2% oppose, and 9.4% are unsure, while only 15.5% strongly support deporting those who are in the process of regularizing their immigration status (e.g., renewing visa, applying for immigration relief, a green card, or citizenship).  

Respondents report varying levels of familiarity with U.S. immigration programs and policies. Asylum (75.2%) and Temporary Protected Status (TPS) (59.9%) were the most familiar programs among respondents. While only 6.8% were familiar with the Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela (CHNV) Humanitarian Parole Program, implemented by the Biden Administration, which allowed eligible individuals from these countries to temporarily enter legally if they had a sponsor in the United States. Awareness is also particularly limited for more recent immigration initiatives, with more than half of respondents reporting being very unfamiliar with Project Homecoming and the CBP Home and CBP One smartphone applications.

Contrary to online discourse, a large majority of respondents support more humane immigration policies, expanded legal immigration pathways, and opportunities for undocumented immigrants to legalize their status. More than eight in ten respondents (85.2%) agree that allowing individuals to leave voluntarily is more humane than deporting them in restraints, with 52.8% strongly agreeing. Similarly, 69.6% supported expanding legal pathways for immigration, while 61.8% support providing undocumented immigrants with a pathway to legal status.

Most people are against mass deportation by force and they share many concerns. The most frequently cite concern is the separation of families during the removal process (43%), followed by the harm caused to individuals being deported (31%), and the lack of a humane or orderly removal process (30%). Other concerns include prolonged immigration detention (26%), costs to taxpayers (25%), and the use of government resources and personnel (20%). Fewer respondents cite the impact on American communities (16%), the country’s international image (14%), or the economy (11%). Only 17% report having no concerns about the current approach to deportation.

A majority of respondents  support providing humanitarian assistance to individuals seeking asylum in the United States, however support varied depending on the populations and types of assistance described. Support was highest for providing emergency temporary shelter to individuals fleeing violent conflicts in countries such as Afghanistan and Ukraine, with 69.2% in favor (36.1% strongly favoring and 33.1% somewhat favoring), compared to 20.6% opposed. Similarly, 63.3% supported welcoming programs for individuals and families escaping persecution, regardless of their country of origin, while 63.4% favored temporary shelter and food assistance for asylum seekers from countries experiencing crises, such as Haiti, Venezuela, and Cuba.

Support for proposals involving more extensive assistance to people regardless of country of origin is also popular, with 57.7% favoring temporary housing, financial support, and programming, compared to 30.4% opposed. The lowest level of support is for the current practice of helping white South Africans who self-identify as refugees relocate and settle in the United States. Only 37.9% support this policy, while 41.8% oppose it, and 20.2% are unsure.

A majority of respondents support providing Green Cards to international students who graduate from U.S. universities, a proposal discussed by both major presidential candidates during the 2024 election. Overall, 61.2% express support for the policy, including 33.3% who strongly support it. These findings indicate broad support among respondents for creating pathways to permanent residency for international graduates of U.S. institutions.

Respondents are more likely to support a member of Congress who voted to reduce funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) than one who opposed such cuts. Overall, 41% report that a vote to cut ICE funding would make them more likely to vote for their representative, compared with 33.5% who say it would make them less likely. This represents a 7.5-percentage-point difference in reported voting intentions. Younger people tend to be more likely to support Congresspeople cutting funding for forced deportations. Only 43% of those who identity as republicans, and 47% of those who support Trump are much less likely to vote for a member of Congress who cuts ICE funding.

Although the National Guard has not traditionally been responsible for immigration enforcement, some units have assisted federal immigration authorities, including Border Patrol, ICE, and HSI agents, during the second Trump administration. Despite this limited non-traditional role, 60% of respondents express trust in the National Guard to handle deportations fairly. In contrast, respondents ae more skeptical of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), with 50% reporting that they do not trust ICE to carry out deportations fairly. These findings highlight notable public distrust of federal immigration enforcement agencies.

Respondents overwhelmingly support Democrats and Republicans working on creating pathways toward citizenship, reducing family separations, expanding asylum protections, and even making deportation more humane and following due process. Voters want both parties to work together to improve the immigration system.

Overall, the findings reveal a notable contrast between political rhetoric that often frames immigration as a threat or challenge and public attitudes that reflect greater sympathy toward immigrants and openness to bipartisan immigration reform.

This survey is based on 5,000 interviews of registered voters conducted by YouGov online. The sample was weighted according to gender, age, race/ethnicity, education, and U.S. Census region based on voter registration lists, the U.S. Census American Community Survey, and the U.S. Census Current Population Survey, as well as 2020 Presidential vote and approximate 2024 Presidential vote based on available results, and party identification estimates based on Pew Research Center’s National Public Opinion Reference Survey. Respondents were selected from YouGov to be representative of registered voters. The weights range from 0.22 to 5.4 with a mean of 1 and a standard deviation of 0.43. The margin of error (a 95% confidence interval) for a sample percentage p based upon the subsetted sample is approximately 1.5. It does not reflect potential selection bias in panel participation in the survey.

Read more from the report: https://www.american.edu/centers/latin-american-latino-studies/yougov-survey.cfm

More information about the CLALS: https://www.american.edu/centers/latin-american-latino-studies/index.cfm

For media inquiries contact clals@american.edu or olmos@american.edu

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by clalsstaff on October 19, 2026  •  Permalink
Posted in Uncategorized, United States
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Posted by clalsstaff on October 19, 2026

https://aulablog.net/2026/10/19/where-american-voters-stand-on-magas-immigration-policies/

Does Colombia Pose a Threat to U.S. Security?

By Jorge Rojas Rodríguez

Former Deputy Foreign Minister of Colombia 

Gustavo Petro in 2022. (Source: Wikimedia)

The question in the title would seem to have no logical basis were it not for the fact that President Donald Trump, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Secretary of War Pete Hegseth have all accused the president of the South American nation, Gustavo Petro, of being “a drug trafficking leader” and “sponsor of narco-terrorists,” and the U.S. has cancelled his visa and put him on the sanctions list of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC).

At the same time the Trump administration implemented operation “Southern Spear,” deploying U.S. naval and air forces in the Caribbean and directing attacks, with missiles, against vessels accused of transporting cocaine in the Caribbean and Pacific. As of this writing, 23 boats have been destroyed and 87 persons killed. Official sources indicate that at least one of these attacks occurred in Colombian waters.

Initially, Washington justified these actions in terms of the need to “protect our homeland from drugs that kill our people.” But the U.S. has subsequently begun referencing “antiterrorist actions,” accompanied by assertions of operations along the Colombian-Venezuelan border involving armed groups such as the FARC dissident groups,[1] the ELN,[2] and Hezbollah.

Clearly this military deployment by the U.S., and attacks, are disproportionate, leading to civilian deaths that could be declared war crimes, because they violate international humanitarian law. In addition, the cocaine allegedly destroyed represents a fraction of the volume of drugs transported on ships that cross the Pacific Ocean, not the Caribbean. Furthermore, as has been explained by U.S. intelligence agencies, neither Colombia nor Venezuela produces or traffics in fentanyl, the cause of most drug deaths in the U.S. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in 2023, 107,500 Americans died from overdoses, 74,700 from fentanyl, and 29,000 from cocaine. In 2024, deaths totaled 70,596, with fentanyl the main cause of death from overdoses.

Drug policy in Colombia changed since leftist Gustavo Petro became president in 2022; his administration decided to attack the clandestine laboratories, seize the cocaine already processed (especially at sea), extradite large-scale drug-traffickers and go after their wealth. Petro’s is a very different policy from that of previous administrations, which focused their efforts on attacking those who grow the coca leaf, considered the weakest link in the chain.

The result is that the current administration has seized 2,700 tons of cocaine, destroyed approximately 15,000 laboratories, and extradited 400 drug traffickers to the U.S. In contrast to these figures, the volume of coca leaf grown has expanded during the same period. According to the UN’s Integrated System for Monitoring Illicit Crops, Colombia today has 255,000 hectares of coca and produces approximately 2,664 tons of cocaine that is exported illegally to the U.S., Europe, and Asia.

The government of Colombia has undertaken a policy of the voluntary eradication of coca crops, substituting legal agricultural alternatives in place of coca, while supporting peasant farmers with agricultural land –  a policy that has shown positive results, even though its effects are slower in coming.

It is clear that the government of Colombia is engaged in combatting drug-trafficking, the president has been firm in fighting the drug mafias, and the arguments brandished by Washington show a profound lack of knowledge of what drug-trafficking has meant for this Andean country.

President Petro has proposed a policy of cooperation to Trump to combat the cultivation of coca leaf, production and commercialization of cocaine, as has been done with prior governments over the course of the long strategic relationship between the two countries. There has been no response and some have begun to wonder whether drug-trafficking isn’t just a pretext for the Trump administration to intervene politically in Latin America, encouraged by sectors of the far right in Florida, as has now happened in Venezuela.

The paradox is that the problem of cocaine cannot be resolved by militarizing the Caribbean, invading countries and killing civilians on the high seas but instead by adopting a harm reduction policy that works to better understand the harms to both producers  and consumers, to prevent continued drug consumption, and provide effective and publicly available treatment options for those who continue to be trapped in the world of drugs. In this way the current figure of 5.3 million habitual users of cocaine in the U.S. would decline.

While the United Nations takes steps to improve upon failed models of the past, and is forming an independent commission to evaluate the “war on drugs” of the last 50 years, the U.S.  is backsliding toward militaristic policies that, while they might serve any number of purposes, will not overcome the trafficking and consumption of cocaine.

[1]   Factions of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, some of which did not go along with the 2016 peace deal between the Government of Colombia and FARC, and others that demobilized in 2016 and then took up weapons anew.

[2]   ELN: National Liberation Army, which has fought the government continuously since 1964.

This piece was authored by Jorge Rojas Rodríguez, translated by Charlie Roberts, and edited by Robert Albro, CLALS Associate Director.

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by clalsstaff on January 9, 2026  •  Permalink
Posted in Colombia, Uncategorized
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Posted by clalsstaff on January 9, 2026

https://aulablog.net/2026/01/09/does-colombia-pose-a-threat-to-u-s-security/

El Salvador Risks Becoming a Zone of Silence  

By Sonja Wolf 

Research Professor, School of Government and Economics, Panamerican University, Mexico

Nayib Bukele on Salvadoran Independence Day in 2024. (Source: Wikimedia)

On December 17, 2025, a local court released lawyer Alejandro Henríquez and pastor José Ángel Pérez. Seven months earlier, the two activists had been arbitrarily detained under El Salvador’s state of emergency and charged with public disorder and aggressive resistance. The arrests occurred when Henríquez and Pérez were attending a peaceful rally of the El Bosque cooperative outside President Nayib Bukele’s private residence. The El Bosque cooperative is a farming community that had obtained its lands because of agrarian reforms in the 1980s and was now making a last-ditch effort to prevent the eviction of more than 300 families from their plots. In a bittersweet turn of events, Henríquez and Pérez pled guilty to regain their freedom after an abbreviated judicial process. Each received a suspended three-year prison sentence that essentially prohibits them from participating in protests during this time. The verdict criminalizes social movement activity and is a reminder that the state of emergency has become a tool to silence critical voices. 

Generalized citizen discontent with the country’s traditional parties and his own anti-establishment campaign had propelled Bukele to the presidency of El Salvador in 2019. Since then, he has quickly established an electoral authoritarian regime that retains a democratic façade but sees him wield executive control over other branches of government. His party, Nuevas Ideas, obtained a legislative supermajority in both the 2021 and 2024 elections. Bukele capitalized on these wins to neutralize all checks and balances on his power and to engineer his successful run for an unconstitutional second mandate in 2024. A secret pact with the country’s street gangs helped mobilize voters and contributed to Bukele’s early triumphs at the ballot box. In late March 2022, the breakdown of this agreement prompted gang members to kill 87 people in three days. By then, Bukele no longer needed the gangs to consolidate his rule.  

Following this latest escalation in violence, he asked the Legislative Assembly to declare a state of emergency to crack down on these groups. The measure, which suspends certain constitutional rights and allows extended pretrial detention, dismantled the gangs as the country knew them and sharply cut the number of registered homicides. While the administration appears to be manipulating crime statistics, its perceived results made the state of emergency widely popular with Salvadorans and helped Bukele’s re-election in 2024. Far from being of a temporary nature, the measure has come to fulfill an essential function in the regime’s propaganda and repression. Some 90,000 people have thus far been detained, including human rights defenders and political opponents. Often apprehended on the spurious charge of illicit association, individuals find themselves mired in a justice system that does not ensure a fair trial. Civil society groups have extensively documented the systematic human rights violations committed under the state of emergency. The abuses are particularly egregious in the prisons where, by December 2025, they had occasioned at least 473 deaths. 

The weaponization of the state of emergency follows the progressive closure of El Salvador’s civic space. Bukele’s regime has severely restricted access to public information, making it difficult for reporters and transparency activists to obtain data about government policies, contracts, spending, and statistics. If anything, this opacity has increased under the state of emergency. Since he came to power, Bukele has denied independent journalists access to press briefings and subjected them to systematic campaigns of stigmatization and delegitimization. Efforts aimed at undermining critical media workers range from online harassment and defamation to surveillance and abusive legal tactics such as Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation or SLAPPs, initiated to exhaust targets financially and emotionally.  

At El Faro, an award-winning investigative outlet, journalists received physical threats and Pegasus spyware attacks. Advertisers were harassed, and the newspaper faced spurious money laundering accusations and frivolous audits. Jorge Beltrán is a veteran reporter who had been covering organized crime and gangs for El Diario de Hoy, one of El Salvador’s oldest mainstream newspapers. In 2022 Beltrán was targeted with a $10 million SLAPP after an exposé about Israeli cyber espionage firms in Mexico. A relative of the director of El Salvador’s state intelligence agency was mentioned in the piece and subsequently sued both the newspaper and Beltrán for moral damage. While the court rejected the compensation claim, it required El Diario de Hoy to publish an apology and withdraw the article. Beltrán himself went into exile in June 2025 because of a reasonable fear of being arrested on fabricated criminal charges.  

For Salvadoran civil society, however, it was the arbitrary detention of Ruth López that constituted a watershed moment. As lead anti-corruption investigator for Cristosal, a prominent human rights NGO, López had worked on cases of government corruption and irregularities in public contracts involving Bukele’s relatives. Her arrest in May 2025 on spurious grounds of illicit enrichment had a chilling effect. Since 2020, at least 130 journalists and human rights defenders have gone into exile, though most of them left El Salvador in the aftermath of López’s capture to avoid meeting a similar fate. In addition to individual departures, NGOs and independent media organizations also felt compelled to exit the country. El Faro had already moved its legal office to Costa Rica in 2023, whereas Focos and the Journalists’ Association of El Salvador (APES) did so two years later. As government repression increased throughout 2025, El Faro and Cristosal moved all of their staff abroad for their own safety. The decision to reduce the organizations’ in-country presence,  while understandable, will pose new challenges to documenting abuses of power, defending its victims, and holding officials accountable. 

Bukele’s regime found an additional mechanism to quash dissent with the Foreign Agents’ Law passed in May 2025. The legislation requires non-profits to register with the interior ministry and pay a 30 percent tax on all foreign funding they receive. The decree gives the administration broad powers to monitor, sanction, and dissolve organizations that fail to register or that engage in political activities that threaten the stability of the country. In response, some NGOs voluntarily decided to close, many others try to keep operating with a low profile. The Jesuit Central American University, long a vocal advocate for the poor and oppressed, is known in El Salvador for its research, public opinion surveys, and human rights reports. Its leadership, however, must now hope to avoid a repeat of what happened in Nicaragua where the Ortega regime seized the school’s property and assets in 2023. In El Salvador, meanwhile, proposed reforms to the rules governing communal associations suggest a government intent upon hindering community organizing. For anyone working in NGOs, media, and academia, self-censorship becomes a survival strategy. As journalist Raymundo Riva Palacio remarked, regarding the erosion of press freedom in his native Mexico, self-censorship is the most effective form of censorship, because it leaves no trace, creates no scandal, and normalizes silence.  

Self-imposed exile and self-censorship are turning El Salvador into what the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights has called a “zone of silence.” The term is typically associated with areas where violence against journalists leaves entire communities misinformed, as has happened in Mexico. A similar trend is occurring in El Salvador since the Bukele administration is deploying “technologies of censorship” to inhibit public scrutiny and criticism. The resultant information vacuum is filled by the official narrative, extensively promoted through government-controlled television channels, newspapers, and social media accounts. Influencers and pro-Bukele trolls do their part to spread regime propaganda and attack human rights defenders, journalists, and opposition politicians. Since citizens primarily rely on television and social media to access information, Salvadorans are likely relatively unaware of major government decisions and their impacts on people’s lives. 

Exiles may have escaped state terror at home. Some stay out of the public eye to keep their relatives in El Salvador out of harm’s way. Others continue their professional work as best as they can, but they have started to be impacted by Bukele’s methods of transnational repression. The United Nations Human Rights Office defines transnational repression as acts that a state or its proxy commits to deter or punish advocacy directed towards it from abroad. It can take various forms, including digital attacks, reprisals against in-country relatives, the arbitrary refusal of consular services, harassment through INTERPOL red notices, and physical violence. Ingrid Escobar directs Socorro Jurídico Humanitario, a legal aid organization that assists victims of the state of emergency, and has repeatedly been subjected to online defamation campaigns. Ivania Cruz and Rudy Joya of the human rights organization UNIDEHC were targeted with INTERPOL red notices but managed to have these lifted. 

Given the Bukele regime’s persistent attempts to intimidate journalists and activists, it is vital that these groups create international pressure to denounce abuses and demand respect for human rights. It is equally important that exiles find spaces for collective solidarity and resistance. Their ability to continue their work is key, more so since parts of the international community are either reluctant to criticize the democratically elected Bukele or perceive his security “model” as effective. APES documents and reports abuses against journalists and offers media workers safety guides and legal assistance. In Mexico City, Casa Centroamérica has become a home for Central Americans fleeing political and legal persecution. The NGO can provide recent arrivals with temporary shelter, is building an archive of national publications, and researches the causes of exile. 

Realistically, the state of emergency only stands a chance of being dismantled if El Salvador returns to democracy. Many citizens choose not to report abuses or speak out against Bukele’s regime for fear of being arbitrarily detained. Constitutional reforms passed in July 2025 extend the presidential term to six years, permit indefinite re-election, abolish the runoff election, and brought the next presidential election forward to 2027. Bukele can comfortably perpetuate himself in power if abstention levels are high and the political opposition fails to present a compelling alternative to his vision of the country. During Bukele’s time in government, economic growth has been weak, and poverty has increased as soaring debt and corruption have depleted state resources. A fiscal adjustment insisted upon by the International Monetary Fund requiring a smaller public sector has already led to massive job losses in areas such as health and education. These cuts will affect the quality of public services and likely fuel social discontent. The country’s economic woes, which Bukele will be unable to resolve as quickly as the security situation, may ultimately help bring about the demise of his regime.

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by clalsstaff on January 9, 2026  •  Permalink
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Posted by clalsstaff on January 9, 2026

https://aulablog.net/2026/01/09/el-salvador-risks-becoming-a-zone-of-silence/

Understanding Deportation for Children, Teens, and Their Parents

By Ernesto Castañeda

If you are a young student in the United States and you are worried that you, a classmate, or a loved one could be deported by ICE agents, as you have seen on social media, TV, or in your neighborhood, this short text is for you.

School dance. Photo by Ernesto Castañeda.

Why are people in pseudo-military clothes and vests with the initials ICE, HSI, CBP,* and others patrolling the streets and aggressively arresting people in public? It all starts with the popular but dangerous idea that a country must have closed borders, allowing only invited people to pass through. This makes sense for private houses, schools, and other large private institutions, but cities and countries do not work like that. Think about it most people born in the United States can move in their cities, towns, as well as to other cities or towns in the 50 states without having to ask permission from any political authority. They can even move to Guam, the Virgin Islands, or Puerto Rico.

*ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement], HSI [Homeland Security Investigations], CBP [U.S. Customs and Border Protection, agency that houses the Border Patrol which has now also being mobilized to both coast and Chicago] are all immigration enforcement agencies within the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Under the current administration other federal and local agencies have also been assigned to help carry out raids and aid in deportation efforts.

People in Any Country Are Not All the Same  

Another dangerous myth is that all the people in a country must share a language, culture, and even look the same, as if related by blood. But countries are not big extended families, so this is a fable. But many adults believe this was true in the past and want it to happen soon in the places where they live. As you know, not everyone is the same. Even within the same family, a student club, or sports team, people have differences that make them who they are.

People in some large cities complain about a few people around them speaking a different language in the streets or having a different religion. This is not new; some people have always done so in any booming city. 

Even While Most People Stay Put Most of the Time, Mobility is Normal 

Many people go to other countries to travel, study, work, or visit family members and friends. Most people get visas, which are permits from a country’s government to visit or move in with permission. People from the United States and Europe rarely need visas to visit other countries, but it is not the same the other way around. People from most of Africa, Asia, and Latin America need vetted visas to visit Europe, the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, or Australia. 

In some exceptional cases, people have to leave the countries where they were born because of war or persecution because of their religion, ethnicity, or political views. It may be hard for them to get immigration visas after that. Other countries are supposed to provide refuge, a safe place to stay for groups facing persecution. But many countries’ governments like to look the other way or play hot potato with people.

Work Abroad is Often More Available than Working Papers 

Other people may have informal verbal (spoken) job offers from restaurants, farms, and small businesses in the United States, but they cannot get visas because the people in charge of approving visas in U.S. consulates abroad think those people would stay in the country, and they think they do not have the savings and education to make them “desirable” to come to the United States. These are not necessarily the views of the people approving visas, but the informal instructions they are told to follow by their bosses.  

Nonetheless, some people from towns with a long history of long-distance migration from point A to B have the contacts, paths, and know-how to go to other countries without the U.S. government’s permission. This is what people refer to as “illegal immigration.” 

Remember, we should not use the term illegal to name a person, because a living human being cannot be “illegal,” but people can commit acts that go against the law, in this case, entering another country without getting their passport inspected and stamped. 

“No Human Being is Illegal.”  Elie Wiesel

People without a legal immigration status, who we can call undocumented, are not automatically bad people. They are just caught in a hard and vulnerable situation. Some adults say they should respect the law of a country and “get in line,” but for many of them there is no line to wait in. And for some of the people with close family members legally in the U.S., the wait in line to reunite can be ten years of longer. Therefore, some people live for over a decade away from their parents or minor children. As we recount in the book, Reunited: Family Separation and Central American Youth Migration.

Middle schoolers playing soccer. Photo by Ernesto Castañeda.

For most of U.S. history, lawyers have not labeled this a crime but more a “civil” infraction, something like a minor driving infraction, such as driving without insurance, or watching a movie without paying a ticket. But in those examples, people are getting something without paying or putting others at potential financial risk. Immigrants come to the U.S. to work, to pay for all of their expenses, those of their family members, and to send money to loved ones who stayed in the places they came from. Preventing people from moving to a country, and more appropriately to a particular city or neighborhood, even if they can pay for their housing, is like public parks or libraries not allowing only certain people in. 

The problem with the label of “illegal” (rude name-calling) is that it conjures or brings together the idea of coming as a family without a visa, along with generalizations and stereotypes that only people who are poor and of different races are “illegal.” That “illegals” are inferior, potentially dangerous criminals, a threat to the homogeneity (looking or being similar) of a country. These all false.

In recent U.S. history, the label of “illegality” has been applied to people from Mexico and Central America with limited English and/or African and indigenous features working in sectors such as agriculture, construction, contracting, food preparation, etc. There are business owners who are undocumented as well as people from Canada and Europe, but it is easier for them “to pass.” 

Immigrants who commit violent crimes are not immune (protected) from being stopped by police and imprisoned. But for many decades, people in the news have said that people without papers are dangerous and taking things from U.S. citizens. Many adults have come to believe this after hearing it so many times. 

Some politicians run for office sometimes with as little as promising to “get rid of” all the undocumented people in a country. This has been the case of President Trump, and he has acted on this words. His team has set ambitious goals to find people without valid visas or immigration permits and to remove them from the country, which is what we call deportations. He and his team campaigned on closing the border to new arrivals, deporting people with criminal convictions, and with the signs and slogans of mass deportation. 

How do you carry out mass deportations quickly in a country with over 350 million people, where less than 3% of the population is undocumented? 

Unlike a classroom, there is no list of everyone living in the U.S. that includes everyone’s immigration status. So, this federal administration is trying to reach its goal is by deporting under any pretext some people who are renewing visas, trying to get papers to stay longer, become citizens, or get protection from deportation because they fear for their safety if they were sent back to dangerous places. 

Another shortcut by ICE is to go to places where many stereotypical potentially undocumented immigrants gather and stop and ask for papers from people based only on their physical appearance, job, and accent. (Lawyers call this racial profiling).

Communities with many Latinos are specially afraid about deportations hitting close to home. Over 68,000 people are in immigration detention centers at the end, so of them will be let go after proving they are citizens or have valid permits. Many others will eventually be deported without their family members. 

Because of this, families with undocumented members are afraid of spending time in public and may always fear it may be their last day together. So, it is important to be patient and supportive of people who could be in that situation. It is understandable if your classmates or even friends do not want to talk about this. Their parents may have told them not to share their immigration status or that of their parents, afraid that it could be used against them. Many live with the continuous fear that an enemy could call la migra (ICE) on them. The have lived with this fear sometimes for decades.

ICE Arrests from Immigration Enforcement Dashboard

People who are undocumented have to try to act perfectly

Afraid about her only daughter being caught by surprise, an interviewee we talked to confidentially, recounts that she told her 13-year-old daughter this year that she was “illegal,” and that she should be careful not to skip class, misbehave, or even think about experimenting with illegal drugs, alcohol, or marijuana because this could cause her deportation and that of her mother and maybe other family members too. 

She had never before realized she was undocumented; she thought she was like anyone else in her class, and she is and so she is at risk of deportation. She cannot help but be worried, but how worried should her best friends be? Well, there were around 11 million individuals who were undocumented when Trump became president again on January 20, 2025. Because of changes to immigration laws, procedures, and programs, there may be 14 million people out of status a the end of 2026. 

In 2025, the Trump admin, with its aggressive policing, raiding, and detaining, forcibly deported between 200k and 600k people. Self-deportation is a luxury that many immigrants do not have. The official estimates for this are not credible. 

So, let’s do some simple math for the probability of being forcible deported by DHS by dividing the maximum estimate for 2025 deportation by a medium-high estimate for the number of undocumented: 600,000/14,000,000=.04 or 4%. This is the probability that an undocumented person is deported each year that these mass deportation goals continue along with large federal agent deployments and police collaboration in some localities [287(g) agreements]. The probability of being detained while attending an immigration court appointment is also low. So, while it is possible this may happen to you, your mom, or your friend, most immigrants won’t be deported. Clearly, the likelihood varies by location. In some places, other certain groups are targeted, like Somalis in the Twin Cities recently. But detaining people and deporting them in this way is very expensive, damaging for the U.S. economy and society, and currently very unpopular. Over 60% percent of U.S. adults oppose these policies. Tell the people you know in this situation not to despair or give up.

Deportation by City. Immigration Enforcement Dashboard

Despite sad cases about children receiving cancer treatment, nurses and care worker women being deported, the numbers show that, because of profiling, most of the people deported are working-age men from Mexico, Guatemala, and Honduras. Over 70% of them have no criminal record whatsoever, and only a very small percentage have a violent crime conviction. Meaning most people are innocent hard workers, fathers, sons, but they have been deported because they look like the stereotype. There are good and bad people everywhere. This may remind you of why some teachers and adults may tell you the importance of not generalizing, not falling for common stereotypes and prejudices, and of getting to know people from all backgrounds and with origins in all parts of the world. Learning how to put yourself in their shoes is the best way to understand them, comfort them, and protect them, in the future, by changing the way we aim to deal with undocumented immigration, not by mass deportations or having people afraid of deportation, but by giving them a way to become documented through new laws voted in Congress. Your care and your voice matter.

Ernesto Castañeda is a Professor at American University, where he leads the Immigration Lab and the Center for Latin American and Latino Studies. He has been studying immigration scientifically for over 20 years and has written many books on the subject, among them “Reunited: Family Separation and Central American Youth Migration” and “Immigration Realities: Challenging Common Misperceptions.”

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by clalsstaff on December 29, 2025  •  Permalink
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Posted by clalsstaff on December 29, 2025

https://aulablog.net/2025/12/29/understanding-deportation-for-children-teens-and-their-parents/

Latino Sense of Belonging Decreases amid Racial Profiling, Detention, and a Fading American Dream

By Anjini K. Patel

Source: Encuesta de Ipsos para Axios/Noticias Telemundo

A recent Telemundo survey reveals increasing pessimism from Latinos in the United States regarding their sense of belonging. Telemundo, in collaboration with Axios and Ipsos, surveyed a nationally representative sample of over 1,100 U.S. Latino adults from October 21 to 27, 2025. Conducted in both English and Spanish, the survey asked a variety of questions about their views on the American Dream, their sense of belonging in the US, and their optimism about the future of the country. Only 44% of respondents described the American Dream as achievable in 2025, a decrease from 61% in 2023. Similarly, 40% of 2025 respondents affirmed that the US makes them feel like they belong, and only 36% felt optimistic about the future of the US. This ​compares​ to 57% and 52%, respectively, in 2022. This survey provides an insight into the feelings of Latinos as they navigate the uncertainty of the current American political landscape.  

The survey also asked respondents about their anxieties related to being Latino/Hispanic in the United States. Compared with 39% in June 2022, 53% of respondents in 2025 reported feeling worried about themselves or a loved one being attacked because of their ethnicity. Two out of three (2/3) Latinos who identify as Republicans say it is a good time to be a Latino in the United States, while only one in ten (1/10) Latino Democrats agree. Seventy-one percent (71%) of those aged between 18 and 29 and 57% of those who are 50 and older, said it is a bad time to be Latino. 

Most respondents indicate that the Democratic Party, as compared to the Republican Party, better represents Latinos, cares more about them, and is better on economic and immigration policy. Additionally, most respondents agreed that the Republican Party takes Latino Americans for granted (39%) as compared to the Democratic Party (22%). Interestingly, more respondents describe the Republican Party as a good option for public safety compared to the Democratic Party, even in the face of increased fear and anxiety over being attacked for being Latino.  

What do experts say? 

Dr. Ernesto Castañeda, Director of the Center for Latin American and Latino Studies at American University, discussed this survey on Telemundo. As he states, the data from this poll are unsurprising given the very strong anti-immigrant rhetoric that Donald Trump and the Republican Party campaigned with and continue to use. Rather than focusing on people with violent criminal records, ICE raids and subsequent deportation, often without due process, have detained and deported people with all types of immigration statuses, and thus increased fear among Latinos. Castañeda points to comments by Justice Cavanagh and decisions by the conservative majority in the Supreme Court that made detaining someone based on their appearance and manner of speaking permissible, further blurring the lines between individuals with papers and those who are undocumented. In light of these violent mass deportations and detentions happening in public places, following stereotypes and racial profiling, it is no wonder that many Latinos report a decreased feeling of belonging in the United States. 

Regarding the impacts of these recent events, Dr. Castañeda explains that the feasibility of immigrants achieving the American Dream is decreasing. While people still arrive in the United States with high hopes that “they can come and work hard, send remittances, enjoy a better life, and that their children can go to university, in the United States right now, we see high underemployment rates, and many people are afraid to go to work because of mass raids. We are seeing inflation. It is harder to pay for health insurance, housing, and to save.” In this way, the American Dream is stalled. Since the end of the pandemic, the U.S. had seen a rapid and strong economic recovery, which Dr. Castañeda attributes largely “to the people arriving, especially from Latin America, seeking asylum—Venezuelans, Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and others—which increased the US population by 1%, which was very significant.” With the border closing under the current administration and deportations by the dozens of thousands, businesses are unable to grow at the same rate. Dr. Castañeda underlines: “If there’s less migration, it doesn’t mean there will be more jobs for locals. It means there will be less work for everyone, and more people will lose their jobs because the demand for goods and services decreases, businesses cannot hire and grow, and therefore they stop hiring and start firing workers.” 

Additionally, research shows that immigrants are much more likely to start businesses and hire more workers than businesses started by native-born citizens. Therefore, the lack of immigration has a negative impact on the overall economic growth of the United States. As Dr. Castañeda describes, “the fact that Latinos aren’t going to work here means there are fewer nannies. There are fewer construction workers, fewer lawyers, fewer nurses… it also makes many Latinos afraid. They don’t go to the markets, they don’t go to the malls, they are spending less, which has an impact, and many immigrants, seeing that there’s no American Dream anymore, aren’t going to bring their families or many of them are thinking about returning to their country.” 

The decreased sense of belonging by the Latino/Hispanic community has affected numerous outlets that embrace these cultures. Some events honoring Hispanic Heritage Month were canceled. This hurt artists, folk dancers, and musicians, as well as the larger public, who did not have the opportunity to engage with these rich cultural traditions. “Latin restaurants are struggling,” Dr. Castañeda says. “Hundreds are closing because they can’t hire enough people; workers are afraid to go to work because food is so expensive. So, it’s no longer a profitable business for them. The decline of the Latino food business also means fewer dining options, fewer cultural spaces, and fewer opportunities for communities to enjoy Latino cuisine. This is a loss for the United States as a whole.” 

Hope and Resilience in the Face of Uncertainty 

How should the Latino community respond to the ever-changing political landscape in the United States? Dr. Castañeda urges people to “stay calm and continue with their daily lives. We often do this for our children and grandchildren​,​ who, I truly believe, will have a good future. This storm is temporary. This will pass.” Importantly, he points out that nearly 80% of Americans view immigration positively. Mass raids are not popular​, ​and vulnerable​​ communities are​ witnessing​ peaceful protests carried out by citizens who are physically placing their bodies between immigration agents and migrants ​​who are in the process of being​​ detained. The November 2025 elections indicate that a majority of Americans reject the current administration’s extreme policies on immigration and the mismanagement of the economy. The anti-immigrant sentiment is ​driven ​primarily by​​ the federal government under Donald Trump, not the American people. With a hopeful outlook, Dr. Castañeda says, “I think that once this nightmare is over, there will be a greater sense of belonging, so we have to have patience, have faith in your fellow citizens, and I do truly believe that this will pass and the future will be better for U.S.-born Latinos and those immigrants who are able to stay. There will be concrete actions that will tell Latinos that they belong because this is their home.” 

Anjini K. Patel is a Sociology Research & Practice MA candidate at American University (AU) and works as a graduate research assistant at the AU Inequality, Social Justice, & Health Lab. Her research interests include immigration, criminal legal system & housing justice, and artivism & community building.

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by clalsstaff on December 9, 2025  •  Permalink
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Posted by clalsstaff on December 9, 2025

https://aulablog.net/2025/12/09/latino-sense-of-belonging-decreases-amid-racial-profiling-detention-and-a-fading-american-dream/

“We Knew We Were Going with God”

Religion, Hope, and Perseverance

By Tabby Ford

Photo by Katheryn Olmos; Silver Spring, MD

Migration is often a difficult process for those who leave their home country, both physically and emotionally. Whether their migration was motivated by finances, safety, or better career and educational opportunities elsewhere, leaving is not easy. The dangerous conditions of the journey and the uncertainty of what lies ahead deter many and can be overwhelming for those who proceed. For some migrants, religious belief gives them courage and strength to push forward, despite the stressful and hazardous obstacles they may encounter.

Many migrants and asylum seekers attribute their safety and the safety of others in their group to prayer and “God’s blessing” despite the dangerous conditions they faced on their journey to the United States. Especially for those who emigrate from Central and South America, the journey may require travel through multiple countries, often on foot or by car, and obstacles such as rough terrain, gangs, and hostile immigration agents. In some cases, migrants’ faith protects them from the emotional toll of potential danger. As one migrant from Venezuela states, when asked if he felt like he was in danger during his journey north, “No, we weren’t afraid. I mean, we knew we were going with God.” His faith kept him going during the long journey.

Migrants who encountered dangerous obstacles also attribute their successful journey to God. For Arturo, from Venezuela, the journey was incredibly dangerous. He crossed a 60-mile stretch of dense rainforest, known as the Darién Gap, with strangers, enduring hunger and exhaustion. Armed groups are known to extort migrants at gunpoint in this remote area, and those unable to pay sometimes never return. “We saw other people being kidnapped… thank God they didn’t catch us,” he recounted, describing the terror of running through the forest with a child in his arms and the relief of making it through. Eduardo, from El Salvador, recounts being shot at by immigration authorities at one point in his journey and how many members of his group survived due to their prayers; “Thank God, praying to God and the Virgin Mary, we hid [from] them … God already performed the miracle.” For one Honduran immigrant, Alma, her migration journey was shaped largely by religion. While she was born in Honduras, she was brought to El Salvador as a teen to attend a high school run by Catholic missionaries. Her religion, education, and physical location have long been intertwined. Although she has needed to move a lot and now must adjust to living in yet another new country, she says, “things happen for a reason. I always say, sometimes you feel lost, but God is showing you something… You gotta, you know, go forward.” She attributes her prayers and God’s plan to where she is in life, especially her education and career. For many immigrants, even though their faith and belief in God did not shield them from life-threatening conditions and the challenges of immigrating, their faith fueled their courage, guiding them along the way.

Houses of worship often play an integral part in assisting migrants, especially in the first few months after arrival, by providing a space for community building and cultural events. They also become sources of mutual aid. For instance, this can be seen in local Mosques and Ukrainian churches, where Afghan and Ukrainian refugees, respectively, utilize resources. For example, Oleg, from Ukraine, reports a lack of restaurants that serve Ukrainian food in the region he settled in. Despite this lack of places to go out and eat Ukrainian food, he says that “usually, [he] can get something from the church.” Although he is able to make Ukrainian food at home, the local Ukrainian church is Oleg’s only option for connecting with the wider Ukrainian community over a meal. Another example is Latif, a refugee from Afghanistan, who also utilized resources from local churches and mosques. In his efforts to further his education in the United States, he learned that a local mosque “had some funds to help some refugees get an education.” He used these funds to enroll in an IT certificate program, which helped him find a job that aligned with his career goals.

In addition to getting material resources from local religious groups and congregations, many migrants also rely on faith in God’s plan to get through the difficult transition and settling process. Once in the United States, religious migrants use their belief system as motivation to create a new life in their new community. They are able to leverage their belief systems for community engagement and to establish a sense of belonging. Many migrants also report celebrating religious holidays in local congregations and communities with similar cultural backgrounds or with other immigrants from their home country. Faith helps to form the lens in which people see the world through. As one Mexican woman states, “I practice my faith, […] I’m Catholic, so I ground myself a lot in just the human dignity coming from something beyond me.” Arturo, an immigrant from Venezuela embodies this mindset well, as his faith has helped him in adjusting to his new life and feeling a sense of belonging. As he states, “We are all equal as the children of God, we are all equal.” His belief system has given him an optimistic attitude about his new home and how he has been received.

Although it is taking him time to learn English, Arturo also thanks God for his ability to pick up enough English to get by in his work as a delivery driver and for his work permit allowing him to make money to send home: “Right now at this moment thank God at least I have the work permit, I have my partner and I am about to find a way to get my papers together.” He implies that process of finalizing his immigration papers will involve lots of time, money, and effort, but is hopeful and thankful to God for where he is and that he at least has a work permit. Similarly, Silvia, who immigrated from El Salvador in her 20s, implies that God’s work helped her in finding a job when she first arrived in the United States, saying “It was almost not difficult for me, thank God, because a lady gave me a job who had a business selling pupusas.” Arturo and Silvia both thank God for where they are in life now and have trust in their religious beliefs to carry them where they need to be.

For many people who undertake the process of immigration to the United States, their faith and religious beliefs are as essential to their journey and adaptation as it is to every other aspect of their life. Religion plays an important role in maintaining hope and resilience throughout the danger and uncertainty of both the journey and the destination. Once arrived, religious communities, positive outlooks, and faith in a bright future help immigrants settle and feel like they belong in their new home country.

Tabby Ford is a Research Assistant at The Immigration Lab and a Sociology Research & Practice MA Candidate at American University

Edited by Quinn Pierson, Sociology Research and Practice MA Candidate at American University, Ernesto Castañeda, Director, and Chris Belden, Research Assistant at the Center for Latin American and Latino Studies and the Immigration Lab.

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by clalsstaff on December 3, 2025  •  Permalink
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Posted by clalsstaff on December 3, 2025

https://aulablog.net/2025/12/03/we-knew-we-were-going-with-god/

“Se me ha hecho misión imposible”

“Se me ha hecho misión imposible”: How U.S. Immigration Policy Dehumanizes Migrants of Color

By Iran Pacheco Martinez

Image of a stethoscope and paperwork. Retrieved from Cutler Integrative Medicine.

“(a) In General.–Subject to subsection (b), an individual may be entitled to, or enrolled for, benefits under this title only if the individual is–

“(1) a citizen or national of the United States;

“(2) an alien who is lawfully admitted for permanent residence under the Immigration and Nationality Act;

This segment, part of Sec. 112103 of the Trump administration’s Big Beautiful Bill, restricts Medicaid benefits for U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents. Policies like these, that value legal status over human need, convey the message that undocumented individuals are less deserving of safety, dignity, and support—reducing complex human lives to a legal category that erases their struggles and humanity.

Divisive immigration policies are often written in rooms that exclude individuals with experience or knowledge about immigration. As a result, these laws further criminalize immigrants and enable the mistreatment of immigrants, including in detention facilities, where conditions are often life-threatening, marked by freezing temperatures, inadequate nutrition, and a profound lack of regard for immigrants’ humanity.

Twenty-six interviews with migrants from Venezuela and El Salvador provided valuable insights into their journeys to the United States and their experiences with integration. The findings indicate that many migrate to the United States in pursuit of safety and stability due to limited academic and employment opportunities, gang violence, government corruption, poverty, and hyperinflation in their home countries.

Throughout the interviews, participants shared their experiences accessing medical care, seeking employment, and navigating the U.S. systems—experiences that revealed a broader unwillingness to accommodate their unique circumstances.

Neglecting migrants’ basic needs often begins early in their journey, particularly as they’re taken to and held at detention facilities in the United States. Venezuelan and Salvadoran migrants recall conditions in detention facilities so extreme that the detention experience alone might have dissuaded their journey to the U.S. One migrant shares their experience in detention:

“…si yo hubiera sabido de que cuando me entregaran me iban a poner a pasar tanto frío y esas cosas créeme que no fuera viajado para acá, ¿me entiendes? Porque allí se sobrepasan, como te he dicho, se sobrepasan con el frío, me entiende, con alimentación, cómo te van a dar galletas y papitas, y jugo, comida de mala calidad, sabe, que por lo menos te den comida que te tengan fuerte…

“…if I knew that when they handed me over, they were going to make me go through all that cold and those things, believe me, that I wouldn’t have traveled here, you know? Because there they go overboard, like I told you, they go overboard with the cold, you know, with food, how are they going to give you cookies and chips, and juice, poor quality food, you know, at least they should give you food that keeps you strong…”

—Ruben, Venezuelan Man, 26 years old

One participant expressed concern for the impact that extreme facility conditions may have on young children:

“…lo único, como digamos, incómodo, eh, en el caso de que uno tiene niños es que, eh, la migración de aquí, bueno le dicen la hielera, ellos le dicen haci, entonces es como un sitio bastante como extremo para los niños no, que son tan chiquitos, y hace frío allí.”

“…the only thing, let’s say, uncomfortable, eh, in the case that someone has children is that, eh, immigration [officers] from here, well they call it the icebox, they call it that, so it’s like- like a pretty extreme place for children, they’re so little, and it’s cold there.”

—Andrea, Venezuelan Woman, 26 years old

Reducing people to negligible subjects–held in freezing, inhumane detention facilities– simply for pursuing better living conditions.

The challenges faced by migrants do not end upon their entry into the United States. Limited access to resources for migrants is a looming and prevailing barrier to their financial stability and success.

Many migrants reported that language barriers make obtaining employment in the United States especially difficult. In instances where employment opportunities are available, workers encounter exploitative conditions or discriminatory treatment. As one Venezuelan migrant recalled:

“…aquí trabajé, fue construcción… Entonces tampoco me gustó porque esa me pagan demasiado poquito, trabajaba en el sol y por lo que yo estaba haciendo sentía que no me pagaban bien…

…I worked here, it was construction… So I didn’t like it either because they paid me too little. I worked in the sun, and because of what I was doing, I felt like they weren’t paying me well…”

—Mauricio, Venezuelan Man, 23 years old

Another Venezuelan migrant recalls an encounter in which an English-speaking desk worker yelled at him as he delivered a mobile app order:

“…te voy a decir algo; me sentí humillado, a veces cuando voy, conserje o gente de seguridad a un edificio que no sé, si algún número en inglés y me maltratan, y siento que… porque me gritan, y yo por respeto me quedo callado…

“ …I’m going to tell you something, I felt humiliated, sometimes when I go, a janitor or security personnel to a building that I don’t know, if a number in English, and they mistreat me, and I feel that… because they yell at me, and out of respect I stay quiet…”

—Ruben, Venezuelan Man, 26 years old

While many claim that, as “guests” in this country, migrants have a responsibility to learn English, the resources to do so are not always widely available or even accessible.

These interviews reveal the many forms of dehumanization that many migrants endure. They are met with detention in harsh conditions, are denied access to language resources essential for employment, and are subjected to mistreatment in the workplace. Rather than being welcomed with dignity, they are met with indifference, exploitation, and disrespect.

Additionally, access to medical care poses another urgent challenge, especially for recently arrived migrants. This has become increasingly concerning, particularly in light of the recent passage of the “Big Beautiful Bill.” One mother from El Salvador explains that she has struggled greatly to obtain medical attention because she lacks a Social Security Number:

“…no he podido obtener un seguro de salud porque no tengo el social… se me ha hecho misión imposible, he buscado en unos lugares, eh, me mandaron a un lugar después no hay cita, después me mandaron a otro lugar ‘tiene social, no? No hay cita,’ después otro lugar ‘¿tiene social, no? No hay cita,’ entonces así he estado durante como dos meses aproximadamente, y entonces se me ha hecho imposible, sí.

“…I have not been able to get health insurance because I don’t have a social [security number]… It’s become an impossible mission. I’ve looked in some places, they sent me to one place, then there was no appointment, then they sent me to another place, ‘Do you have a social [security number]? No? There’s no appointment,’ then another place, ‘Do you have a social [security number]? No? There’s no appointment,’ so I’ve been like that for about two months, and so it’s become impossible for me, yes.”

—Andrea, Venezuelan Woman, 26 years old

Using legal status as a measure for determining access to essential support reinforces harmful hierarchies. This perpetuates narratives of “illegal” or “criminal,” which dehumanize immigrants and may limit efforts to create viable pathways to citizenship.

Many people in influential positions are themselves descendants of immigrants who once sought a better life or fled catastrophic conditions in search of safety. Yet some of these same individuals now work to deny others that very opportunity, advancing policies to exclude others. They may have “forgotten” the immigrant experience—the fear and uncertainty, the exclusion, and the forced assimilation. Instead, they write immigration laws driven by biases and the desire to preserve power.

Some lawmakers want a white, English-speaking, and wealthy America, even if achieving it comes at the expense of others. Meanwhile, these same lawmakers refuse to create attainable pathways to citizenship for migrant workers who pay billions in taxes every year. Instead, they dismantle existing authorization processes and shift their focus toward excluding people of color, casting them as dangerous, undeserving, and less than human.

Migration to the United States in pursuit of safety and stability should not be criminalized, nor should it be used to strip people of their dignity and humanity. Can we not imagine their desires and actions as our own if we were in a similar situation? Would we not also relocate to safety if our livelihoods were threatened? And, would we not want others to approach us with respect and empathy?

Iran Pacheco Martinez is a Research Assistant at The Immigration Lab and a Government and Legal Studies double major with Latin American, Caribbean, and Latinx Studies at Bowdoin College.

Edited by Ernesto Castañeda, Director, Katheryn Olmos, Lab Coordinator, and Nadia Issah, Research Intern at the Center for Latin American and Latino Studies and the Immigration Lab.

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by clalsstaff on October 6, 2025  •  Permalink
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Posted by clalsstaff on October 6, 2025

https://aulablog.net/2025/10/06/se-me-ha-hecho-mision-imposible/

The First Freedom

The First Freedom: How We Lost Sight of Our Oldest Right—The Freedom of Movement

By Bashir Mobasher  

Image: David Peinado Romero / shutterstock.com

Today, when we speak of migration, we no longer picture the awe-inspiring journeys of Herodotus, Xuanzang, Marco Polo, Ibn Battuta, or James Cook, men who ventured across oceans and deserts, through empires and unknown lands without needing a permit to enter and sometimes even received an audience with curious royalties.[1] We forget that their stories represent countless others, unnamed, unrecorded. We overlook the migration of the earliest human, homo erectus and homo sapiens, those bold crossings over mountains and plains, rivers and seas, islands and continents, by people who knew no boundaries, only the pull of necessity, survival, and discovery. They exercised the most ancient human freedom: the freedom to migrate.

Now, when we hear the word migration, our minds leap not to the journey, but to borders, passports, patrols, visas. We ask whether someone’s movement is legal or illegal, allowed or forbidden. We debate thresholds and quotas, risks and threats. Rarely do we ask the more human question: Does a person have the right to move freely? Doesn’t a person have the right to seek safety, pursue happiness, or simply adventure elsewhere?

What once seemed instinctive is now seen as impermissible, unnatural, even immoral. But this distorted view of movement is astonishingly new. It is newer than carriages and clocks, than spectacles and telescopes. For most of human history, the idea that one needed permission to move would have been absurd. Questioning human migration was questioning human nature—it still is. For over 90% of our existence as hunter-gatherers, humans were entirely dependent on movement.

Even with the rise of agriculture and the building of cities, migration between spaces remained natural to individual and social life. Entire communities shifted with the seasons. Trade and travel routes like the Silk Road, the trans-Saharan highways were arteries of constant movement. Nomadic peoples endured. Even the settled recognized migration as a response to drought, war, or opportunity. One needed no reason, or any reason would suffice.

This right to move is older than nearly all others. It predates the right to property, that most revered right in American political mythology. Property only became relevant when humans began to fence off land. Even the American settlers who enshrined property rights had to first migrate across oceans and continents to claim the land often by force. The right to the ‘pursuit of happiness’, enshrined in the US Declaration of Independence (1776), presupposes freedom of movement. Before there was freedom of speech, freedom of religion, the right to vote, or the right to due process, there was the right to migrate. Kings and empires might silence your tongue, outlaw your prayers, chain your thoughts, but they rarely questioned your decision to migrate. To migrate was beyond question. Often, it was the only freedom you could use to protect other personal rights by going to a new place. As the most respected freedom, it was the guardian of all other rights and freedoms.

Ancient thinkers, and traditions revered it as a sacred endeavour. Herodotus wrote, “Human prosperity never abides long in one place.” Aristotle saw migration as part of the natural order, while Socrates found it preceded new polities and civilizations. Religious traditions elevated migration into a moral duty: Abraham’s journey across deserts, the Exodus of the Israelites, the disciples’ missions across lands and cultures, and the Prophet Muhammad’s Hijra from Mecca to Medina were not mere detours or escapes. They were profound tales of faith, survival, and liberation in these traditions. Similarly, the Buddha’s Great Renunciation, the exiles in the Ramayana and Mahabharata, and the Anishinaabe migration were considered sacred journeys in these traditions shaping both the self and the world.

And yet today, that great engine of human history has been stalled. The rise of modern nation-states, colonial cartographies, and rigid immigration regimes has replaced this freedom with control. The invention of passports, visa systems, and surveillance bureaucracies has shackled what was once humanity’s most basic instinct. A species that roamed the earth for millennia now finds itself trapped inside boxes, walled by citizenship papers, embassies, fences, and checkpoints.

Ironically, it was the very colonial powers who once championed expeditions, economic and political adventurism, and settlement expansion that later rebranded rather more peaceful and kinder versions as a threat. The same empires that moved freely across oceans and continents in search of resources and dominion turned around to criminalize movement when it came from the margins. They eagerly promoted a pantheon of liberal rights, including free speech, religion, property, and even humanitarian intervention, but withheld the most ancient and universal of them all: the freedom of movement.

When the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted, freedom of movement was included but subtly severed from the act of migration. A quiet sleight of hand. The right to leave was affirmed; the right to enter was not. It was a masterstroke of legal illusion, a political magic trick from the Western sleeve that has since cast a spell over global consciousness. A disillusion so complete, we forgot that the right to move was indeed the right to migrate; and it was never theirs to define, give or take. It was ours all along.

They even manufactured some baseless rights like preemptive self-defence, preemptive strikes, trade liberalization, and economic embargo, but somehow framed the right to migrate as too unrealistic, too disruptive, too dangerous to recognize. Denying the right to free movement has never been merely a matter of security or order; it reflects much deeper structural concerns. Facilitating and even coercing the flow of capital and resources from the Global South while restricting the movement of people ensures that global inequality remains entrenched, locking entire populations into structural disadvantage. These deeply embedded, often racialized, immigration systems have historically privileged certain regions and populations over others.

This redefinition has traveled far beyond its Western origins. For example, it is not only the United States or Germany that now deport Afghans, the very people they once claimed to protect. So too does Pakistan, Iran, and Tajikistan, who call Afghans their ‘Muslim brethren’, their ‘cultural kin’, their ‘linguistic neighbours’. Yet all these words evaporate at the border. Solidarity collapses at the gate.
Today, we no longer speak of migration as a right. We speak of it as a problem. A crime, a disruption to be managed. The image of the migrant has shifted from that of a seeker or survivor to that of an invader. We no longer greet them with wonder. We do not ask about their journeys, their struggles, their dreams. We fear them. Our attention has shifted from people to policies, from humanity to geography. We have created a world where those most in need of movement are the most forbidden to move. People are trapped in war zones, failing economies, and ecological disasters, not because they cannot escape, but because they are not allowed to. The powerful still glide across borders with ease; the vulnerable are held hostage by the coordinates of their birth. Worse still, this system has seeded hatred and xenophobia, nationalism, and exploitation. It has enabled trafficking where safe passage is denied. It has weaponized difference and built moral hierarchies out of geography. Borders are no longer lines; they are Great Walls of China, dividing people, excluding them.

To forget this freedom is not only to forget our past; it is to endanger our future. In boxing humanity into artificial lines, we have betrayed the very idea of freedom. We have turned a natural preservation instinct, a birthright, into a crime. We have silenced the journey. And in doing so, we have not only lost sight of our first freedom; we have lost a piece of what it means to be human.
 

[1] The empires were, however, hesitant to let Ibn Battuta and Marco Polo leave because they needed their services, not because they had some random law about migrations.

Dr. Bashir Mobasher teaches at the American University (DC) Department of Sociology, New York University DC, and the American University of Afghanistan Departments of Political Science. Dr. Bashir is the current President of Afghanistan Law and Political Science Association (in Exile). He is an expert in comparative constitutional law, identity politics, and human rights. He has authored, reviewed, and supervised numerous research projects on constitutional law, electoral systems, and identity politics. His recent research projects are centered around decentralization, social justice, and orientalism. Bashir obtained his B.A. (2007) from the School of Law and Political Science at Kabul University and his LLM (2010) and PhD (2017) from the University of Washington School of Law.

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by clalsstaff on September 2, 2025  •  Permalink
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Posted by clalsstaff on September 2, 2025

https://aulablog.net/2025/09/02/the-first-freedom/

Walls, Fear, and Misinformation

Walls, Fear, and Misinformation: How the Securitization of Immigration in the US Fuels Xenophobia

By Lauro Accioly

Public perceptions in the U. S. regarding Latin American immigrants sometimes reflect historical traits of xenophobia. Some surveys and studies suggest that individuals who perceive Latin American immigrants as threats to cultural identity, public safety, or job security are significantly more likely to support hardline immigration measures, including the construction of a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border—a costly and symbolically charged project. This negative perception can be exacerbated by misinformation, which reinforces such misconceptions about immigration.

The construction of a border wall was one of Donald Trump’s flagship political promises and a pillar of his broader migration agenda during his 2016 presidential campaign. He largely promoted his political agenda via Twitter, while spreading misinformation and distortions on immigration and many other topics. Research shows that many of the negative perceptions of immigrants, regardless of legal status, are highly distorted. When it comes to crime in the U.S., for instance, there is ample evidence that immigrants – both documented and undocumented – are less likely to commit crimes than native-born citizens. Nonetheless, a substantial number of Americans still believe that immigration increases criminality. This phenomenon is borne out in data indicating that during Trump’s first administration, the majority of crimes were committed by native-born Americans, and their crime rate was higher than that of the foreign-born. Nationally, the crime rate among undocumented immigrants has historically been low. Since 1980, immigrants have exhibited lower incarceration rates than native citizens – a pattern sustained for over 150 years.

Image of Construction at the U.S.-Mexico Border Wall. Retrieved from DVIDS.
Image of Construction at the U.S.-Mexico Border Wall. Retrieved from DVIDS.

Given these facts, is misinformation the primary factor shaping the negative perceptions about immigrants? I argue that although misinformation does play an important role, it is the most dangerous when accompanied by a state framing of insecurity and aggressive policies. A concept widely discussed in International Relations – securitization – has gained relevance in this debate. This concept explores how certain issues are strategically framed as matters of national security or threats, thus legitimizing the adoption of emergency and exceptional measures. Some scholars have argued that this process results in the social engineering of insecurity, wherein certain topics are repeatedly framed as security problems to justify restrictive policy responses. Doing so often creates more issues than it solves, such as the rising death toll among migrants who, in an effort to bypass highly securitized zones, are forced to take more dangerous and often deadly routes.

This scenario directly applies to the issue of the US-Mexico border. Heavy investment in surveillance and enforcement infrastructure has led to additional challenges, such as increased migrant mortality. As migrants are forced to seek out more dangerous routes, their lives are placed at greater risk. This reflects a deterrence-based strategy.  The intention is to discourage irregular migration, rather than completely prevent individuals traveling through Mexico — including, but not limited to, Mexican nationals—from entering the country. The strategy of prevention through deterrence, first institutionalized during the Clinton administration, was strengthened under George W. Bush in the context of the Global War on Terror and later became a central pillar of Donald Trump’s hardline immigration agenda.

This logic of deterrence is deeply embedded in the broader process of securitization, which has become a recurring reference point in U.S. politics—especially following the attacks of September 11, 2001. In the post-9/11 era, the U.S. government expanded the national security paradigm to encompass irregular migration, portraying it as a potential threat akin to terrorism. This discursive and policy shift helped to legitimize a range of exceptional measures, including militarized borders, the use of surveillance technologies, and increased detention. In this way, the logic of securitization that shaped the U.S. response to 9/11 continues to inform and justify current immigration enforcement practices.

The US-Mexico border wall – one of Trump’s main campaign promises – exemplifies how securitization and misinformation go hand in hand in shaping immigration policy. Particularly among groups who believe that immigration worsens crime and harms the economy, there is a tendency to support border-closing policies, such as the wall, and who further amplify false and distorted information about immigration. His repeated attacks on the character of immigrants strengthened the belief that immigrants pose an immediate threat to the country. His statements, combined with the dissemination of misleading data, not only distorted the reality of immigration in the U.S. but also resulted in policies that increased precarity for migrants and heightened state violence along the border.

Beyond the political and social consequences, the securitization of immigration directly affects the lives of migrants, rendering their conditions in the U.S. increasingly precarious. Border militarization, for instance, does not fully prevent irregular immigration. It simply makes migration more dangerous. The criminalization of migration leads to detention, family separation, mass deportation, and the marginalization of entire groups of people. This process fuels restrictive policies, deepens migrant marginalization, and sustains a distorted view of the migratory reality.

Misinformation and securitization discourses from politicians and state actors construct immigration as a threat. Parties and citizens may buy into this rhetoric for political and self-serving reasons.

The broader context of insecurity is reinforced by both real and manufactured crises. This politically manufactured sense of insecurity aims to legitimize tougher border policies and reinforces a cycle of exclusion: the more immigrants are framed as dangerous or destabilizing, the more justification arises for restricting their rights and intensifying control measures. This is circular logic and justification that only breaks once reality intrudes to break the spell.

Lauro Accioly Filho is a PhD candidate at the Interinstitutional Graduate Program in International Relations – San Tiago Dantas and a Visiting Scholar at American University (Washington, D.C.).

Edited by Rob Albro, Associate Director, and Ernesto Castañeda, Director, at the Center for Latin American and Latino Studies 

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by clalsstaff on August 18, 2025  •  Permalink
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Posted by clalsstaff on August 18, 2025

https://aulablog.net/2025/08/18/walls-fear-and-misinformation/

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