To address the root of migration, confront Central American oppression

As the world observes International Migrants Day today, once again images of migrants flooding the U.S. southern border are making headlines. What may appear to be just another wave in the unending cycle of migration, the recent arrivals herald an ominous message for 2023 and the new Congress.

It is not the anticipated court-ordered end of Title 42 expulsions that is driving the recent influx of migrants as some claim. In fact, until Title 42 ends later this week, most migrants are still being returned just across the border to Mexico, leading to high rates of repeated attempts (and thus inflated statistics). What is driving the influx are increasingly untenable conditions in Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua driven by undemocratic regimes in each country. 

In the fiscal year 2022, U.S. Border Patrol encounters with Cubans increased nearly six times, Venezuelans increased four times, and Nicaraguans three times compared to 2021. The total — nearly 600,000 — from these three countries eclipsed arrivals from El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala for the first time during the last year, and now account for one in every five crossings. 

It is well known that Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua are among the least democratic countries in the hemisphere. However, until the current crisis, that has not translated into large influxes of undocumented migration to the U.S. in recent years. The economic, social and political fallout from years of poor governance, lack of accountability and corruption that are the mainstay of autocratic regimes is now more apparent and better documented than ever. While international pressure should continue to push these countries to open and democratize, it has proven exceedingly difficult to make progress given the entrenched regimes in each country.

The arrival of so many migrants fleeing increasingly untenable situations in undemocratic societies should sound warning bells in Washington. Democracy is waning around the world, and nowhere is that more apparent than in the perennial migration hot spots in Central America. Imagine the levels of migration five or 10 years from now if El Salvador were to look like Nicaragua, Guatemala like Venezuela or Honduras like Cuba. 

Unfortunately, that scenario is not hard to imagine. Already this year, the nine-month “state of exception” in El Salvador has suspended due process rights and deprived nearly 60,000 mostly young men of their freedom. Enacted to reduce gang violence, many of the detainees are guilty of nothing more than leaving their homes to go to work, school or the store. 

In Honduras, just this month, the government modeled a state of emergency in 162 municipalities after what has been done in El Salvador. In Guatemala, the administration is taking a different approach to authoritarianism by systematically dismantling the justice system that provided the primary check on the executive.

As we are seeing now with large numbers of migrants from undemocratic societies arriving at the U.S. border, we will see many times more should democratic backsliding in Central America continue. The focus on the typical root causes of migration — social violence and poverty — is insufficient to deal with the underlying issues of repression, state violence and corruption. In fact, anti-democratic governance is often the ultimate root cause of these root causes.  

Civil society in the region, including our Central America Research Alliance members, have been highlighting and pushing back against this reality for years. They need more support now. We must go beyond the visible root causes of violence and poverty to the harder to see and harder to tackle issues of government accountability, transparency and respect for human rights. The USAID Voices program to bolster civil society, the strategy to address corruption and the ever-expanding list of corrupt and undemocratic actors in the region is a positive start. 

However, preventing the next Nicaragua or Venezuela will require more action. The U.S. should remain engaged with and support civil society actors in the region, and diplomatic pressure should be expanded on authoritarian leaders. The U.S. should also expand legal mechanisms for temporary visas for Central Americans to relieve acute employment needs. Governments and civil society across the hemisphere should support the creation of anti-impunity commissions to fight corruption as they have for Honduras this past week, and reinforce human rights systems to bring forward the most egregious cases of abuses to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. This includes increased assistance to academic researchers, journalists and human rights organizations to document and report abuses. 

Immigration reform has not been a priority during the current Congress, even during the current lame-duck period that is probably the best chance in years for action. It will not be a priority for a divided Congress going forward. Now, the best opportunity to limit future influxes of migration is to counter anti-democratic regimes by supporting civil society and accountability mechanisms in Central America.

Tom Hare is co-director of the Central America Research Alliance and a senior researcher in the Pulte Institute for Global Development at the University of Notre Dame. Hare is the author of “Zonas Peligrosas: The Challenge of Creating Safe Neighborhoods in Central America.”