Border Crisis = Church Opportunity
(Christianity Today Online, January 8, 2015)
A feeling of hopelessness and insecurity in Central America has fueled the exodus of 43,000 unaccompanied Central American children and teenagers to the US border this year, a ten-fold increase since 2009. The origin of the crisis lies in the growing menace of the violent narco-trafficking underworld in three countries: Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador. Paradoxically, many of the roots of the crisis lie in the very country to which the children are fleeing—our own society’s insatiable demand for narcotics, and the network of gangs originating in Los Angeles which have extended their talons deep into Central America.
Our non-profit organization, Mayan Partners, has witnessed the consequences of this hopelessness and insecurity first-hand. During our most recent trip to Guatemala this summer, we sensed a growing desire among those with whom we work to leave their home country and seek refuge in ours. Many Christians want to know how we can be part of a solution to this crisis, how we can genuinely bring grace and peace to the situation, and not just feel better for our efforts. But first we must understand the origins of the crisis.
..(Read more at ChristianityToday.com)
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Bruce,
while I agree with a lot of this, I’m a little taken aback by two statements:
1) The devastation that occurs to families when a mother or father leaves: as opposed to what happens to families when a mother or father stays in a location with low employment, low wages and high violence? My read of the literature is that households with a migrant generally do better than households without. Certainly the revealed preferences suggest that the households look around and perceive that households with a migrant do better.
2) Dependency on remittances: I just don’t see evidence of remittance dependency. At least any evidence of remittance dependency more so than “income dependency”. Why does household income suddenly bear a larger burden in development terms when it is earned by a household member who happens to have crossed some arbitrary physical border?
Michael Clemens and I have written a paper about reconceiving migration and remittances as investment which I think is a much better general frame. That doesn’t argue against your positive advice to churches, though I would argue that supporting migrants is a much better strategy, particularly if it involves changing attitudes toward and opportunities for migrants in a more positive direction.