Unaccompanied children are migrating from Central America to the United States due to a variety of regional push and national pull factors, such as poverty, criminal violence, economic opportunity, and family reunification. These and other factors may have a large effect on a migrant, being a key determining factor on whether they will make the arduous journey to the United States or not.
One of the major push factors at play is the high amount of local scale gang violence that occurs in Central American cities. For instance, San Pedro Sula, Honduras has the world’s highest homicide rate, and sent more than 2,000 children between 1/1/14 and 5/14/14. Death threats from major gangs have also played a large role in the decision of Central Americans
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One major factor is economic and job opportunities that are available in the United States. For example, when two children were asked why they want to go to America, they responded that they wanted to work. Another major pull factor is the kinship links, which is a factor in migration that influences due to a family members success/presence, that are established in families where one member already lives in the US. Many people move to get their family back together, creating a pattern of chain migration (when someone moves along a kinship link) that in turn forms immigration waves (a large pattern of chain migration in turn forming an influx of migration). However, one of the biggest reasons children are coming is the belief that they are allowed to stay permanently without having to fear deportation. This misconception can be attributed to several different reasons. One of them is the 2008 policy that says that Central American minors can’t be deported immediately, and that they must be given a court hearing to decide whether they will be deported or allowed to stay. Another reason is that many children are put in care of family members while they wait for their hearing, which led to the creation of a rumor of the presences of “permisos” or permits to stay in the US. However, despite these rumors being dispelled by the US government, there is still some truth in them. For instance, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency prioritises the removal of criminal adults before children, and because many of these children stay with a relative while they wait for their hearing they are able to begin to have a new and improved
Gang violence is a complex issue with many causes consisting of; lack of jobs, dysfunctional schools, and a biased judicial system, these things have shaped and molded the social structure of this South Central society into something dark and perverse, it has given rise to violence and death, and the inconvenient truth of the matter is it’s our societies fault. References Anderson, Elijah. 1990. The. The Code of the Streets.
Cruz,M.,(2009, May). Global gangs in El Salvador:Maras and the politics of violence, Retrieved from http://graduateinstitute.ch/weddav/site/ccdp/shared/5039/cruz-global-gangs-in-El-Salvador.pdf
Starting a new life is very problematic for many Central American children that migrate to the United States. There are a lot of difficulties involved in the process to migrate to the United States including the journey to get there. An extremely common way to migrate is by train. Migrants usually take away many life lessons from the journey to the United States such as the generosity and assistance from fellow Central Americans. On the other hand there’s extreme hardships. For example, the many robberies, and gang violence a migrant can face on the journey to the United States. During the trip, migrants learn that they usually cannot take things for granted, especially how scarce food, supplies, and other necessities are.
Introduction The exponential growth of gangs in the Northern Triangle countries (Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras) has led to an epidemic of violence across the region. The two largest and most formidable gangs in the Northern Triangle, the Mara Salvatrucha-13 (MS-13) and the Barrio 18, wage battles against one another to control territory and defend against incursions. In 2011, Honduras led the world in homicides, with 91.6 per 100,000 people; rates were also alarmingly high in El Salvador and Guatemala, at 69.1 and 38.5 per 100,000 people, respectively. In El Salvador, a country with a population of only 6.2 million people, 4,354 were the victims of homicide in 2011 alone, with the Catholic Church estimating that more than 1,300 of these deaths were the direct result of gang violence. To counteract the growth of the gang phenomenon, during the 2000s the Northern Triangle countries favored a mano dura (iron fist) approach to dealing with the increasing belligerence of gangs.
With some street gangs being relatively harmless, there are others such as Mara Salvatrucha that are becoming more fierce and territorial. The beginning of the MS-13 can be traced to Los Angles in the 1980s. * At first, Salvadoran families fled their country to escape the civil war, “that left more than 70,000 people dead and displaced a fifth of the population.” (Abadinsky, 188). “El Salvador is one of the poorest countries in Latin America with almost half of its population living in poverty.” (Abadinsky, 188). With the United States being known as the Land of Opportunity, the war and poverty combination was a good reason for Salvadorans to enter the U.S. and call it “home.”
Immigrants must overcome many barriers to succeed in America. First, migrants frequently must learn a new language. Inability to communicate is a critical barrier for accessing the health care system (Urrutia-Rojas, Marshall, Trevino, Lurie, & Minguia-Bayona, 2006). Second, the processes of work and schooling for themselves and their families can be daunting. Lastly, immigrants use the established social network of longer duration residents for reference and knowledge (Nandi, Galea, Lopez, Nandi, Strongarone, & Ompad, 2008). For purposes of this report, there are three different types of immigrant: legal, undocumented, and refugees or persons seeking asylum. All three types of residents want to succeed and achieve their personal dream.
The third reality factor is that the gangs in Central America differ from each other in significant ways. Although most gangs are involved in human smuggling and drug retail, MS-13 has a solidified relationship with “transportista networks and are reaching out to Mexican TCOs.” Gangs in Honduras control less territory that are significant to the TCOs are on the “sidelines of the drug trade by local and regional criminal groups.” MS-13 in El Salvador is expanding their weapon quantity, moving from handguns to automatic rifles like AK-47s, grenades, rocket propelled grenade launchers, and more. However, most of these weapons are possessed through theft or purchasing them from the military. Also, gangs take advantage of the government gun-buy-back programs to trade in old weapons for higher quality weapons.
Papachristosa, Andrew V., David M. Hureaub, and Anthony A. Bragab'c. The Corner and the Crew: The Influence of Geography and Social Networks on Gang Violence. Working paper no. 78. 3rd ed. Vol. 78. New Haven: American Sociology Review, 2013. Web. 27 Feb. 2014. .
According to the National Gang Center, the change is gangs from 2002-2007: +12% in larger cities, +33% in suburban counties, +27% smaller cities and +24% in rural counties (National Youth Gang Center, 2009). The gang problem in the United States of America has been getting worse since the first gang was formed by Irish immigrants in the early 1800s. For low income and areas with high population, gang involvement with youths has also been getting worse. Regarding gang-related homicides, it is for difficult data collection industries to gather correct information because after a murder is committed it must be determined whether the murder is gang-related or not. But despite that, reports of gang-related murders are concentrated mostly in the large cities in the United States of America. Including San Jose, where there are long standing and persistent gang problems, which mean there are a larger number of documented gang members. There are literally thousands of anti-gang advocacy groups because there are so many concerned parents. These groups support politicians who are working to try to create legislation to reduce the gang problem in the United States of America. There are a number of theories on how to combat the gang problem, but a strategy which rarely fails is to take small steps in progress and continue to move forward.. There will never be a perfect solution that solves every aspect of a problem. But one policy that covers a wide range of issues involving gangs is the United States Constitutional bill S.132, “Gang Abatement and Prevention Act of 2009.” It is the most extensive and sophisticated piece of gang legislation to appear in the last decade, it has many objectives on increasing and enhancing law enforcement resources committed to the investigation and prosecution of violent gangs. It has had more supporters from both parties than any anti-gang bill in the last decade. S.132, “The Gang Abatement and Prevention Act of 2009” has the potential to deter and punish violent gang crime, to protect law-abiding citizens and communities from violent criminals, to revise and enhance criminal penalties for violent crimes, to expand and improve gang prevention programs; it will give jobs back to police officers such as those in San Jose who lost their jobs and will help law enforcement indentify gang crimes to be able to put murderers behind bars faster.
With an average of one murder per hour, El Salvador, a relatively small country of about six million people, is on its way of becoming the country with highest homicide rate in the world. The violence that has become a Salvadoran social norm derives from many different factors, with the main factor being the high rate of gangs. With over 60,000 gang members actively involved in gangs, the nation has been taken under a sort of violence and mass death only caused by wars (Vice News, ‘Gangs of El Salvador’). Yet, I argue that this war does not continue on because of the high position gangs hold in Salvadoran society today, but is found in its impoverished youth. It is in the impoverished youth that violence is found, not because they partake in
El Salvador’s geography left their country and people extremely exposed to invasions. The people had to create a certain image in order to keep their country safe. “To survive, El Salvador had to develop tough-and often violent-stance toward the outside world” (37,38). This situation is one of the many reasons that gang violence is so present in El Salvador. The country is only connected to one ocean (the pacific) and is surrounded by
One of the biggest causes of drug trafficking is very futile economies where people are searching for ways to make money. Places with weaker economies, such as Mexico and Colombia, usually have a lot higher drug trafficking rates than places with strong economies. As I said before, it is believed that Mexico’s economy would shrink by over sixty-three percent if it wasn’t for drug trafficking. That in itself is enough to show how dependent some places are on drug trafficking. These areas don’t have the job opportunities that many places throughout the world have either because they don’t have good economies. This is beca...
The United State’s immigration policy has undergone great change since the turn of the 20th century. Many things have contributed to this change, such as political problems, poverty, lack of jobs, and in fact our changing policy. The countries affected by these problems may have changed but the problems themselves have not. No matter what the location or time period, people have been driven from their homeland as result of political disputes. There will always be poor, 3rd world countries that can not create a prosperous environment for their people. As a result of general poverty, few jobs are available, which forces citizens to look beyond the borders for work. Our changing immigration policy is motivation for some immigrants to come to America. If the U.S. is accepting a high number of one country’s immigrants, than many of their citizens will emigrate for America, some legally and others illegally. The United State’s has changed its immigration policy many times in the last 100 years but the reasons for resettlement have remained generally the same.
Otero, Juan. “Curbing street gang violence,” National League of Cities. 21 Dec 1998. General Reference Center Gold. Jan 2007
Illegal Immigration can occur for various reasons but one of the main causes over years has been civil wars which made people cross borders of other countries. One more factor can be poverty where people migrate from other countries legally or illegally to higher paid jobs, better living conditions and one of the main examples of these are thousands of people who apply for H1-B (highly skilled workers) every year to legally work for a company in America. Another factor could be persecution in their own country for person’s wrong doing in religious or political beliefs and fleeing to adjacent country to take sanctuary. According to Anderson, immigrants come to America from neighboring countries especially Mexico to benefit fr...