ANALYSIS
The crisis at the United States’ southern border did not begin there. The factors driving migrants to trek hundreds or thousands of miles are rooted in decades of political instability and persecution, violence, crime, and/or climate-related crop catastrophes in their home countries. Moreover, U.S. deportation policy fueled the rise of violent street gangs in places such as El Salvador from the 1990s.
Too often, however, Americans focus narrowly on what’s happening near a line on a map or demand even stricter measures to detain or deport as many migrants who cross illegally as possible. The people keep coming, no matter how many are sent back. Migrant encounters — arrests and expulsions — at the U.S.-Mexico border continue to shatter records.
In this episode of History As It Happens, Catholic University historian Julia Young discusses the origins of illegal Latin American migration beginning with U.S. Cold War policy during the Kennedy administration, when the School of the Americas began training many of the military and police officers who would later rule their countries through terror and violence, forcing millions to flee.
Also discussed in this episode: the Reagan administration’s support of the military dictators in El Salvador during that country’s civil war; why President Reagan supported amnesty for some illegal immigrants; the North American Free Trade Agreement’s effect on illegal immigration from Mexico; President Obama’s designation as “deporter-in-chief,” and the Trump administration’s efforts to restrict both legal and illegal immigration.
History As It Happens is available at washingtontimes.com or wherever you find your podcasts.
