Immigration from Central America

The issue of children migrating to the states from Central/South America is not getting the press required for you to be fully informed. The press writes that we and our children are at risk from diseases they bring into the country and our social welfare state will be bankrupt from their presence. Until Sunday we did not have first-hand accounts to share about the issues of immigration. But in our church community in El Salvador, we were told our Godson was sent to the states to be with his mother as the gangs were targeting him. He is just a quiet young boy in high school, sent with a smuggler to the US. Our hearts sank when we were told. The community leaders said it’s ok, he made it. However the peril in that trip puts anyone on edge. Fox news has an excellent story as to the “why” of immigration: Five children from one family witnessed the murder of their neighbor, a 21 year old man, who was gunned down by 4 men. The children lived with their grandmother as the mother had sought asylum in the US from an abusive marriage. The next day the family starting receiving death threats against the children. Grandmother changed her cell phone number many times but continued to receive the threatening calls with each newly issued number. During the past 5 years, the mother has been able to have all 5 children join her. None of the children were able to come to the US legally. Mother paid smugglers thousands of dollars to bring the children to the US one at time. Her only son, the last one, arrived last summer. He tells a frightening story of living in El Salvador where gang members were always threatening him with “join us or die”. How could a mother make this decision to send her children on a journey that has claimed countless lives? She says, “I was not going to let them kill my children. I prefer them to take the risk to get here for a better life than face certain death in El Salvador.” Today’s daily Salvadoran newspaper reports that from January 1 to March 18, there have been 913 violent deaths recorded. This is 287 more than last year at this time. This is the national reality. One Sunday in 2014, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel ran this article: http://www.jsonline.com/news/opinion/for-child-migrants-walking-1400-miles-might-be-worth-it-b99348809z1-274901021.html The author, Jamie Stark, spends time in Wisconsin and El Salvador serving the clients of the homeless shelter operated by the Lutheran church in San Salvador. The article tells that a United Nations report found that of 404 recent Salvadoran migrant children interviewed, most left for the U.S. for family, opportunity, or to escape violence in society. It would be interesting for all of us to think about our ancestors’ reasons for coming to America. Were they very different than those expressed above? Are safety or opportunity no longer valid reasons to seek the American Dream? Our ancestors often came as teenagers. Can we hold today’s young immigrants to a different standard? David y Nancy