When people change what they are doing, as the first sentence below shows, economists ask what changed to cause the change in behavior? The article gives a number of reasons.
Excerpts:
"Apprehension of Guatemalans jumped to about 236,000 in the first nine months of fiscal year 2019 from about 15,000 in 2007"
"Guatemala’s economy has averaged 3.4% growth in the past five years, and the homicide rate has fallen by half to 22.5 homicides per 100,000 people compared with 2009. The U.S. homicide rate was 5.3 per 100,000 in 2017, according to the latest available data.
Yet those improvements haven’t been enough to counter at least three events that drove the immigration surge, according to immigration experts, Guatemalan émigrés, local officials and migrant smugglers.
First, a 2015 U.S. federal court ruling made it easier for migrant families with children to apply for asylum and stay in the U.S. until their cases are decided by a judge. After the ruling, many more families with children began turning up at the U.S. border. President Trump wants Congress to pass a law eliminating what he sees as a loophole in the law.
Second, a yearslong drought has shrunk corn and bean harvests. The manager of a bank in Joyabaj specializing in agricultural loans said they have reduced loans to local farmers by 60% over the past six years and now lend only to those who already have their own irrigation systems. Separately, coffee prices have fallen, hurting growers and killing many seasonal jobs.
Finally, there was Mr. Trump. The president’s promise to build a wall along the U.S.’s southern border led many Guatemalans to conclude they should leave now—or risk getting shut out of the U.S. for good."
"a 2016 poll by the United Nations’ International Organization for Migration found nine of 10 Guatemalans said they emigrated for financial reasons."
Passport children
"The Central American migration crisis erupted in 2014. Unlike previous waves of adult male migrants, a large number were children and teenagers traveling without their parents.
One reason was passage of a 2008 law intended to protect unaccompanied minors from long stretches in U.S. custody. It also shielded them from deportation—except for minors from Mexico or Canada—and ordered their release to relatives in the U.S. as quickly as possible.
To slow the migration, the Obama administration asked Mexico to step up deportations of Central Americans crossing through Mexico. In addition, the U.S. began holding Central American families at border detention centers.
In July 2015, a federal judge ruled the detention of immigrant children and their mothers violated a court settlement known as the Flores Agreement. U.S. District Judge Dolly Gee determined that the agreement applied not just to unaccompanied minors but also to families with children.
After the court decision, immigrant families claiming asylum were quickly released to await their court hearings in the U.S., often for years.
The belief that children were the ticket to U.S. entry spread through Guatemala and neighboring countries. “Kids are the passports,” said Maria Elena Castillo, manager of the Joyabaj branch of the government office that issues identification documents."
"Human smugglers offer steep discounts for those who bring a child. That is because an adult traveling alone has to be taken on a dangerous journey across the U.S. border. A family claiming asylum can be dropped off at a U.S. border checkpoint."
"Sometimes mothers send a son or daughter north with an adult relative or friend pretending to be the parent. Many times it is to join family already living in the U.S."
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