Instances of illegal children migration from Central America to the United States of America has attracted the attention of the current United States government administration. In response to mitigating rising cases of illegal immigrants, the United States government, under the leadership of President Trump, have defined strict illegal immigrant’s rules. Irrespective of the stern measures put across to deter instances of unlawful immigrants, citizens from Central America and Mexico are willing to take the necessary risks to settle in the United States of America.
Children are not left behind in the quest of moving from their home countries to the United States. Various factors promote instances of illegal immigration from Mexico and Central America to the United States. Through focusing on a documentary “Which Way Home”, the essay will address a thesis that social and economic conditions in Central America and Mexico promote instances of illegal immigration to the United States.
In the documentary “Which Way Home”, viewers are exposed to a group of children from Central America who take a very risky journey through Mexico to the United States. The primary driving force urging the children to migrate to a place far away from their homeland is searching for a better life overall. It should, however, be noted that each of the children in the movie bears a varying perspective and urge towards migrating to the United States.
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The first character viewers of the documentary came across is Kevin. Aged 14 years old, Kevin is Honduran whose primary objective in taking the risky journey is securing a good job that will help him support his mother back in Central America (Rebecca Cammisa, n.p). It can thus be argued that children, as well as adults from Central America, are willing to settle in America without legal documentation to secure well-paying jobs.
According to Consumers in Central America & the Caribbean (12), about 25 million men and women are unemployed in Central America. This creates the urge of youth, in this case, Kevin, to explore the outside world in search of employment.
Juan Carlos, a 13-year-old boy, shares the same racial background as Kevin. Juan’s main purpose for illegally migrating to America is taking care of his family. The documentary reveals Juan’s consciousness to take care of his mother and siblings after his father left them. An evaluation of the reason why Juan embarks on taking this risky journey showcases that social factors contribute to instances of illegal migration in the United States.
Many countries across the world have definite rules and regulations defining that in case of family separation; the father bears a responsibility of taking care of individual’s children. Central America does not have such rules. If they did, they would not be strictly adhered to. Under the defined situations, it can be argued that imperfect political institution in Central America contributes to instances of illegal children immigration.
For example, Juan could not have decided to illegally migrate to the United States if the legal system in Central America had a definite means of supporting neglected children.
Family reunion presents an additional factor in promoting illegal children migration to the United States. The United States attracts many laborers from Central America. These laborers are offered jobs in various low paying pockets such as housekeeping, office janitors and farm assistants.
Though these laborers send financial help to their children back at home, they do not earn enough pay to facilitate frequent travel to Central America. The overall implication of the explained ideology are instances of family separation. Aiming at getting a family reunion with their parents, children, as well as adults in Central America, end up on embracing the idea of crossing American borders illegally.
Explained ideology is expressed in the video in the case of Jose a Salvadoran. Jose lives with his aunt after his mother migrated to the United States in search of a good-paying job. Jose had not seen his mother for three years after she left for the United States. Family reunion is a factor that is closely tied to unemployment in Central America. Considering Jose’s case, it can be argued that there weren’t enough job opportunities in America. Jose’s mother could not have traveled to America, this fact might have prevented Jose from illegally migrating to the United States.
Factors contributing to the remaining character’s urge to travel in the United States is tied to high rates of domestic violence in Central America. Though it is not clear in the documentary, Jairo, a 14-year-old boy was probably running away from his father, who had after killing his mother gone ahead to disown him. On the other hand, Yuri had run away from his mother and got entangled in drug abuse. The primary reason why children run away from their mothers is attributed to domestic abuse.
According to Bruno, Andorra et al. (98), kids in El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala are exposed to high instances of child abuse. Cases of child abuse in the mentioned regions are attributed to poverty, drug abuse, and alcoholism. Most of the children in the documentary are Honduran, thus are exposed to instances of domestic violence. Upon making it across the United States border, they are eligible for special immigration status in the United States.
By watching the documentary “Which Way Home” the main issue that emerges is that the children are running away from a life of poverty, crime, joblessness, and lack of support from their family, friends and government. The solutions that can enable immigrant children to not leave their homes is to seek a better life in the United States. Improving access to social services can be the first step of solving immigrant children from moving to the United States border in Mexico, posing a danger to their lives. The social services that most of the young boys in the documentary lack are suitable housing, living conditions, and proper jobs for their parents.
Most of the boys in the documentary show that they are still at the school-going age, yet they are loitering in the streets of their respective countries as they plan on becoming immigrants in the United States. According to the documentary, none of the children are going to school because they do not have the fees to keep them there, and it forces their parents to push them to the streets. Through this factor, it shows that if there was a proper education system that would allow the children to study and learn for free, most of them would be at school (Armstrong et al., 29). In this regard, it means that the children would not be thinking about running away from their home countries if they could have been at school throughout their young life. Adding to that, the South American government can ensure that free education for young people is mandatory, accessible, and it offers quality studies that can ensure that the students excel.
Most of the countries in South America, where the immigrant children come from do not have the right institutions to ensure that their citizens do not suffer from social and economic hardships. Social protection measures can also involve the provision of a monthly stipend to sustain parents who are unable to take care of their children.
The boys in the documentary are risking their lives on the journey to America so they can alleviate their parent’s poverty levels and reduce their misery. These issues are brought by poor government planning, failure to map out each region’s economic needs, and how to make the citizens self-reliant. The self-reliant measures that the South American governments can put in place will, in turn, enable the parents of the children who seek to migrate from their countries to stay as they see a promising future there (Lewallen, 729).
Policies that afford families time and financial resources to provide for their children and the aged population play an essential role in alleviating poverty and improving sustainability (Richter, 103). Juan Carlos, Olga, and Freddy all note that either one of their parents or one of their siblings had already migrated to the United States, leaving them behind. The conditions that made them leave the South American states is because there were bleak economic hardships that could not sustain them.
Therefore, those parents also went to the United States to make their lives better, and that is why their children are following them. These are the reasons why the improvement of economic and social protection services plays an integral role in ensuring that their respective governments cover both adults and children. Government policies that have strategic and clearly defined measures can ensure that no citizen suffers as the government will be able to shield them from any uncertainties.
Deteriorating healthcare services in South American states also push children to migrate to the United States, as their parents are either dead or frail, and they cannot be able to sustain themselves financially when they are sick. Fito and Yuriko both showcase how they were seeking a way of getting into the United States because their families back home were unable to sustain them, due to different conditions of their background. While Yuriko is an addict of sniffing glue, Fito abandoned his grandmother because she was too sickly to take care of both of them. Cost-effective healthcare services, improved accessibility and quality care, can ensure that the citizens from South American and
Latino region can enhance medical care for their citizens (Doubova, 5). Through these measures, the governments can ensure that they cover their citizens, which translates to proper and quality healthcare. This does not affect them financially.
Most of the problems that make children immigrants run away from their home countries can be easily solved by their governments. Most of the children immigrant’s reasons for seeking a chance to be in the United States is directly connected to their family members. However, there is an indirect connection of their plight to how the governments in those regions are managed or how they operate.
“Which Way Home” showcases the dangers that the children immigrants go through as they seek better lives and security for their future as their countries forsake them and their parents. Subsequently, it shows the dangers of the travels because they try to get into America illegally through the Mexican border, and it has the protection of the border patrol. Therefore, if the South American and Latino region governments can start by pulling their people from poverty through social protection measures, quality education and healthcare would fortunately take place and most of these cases would soon be reduced.
