Hundreds of thousands more fled to the United States. In June 2014, President Barack Obama declared that Border Patrol agents “already apprehend and deport hundreds of thousands of undocumented immigrants every year.” In 2017, dozens of suspected gang members were illegally executed by United States-funded Salvadoran security forces. In April of the same year, Border Patrol agents began implementing a “metering” policy that slowed the processing of asylum claims at the United States-Mexico border to a trickle, creating a huge backlog. In June 2019, the United States vowed to provide no further aid to Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador until they reduced the migration of their nationals to the United States — a cruel and counterproductive measure. They might show a president, a member of Congress, a Border Patrol agent, a lobbyist, a judge, a citizen at a political rally or in a voting booth.

Source: International New York Times July 10, 2019 21:33 UTC