Essay on Poverty in Central America

To what extent poverty in the Northern Triangle is responsible for the rise of nationalism in the U.S.?

In 2015 when Donald Trump was campaigning for the U.S. presidency, the highlight of his election campaign was concentrated around building a wall on the U.S.-Mexican border. He promised to build a steel, 1000-mile wall to prevent people from crossing the U.S-Mexican border and entering the United States area illegally. Furthermore, President Trump with their building wall intention divided the country into two different views in terms of attitude towards migrants. The underlying point regarding Trump’s agenda was built around continuous hatred toward immigrants. The tragic end of a father and daughter who tried to enter the U.S. by crossing the Rio Grande River in June 2019 emphasized the seriousness and importance of the Central America migration crisis. However, the more crucial fact is not merely President Trump’s intention behind the building physical wall but the reason behind why thousands of people flee from Mexico in the hope of getting asylum from the U.S. government. This paper aims to answer the question of to what extent poverty in the Northern Triangle is responsible for the rise of nationalism in the U.S. in light of recent events. To answer this question first part introduces brief information regarding the link between poverty, migration, and nationalism and the second part explores the Migrant Caravan and, the causes of poverty in El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala.

The link between migration, poverty, and nationalism

Ending poverty in all forms at the global level is the number one goal of the Sustainable Development Goals for the 2030 Agenda. This goal targets eradicating poverty, and mobilization of resources through properly designed government policies and social protection.

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Throughout history, the main reason behind people's intention to migrate was to obtain a better life and wage differences between countries of origin and destination which is also referred to as a push-pull model in classical literature. It means that poor living conditions in the country of origin pushed people to migrate whilst the country of origin attracted people with better conditions and income (Bank, 2011). Notwithstanding lack of access to basic needs makes people escape poverty Pradesh et al., (2003) state that the poorest people cannot always be subject to migration (as cited in (Haan & Yaqub, 2009). Because migration requires resources which is not merely concentrated around financial assets but also contain social and technical skills that cannot always be obtained by the poorest people (Bank, 2011). Additionally, the World Bank Document (2011) claims that the poor usually aim to find less costly migration places, therefore, they prefer neighboring countries where they also might have closer links to friends and relatives (Bank, 2011). However, people in extreme poverty conditions for the sake of survival can create an action plan to escape better off (Haan & Yaqub, 2009). Although government services such as getting a passport with a high price might slow down the migration process for the poor (Bank, 2011), a network of communities abroad might help coordinate the poor throughout the migration process (Haan & Yaqub, 2009). As poverty can be a driver of migration, migration can also have an impact on poverty in the country of origin. The money sent from migrants to his/her families in the form of remittances as a means of support can contribute to household income, GDP, and reduction of poverty (Antonio, Ore, Sousa, & Lopez, 2016). The authors also state that remittances can have a negative impact by discouraging people from attaining the labor force in their country of origin. Besides, the effect of migration procedure on children is undetermined but migration could change children's development dynamic process by offering different sets of resources, challenges, and risks (Haan & Yaqub, 2009).

In turn, migration can contribute to the rise of nationalism in the country of destination. Due to the collapse of the Libyan regime, the Syrian Civil War increased the number of people migrating to Europe enabling migration policy to be at the top of political agendas. With this advantage, national political parties like Lega with its anti-immigration policies became successful in Italy during the 2018 election while 8.5% of the population consisted of immigrants in 2018. (Russo, 2018). This situation in Italy shows us a positive relationship between migration and nationalism. The reason why people usually vote for these parties is that they are not willing to share employment opportunities and general welfare services with migrants in the country. Russo (2018) finds out that linguistic, cultural, and religious differences have a positive relationship with electoral behavior when people vote for nationalist parties. When immigrants have less in common with native people regarding cultural, linguistic, or religious background native people are most likely to support nationalist parties and their anti-immigrant policies. Furthermore, he argues that since immigrants are blamed for robberies and therefore it has a positive relationship with nationalist votes.

Case Study: Northern Triangle

According to U.S Customs and Border Security, most of the migrants including unaccompanied children, family members, and single adults are coming from Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador (Gonzalez, 2019). Congressional Research Service assumes that 508000 people from Northern Central America (Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala) left their homes to head to the north in the fiscal year 2019 (Meyer & Taft-Morales, 2019). In the fall of 2018, about 7000 people starting from Honduras including Guatemala and El Salvador walked thousands of kilometers to get to the U.S. through Mexico which is known as a 'migrant caravan'. This caravan was considered a safe and cheaper means to migrate for Central Americans. However, the reaction from U.S. President Donald Trump was not welcoming and for protection, purposes sent 5800 troops to the border and referred migrant caravan movement as an invasion by “criminals”, and “murderers”. This also led to tension on the border between migrants and people with anti-immigrant attitudes (BBC, 2018). For the founders of the U.S. people from different countries coming to America as a sanctuary were a source of pride. However, Donald Trump with a newly framed migration policy and appealing speeches established a sense of hatred in his supporters. Jill Lepore explains that 'hating immigrants as if they were lesser humans, is a form of nationalism that has nothing to do with patriotism' (Anderson, 2019). On the other hand, Mexican President Lopez Obrador promised to provide a work permit for Central American migrants for a temporary time and claimed “I will not do the United States’s dirty work” (Malkin, 2018). The root causes behind people’s intentions are to escape poor social-economic conditions, violence, and vulnerability to natural disasters (Meyer & Taft-Morales, 2019). According to the World Bank, El Salvador had 29.2% in 2017, Guatemala 59.3% in 2014, and Honduras 61.9% of people living in poverty in 2018. These statistics, in turn, lead us to question the main causes of poverty in El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala an essential driver of the Central American migration crisis.

Poverty in El Salvador has a history dating back to the civil war during the 1980s and it was also intensified with neo-liberal policies implemented with the assistance of the U.S. after the civil war that had little room for reducing poverty. Furthermore, crime and violence with the use of firearms which were imported by the U.S. government for civil war had negative impacts on poverty alleviation (Roumie, 2017). Roumie suggests that U.S. intervention both pre and post-civil war created a culture of violence which in turn mitigated worsened poverty. In this case, it is also worthwhile to note that El Salvador which established a violent culture with U.S involvement is the same El Salvador whose migrant nation is referred to as 'murderers', and 'gang members' and is not welcomed by the U.S President.

Lack of access to economic resources such as assets is at an insufficient level in poor households and it is also affected by the government's small budget for a cash transfer program called Comunidades Solidarias. Besides, lack of education as a contributor to the human capital is a drawback for chronic poverty which in turn leads to low-level income (Peña, 2017). He states that a shortage of employment opportunities is another determinant of poverty however, it can be attained by effective government policies to reduce unemployment.

Similar patterns in terms of causes of poverty can be observed in Guatemala as well. Guatemala performs poorly when it comes to equal distribution of wealth compared to other Central American countries. Indigenous people, especially in rural areas, have a higher chance of falling into poverty. 'Indigenous population living with less than $2.25 which is the extreme poverty line in Latin America is 58.6%' (Cabrera, Lustig, & Mora´ N, 2015, p. 273). They argue that the reason why poverty persists in Guatemala today is because of fiscal policies. For instance, despite the fact, fiscal policy turned out to be more distributive in 2010 compared to 2000 cash transfer programs like Mi Familia Progresa which aimed to reduce poverty by giving cash to women with children only consisting of 0.4% of GDP (Cabrera et al., 2015).

Honduras experiences high inequality levels in the region and a high portion of its GDP consists of remittances by migrants as well. Like Guatemala and El Salvador, a high percentage of chronically poor people live in rural territories compared to urban areas in Honduras. Furthermore, limits on credit, lack of education and not having an effective risk plan are drawbacks for the poor having access to economic opportunities (Antonio, Ore, Sousa, & Lopez, 2016). It is also worthwhile to consider Honduras's geographic location and its vulnerability to natural disasters such as hurricanes, droughts, and storms which affect the poor households most. Simultaneously, government programs do not perform well in addressing these issues. For instance, Honduras’s conditional cash transfer program called Bono Vida Mejor reduced poverty only from 88.8% to 88.3% (Antonio et al., 2016). Most of the migrants underline poverty as the main reason why they joined the Migrant Caravan as Rosa López said in her interview with the Guardian “We don’t envision becoming rich, we just want the basics – a job to survive” (Phillips, 2019)

Looking at the scores for achievement of the number one goal of sustainable development in this region provides us information in terms of improvement or drawback of the governments to eliminate poverty. El Salvador scores 91.5% for Goal 1 which indicates that the country is on the right track to achieve a poverty reduction. The country identified poverty as a multidimensional concept that includes education, health, housing, basic needs, and food security in its new strategies. In this manner, it is assumed that policies with a new framework could be more effective in tackling poverty issues (CABEL, 2016). Sustainable Development Report for 2019 illustrates that Guatemala scores 74.3 for Goal number 1 which means ‘score moderately increasing, insufficient to attain goal’. In contrast to these two countries Honduras performs poorly and scores only 57.7 which indicates the existence of serious challenges and ‘Score stagnating or increasing at less than 50% of required rate’ (J.Sachs, Schmidt-Traub, Kroll, Lafortune, & Fuller, 2019). The main reasons behind poverty are ineffective government policies, unequal distribution of wealth and opportunities, violence in these three countries, and therefore low scores in eradicating poverty. Failure to achieve this goal of Sustainable Development, in turn, leads to the mass migration of people. As the World Bank Document (2011) argues people try to find less costly places when they plan to migrate, people from the Northern Triangle prefer the U.S. as it is not only closer but also cheaper for them. Building on Russo's (2018) idea that people in Italy vote for nationalist parties because an increasing number of immigrants share distinct cultural, linguistic, and religious backgrounds in addition to job security we can observe similar patterns in the U.S. Because immigrants coming from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras have different language and culture which makes them distant from native people. Moreover, the reason why some Americans support President Trump’s anti-immigration policy is that immigrants are blamed for crimes, 'stealing jobs' as in the case in Italy. In this manner poverty through migration in the Northern Triangle indirectly leads to people voting for nationalist candidates, consequently the rise of nationalism in the U.S.

All in all, this paper reviewed existing literature in terms of the link between migration, poverty, and nationalism. Existing findings suggest that poverty is one of the main drivers of migration and it reduces poverty in the country of origin in the form of remittances. Migration itself impacts the electoral vote for nationalist parties in the country of destination. This paper aimed to find how poverty in Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras led to the rise of nationalism in the U.S. in the light of the Migrant Caravan which grabbed worldwide attention. Failure to achieve Sustainable Development Goal 1 in the Northern Triangle which aims to eradicate poverty indirectly leads to the rise of nationalist behavior in the U.S.