{"id":21259,"date":"2019-03-19T16:33:58","date_gmt":"2019-03-19T20:33:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/live-immigrationreform.pantheonsite.io\/?p=21259"},"modified":"2019-03-19T16:34:01","modified_gmt":"2019-03-19T20:34:01","slug":"humanitarian-visas-wont-stop-bullets-or-migrants-immigrationreform-com","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/2019\/03\/19\/humanitarian-visas-wont-stop-bullets-or-migrants-immigrationreform-com\/","title":{"rendered":"Humanitarian Visas Won\u2019t Stop Bullets or Migrants"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

It\u2019s nice that Mexican President Andr\u00e9s Manuel L\u00f3pez Obrador\u2019s government is issuing humanitarian visas<\/a> to refugees fleeing Guatemala and other violent Central American countries. But how many will stay in a country with a crime epidemic of its own?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Instead of deploying federal police to block illegal entrants,\nMexico is fast-tracking applications for one-year permits that grant migrants\nfree movement and work authorizations. More than 12,000 humanitarian visas were\nissued in the first six weeks of 2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet Lopez Obrador\u2019s pivot from border\nenforcement to \u201cprotection\u201d is a futile move as long as his country remains\nswamped by its own crime wave.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chilapa, in southwestern Mexico, has the highest homicide rate in the world, according to a recent news report calling it a \u201cwar zone.\u201d<\/a> Three other Mexican cities ranked in the top five.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In one of those crime centers, Tijuana<\/a>, the violence is the worst since that border town witnessed all-out war between the local Arellano F\u00e9lix syndicate and the Sinaloa cartel of Joaquin \u201cEl Chapo\u201d Guzman.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another survey<\/a> ranks Los Cabos, Mexico, No. 1 with a bullet. It lists six Mexican cities on the Top 10 most dangerous list \u2013 and all have homicide rates higher than the current U.S. murder capital: St. Louis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Amid the endemic violence south of the border,\nit\u2019s fair to assume that many migrants who chance their way through Mexico\u2019s\nbadlands won\u2019t tarry on their trek to the United States. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Transiting across Mexico, Central American migrants and refugees are \u201cpreyed upon by criminal organizations, sometimes with the tacit approval or complicity of national authorities, and subjected to violence and other abuses \u2014 abduction, theft, extortion, torture and rape \u2014 that can leave them injured and traumatized,\u201d according to Doctors Without Borders<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Little wonder that northbound caravans accelerate through Mexico\nen route to the U.S. Temporary humanitarian visas are no\nprotection against knives, guns and the predations of criminal cartels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In an ironic journalistic twist, USA Today\u2019s\nMarch 15 edition devoted virtually its entire front page to detailing migrants\u2019\ndeadly predicament. Immediately below was a report that the U.S. Senate voted\nto block additional funding for President Donald Trump\u2019s proposed border wall.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis check on the executive is a crucial source of our freedom,\u201d Sen. Lamar Alexander<\/a>, R-Tenn., said from his comfortable Capitol Hill quarters after opposing the president\u2019s national emergency declaration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It all evokes Kris Kristofferson\u2019s immortal lyric: \u201cFreedom\u2019s just another word for nothin\u2019 left to lose.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s nice that Mexican President Andr\u00e9s Manuel L\u00f3pez Obrador\u2019s government is issuing humanitarian visas to refugees fleeing Guatemala and other violent Central American countries. But how many will stay in a country with a crime epidemic of its own? Instead of deploying federal police to block illegal entrants, Mexico is fast-tracking applications for one-year permits<\/p>\n

Read More<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":15822,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0},"categories":[511],"tags":[1713,765,1524,498],"yst_prominent_words":[1938,4949,2043,3341,3336,2437,2075,4950,2871,4947,2186,4948,2048,2188,1942,3221,2101,1939,2532,2170],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21259"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21259"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21259\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21260,"href":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21259\/revisions\/21260"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15822"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21259"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21259"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21259"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=21259"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}