Opinion | Why American Cruelty Doesn’t Deter Migrants

In response to growing criticism that the state of immigrant detention centers at America’s southern border is inhumane, President Trump this month tweeted a sweeping dictum meant to deter migration from Central America: “If Illegal Immigrants are unhappy with the conditions,” he wrote, “just tell them not to come. All problems solved!”

But the two of us have seen firsthand that merely telling potential asylum seekers of the terrors that may await them in the United States will not work.

This summer, we traveled across Honduras speaking about the asylum laws of the United States. We aimed not to influence decisions about fleeing but rather to inform potential asylum seekers of the legal obstacles they would face, and the rights to which they are entitled, if they chose to make the trip north.

At the beginning of each presentation, we asked attendees to raise their hand if they could name five protected grounds of asylum — race, religion, nationality, political opinion or particular social group — or if they had heard of the new “remain in Mexico” policy. Among all of our audiences — whether at an elite private university in San Pedro Sula, a rural church in the mountains or a firehouse on the coast — no one raised a hand.

In our presentations, we did not hide the harsh realities of the current asylum process. We cautioned that asylum-seekers might be separated from their families, forced to wait for months in crime-ridden border towns in Mexico, placed in “perreras” (literally, “dog pounds”) and detained with no opportunity for bail. Even if they are released inside the United States as they wait for their case to be heard, we explained, life outside of detention can be exceedingly difficult.

If Mr. Trump’s proposal were effective, our audiences would have been discouraged. They would have accepted that the costs of fleeing outweigh the benefits, and “all problems solved!” But this wasn’t the case.

Instead, at the end of our presentations, dozens of participants discussed the sense of hopelessness that pervades their country. A firefighter told us he was considering fleeing because of threats against his daughter’s life after declining a local gang’s offer to sell drugs. A businessman from a rural town explained his plan to flee the death threats he expected for failing to pay an extortion fee. An administrator for a school described the huge drop in enrollment after rival gangs recently battled over the surrounding territory.

On some days during our travels, we found that Hondurans were blocking the roads to protest privatization of education and medical services as well as the government’s rampant corruption. Only days after we left, the military opened fire at protesting university students.

When potential asylum-seekers are faced with these kinds of horrors at home, simply communicating with them about President Trump’s cruel border policies aren’t a deterrent. Indeed, around the globe, past and present, this tactic has rarely worked: Pirates roaming the seas did not deter countless Vietnamese migrants fleeing the American war. And the European Union’s interdiction policies in the Mediterranean didn’t stop Syrians or North Africans from boarding rafts and dinghies and journeying away from civil unrest at home, despite the threat of discrimination that often awaited them.

The new bilateral agreement reached on Friday between the United States and Guatemala — under the threat of tariffs and a travel ban — that Guatemala will now officially be designated as a safe third country will do little to stem the flow of migration because Guatemala like the rest of the “Northern Triangle” countries is, in reality, not safe. People will still leave.

In El Porvenir, in northern Honduras, one young teacher spoke of her students’ “dream drawings.” The vast majority of her students, she explained, drew pictures of themselves living in the United States as adults. “They know there’s no future in Honduras,” she said to us at a small town hall meeting. “These barriers at your border won’t stop them from trying to achieve their dream.”

As lawyers, we aren’t experts in foreign aid, international development or foreign policy. But based on what we saw and heard, to actually deter migrants, America must go to the root of the problem. That would mean a recommitment to support Honduras and the other Central American countries producing the vast majority of asylum seekers. In doing so, it cannot simply put money into the hands of a transparently corrupt government that has failed the public and completely lost its trust.

The United States could instead back the many local civil society organizations we met with that are doing exceptional work in job training, education and community building. With extra aid aimed at reducing violence, strengthening infrastructure, getting desperately needed medicines back into hospitals and books back into schools, more people will stay.

Many fairly argue that the United States should be making these investments anyway, as amends for its interventions in Central America throughout the 20th century, which significantly contributed to the pain these nations are experiencing now.

Of course, this sort of extended strategy precludes overnight success. However, with a long-term commitment the United States can help ensure that the “dream drawings” of the next generation of Hondurans include drawings of themselves as presidents, doctors and firefighters in their home country.

Fernando Chang-Muy, a former legal officer for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, is a lecturer at the University of Pennsylvania Law School, where Adam Garnick is a second-year student.

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