I Marched With a Migrant Caravan, Donald Trump Has It All Wrong

By Levi Vonk, Guardian UK

03 May 18

The caravans are a product of militarized borders and increased deportations, not the cause of them. Marching migrants are not part of a hostile takeover, but rather the effect of one

icture this: a migrant caravan hundreds of people strong is gaining steam in southern Mexico. They have been travelling for weeks, marching up to 16 hours a day in the sweltering heat and charging through Mexican immigration checkpoints despite orders to stop. The marchers claim to be fleeing gang violence and collapsing governments in Central America, and they hope to find refuge in Mexico and the US.

If you’re Donald Trump, you might think I’m describing the migrant caravan that has dominated conservative news coverage in recent days. But actually I could be describing any of the 20-odd caravans that have passed through Mexico in the last decade. That Trump is just discovering these Central American caravans now demonstrates just how little he understands a refugee crisis that has been years in the making.

In 2015, I marched with a migrant caravan myself. I was in Mexico on a Fulbright fellowship, and I joined a caravan of over 400 people to document the human rights abuses that Central Americans face while travelling through the country. I know from personal experience that Trump’s characterizations of the current migrant caravan are flat-out wrong.

To start, migrant caravans often go by another name in Spanish: the “Viacrucis Migrante”, or the Migrant Stations of the Cross. In Latin America, the Stations of the Cross, which reenact Christ’s last steps and crucifixion during the Easter holidays, are an important part of religious ceremonies. Migrants, by organizing their own Viacrucis, are explicitly comparing their own persecution to the suffering Christ endured during his last moments on earth. Their march is as much peaceful pilgrimage as it is civil disobedience.

Migrant Viacrucis marches started over ten years ago specifically to protest the increasing militarization of US and Mexican borders. In 2014, the US began quietly paying Mexico over $100m a year to catch and deport Central Americans along its border with Guatemala.Suddenly Mexican border enforcement was big business, and Mexico’s new anti-immigration program, dubbed the Southern Border Plan, was born.

Within a year, detentions of Central Americans rose 79% under the plan, and detentions of child migrants ages 10 and under skyrocketed an astounding 541%. Mexico deported many migrants without due process, which is against international human rights mandate and, technically, Mexican law. Assaults, kidnappings, and murders of migrants have also increased largely because, under the plan, border enforcement has forced Central Americans to cross in increasingly dangerous and isolated areas run by gangs and cartels.

Conditions on any migrant Viacrucis are rough, but after the plan, they became miserable. Not only did we have to walk hundreds of miles, but we slept exposed in town courtyards and had little access to toilets or showers. Sanitary items like toilet paper, diapers, and tampons were scarce. We scavenged in the jungle for mangoes and avocados and relied on the generosity of small pueblos for anything more. I lost fifteen pounds in two weeks, which I could afford, but there were worries about malnutrition and dehydration with our toddlers and elderly. I was also bitten by a brown recluse spider while sleeping in the open and required emergency surgery after I had an allergic reaction to the venom.

Still, travelling with a Viacrucis is often the safest way to cross Mexico as a migrant. Many in our group were single mothers, toddlers, and even pregnant women. The Viacrucis had a disproportionately high number of LGBTQ migrants, who are assaulted and murdered at extremely high rates in Mexico and Central America. I was also surprised by how many people had already lived in the US. Ruben, a pastor in Los Angeles, moved to California over twenty years ago when he was just a teenager. Milton was working in Manhattan during 9/11 and sheltered ash-covered pedestrians in his apartment. Axel had lived on Long Island since he was a baby but was deported for the first time after a woman rear-ended him while he was driving his son to school.

Because of these human stories, migrant Viacrucis marches routinely make Mexico’s national news each Easter. For years they were part of the novelty news cycle, curious human-interest pieces that only mildly annoyed Mexican officials, if they even registered on their radar in the first place. After all, a handful of nonviolent Central American immigrants on pilgrimage was but a blip in a country dealing with much more pressing issues like state-wide corruption and warring drug cartels.

But after the plan, everything changed. When news coverage of the 2015 Viacrucis made headlines in Mexico City, approximately 100 Mexican federal police were sent to detain us. When the Viacrucis did not comply, the police beat everyone. Three vertebrae in one man’s neck were fractured after a policeman struck him with a baton, and another woman’s foot was shattered.

The assault – which was later deemed illegal by the Mexico’s National Human Rights Commission, though no officer was ever held accountable – was ostensibly funded by the US government through the Southern Border Plan. Eventually, some migrants were granted temporary visas as a kind of official apology for the attack, but they expired after 20 days, leaving most people stranded once again in Mexico. These are the same visas Mexico is reportedly distributing to members of the new Viacrucis today.

Regardless of migrant caravans’ effectiveness, it is important to keep in mind that the Viacrucis is a product of militarized borders and increased deportations, not the cause of them. Marching migrants are not part of a hostile take over, but rather the effect of one. They are the ones who have seen their countries and lives crumble under US intervention.

During a traditional Viacrucis reenactment in Latin America, Christ cries out as he is crucified: “My God, why have you forsaken me?” Trump, and his evangelical base, must now decide if they will forsake the migrant Viacrucis as well.