To help these communities. This is an hour 20 minutes. Is this on . Can you hear me . Excellent. Welcome back. While youre all walking in and settling down thank you. I just wanted to say a couple words about what we do here at georgetown in this field before i welcome my panel and introduce everybody. Im andy. I direct the asylum films here. We represent Asylum Seekers in deportation hearings. Actually handle a case from beginning to end for Asylum Seekers all over the world. My colleague is here, as well, who i work with. Dina, is dina here . May be at some point. We have three lauries each semester and 12 students. The clinic has been doing this for, i guess, 24 years. I think phil started the asylum part of this in 1995. We also have courses on immigration and refugee law as well as we started last year to send volunteers to texas, to the two major detention facilities that are housing women with children, detaining women and children, to help prepare the women for credible fear interviews and to do other work to assist the families. Were sending two groups again, 14 volunteers over winter break and spring break down there, thanks to a georgetown alum who has funded that travel. And we have a Human Rights Institute factfinding practicum that has engaged on these issues for years. This year is looking at the root causes of International Migration in our hemisphere in particular and is examining one of the major issues of the thirdcountry issue. Which brings us to our panel. Because we thought it would be a Good Opportunity to hear from these experts with respect to the humanitarian and migration crisis that has been going on in Central America and the need for regional approaches. We have three experts who will give us different analyses to help address different parts of this problem. That is, ive asked anthony fontez, a professor at American University and expert in Human Security in Central America, to talk to us about those challenging issues. What is the human insecurity situation . What are the challenges in trying to address it . There have been some attempts, not major attempts, but he is the expert so ill let him talk about those things. I think our community would benefit from understanding more about how to address whats going on in the region, in these countries in particular. Then, fortunately, we also have marie meyer, who is the director for mexico and migrant rights at the Washington Office for latin america. She has been laboring for many years in with focusing on these this Protection System in mexico to the extent it exists. She will talk to us about precisely what thats like. You heard this morning that because of the new transit of the third policy that the Trump Administration has put out more recently, to try to deter Asylum Seekers from coming to the United States, the policy is that people in transit are now have to apply for asylum on their way. Thats what the goal of that is. Well hear about how what that really means in a country which has a well, well hear from the expert about that. I wont say more. Finally, fortunately, we have kiara, who is the deputy Regional Representative for the u. S. And the caribbean at the u. S. High commissioner for refugees office. She will be talking about the regional approach, the approaches, i should say, that would really benefit the abilities of our entire International Community to protect refugees who are fleeing from very serious harm. Both in terms of Refugee Convention and the carta declaration, which extends protection to refugees who are fleeing from serious violence, civil war, et cetera. This is a regional crisis. There are Central American countries that have received many refugees, as well, and who are trying to or could use some help in addressing those needs. So thank you very much, everybody, for coming. We will have some time for, of course, q a. So let us begin with professor fontez, who will talk to us about the Human Security situation in the countries that hes particularly focused on in Central America. Thank you for being here. Thank you, andrew. Thank you very much. Thanks so much for putting on this amazing venue. I think it is one of the most important conversations that could be happening in america right now. So ill start with a little story. In july 2016, i spoke with a 20yearold gauatemalan man traveling through mexico, looking to cross into the United States. He said, my country is lickke a cage with no way out. We were waiting with dozens of other Central Americans to hop a northbound freight train. We all know the journey is dangerous, he continued. We fight fail. We might die. But at least there is hope at the end of it. In the time i have here, ill try to give an overview of of the forces that made wilmer feel trapped and hopeless in native lands, and what might be done to resolve some of these issues. Although, in my initial talk, ill probably talk about the challenges and then get to some of those solutions in the q a. All right. So im going to focus on the making of the Central American cage, to push the metaphor, to understand the complex play between poverty, violence, that drive out mie dpragration from region. Im photographer by training, focusing on everyday experience of p and im going to try to link my work to the processes that describe immigration the last decades. The evolution of violence and insecurity. The persistence of poverty in the region. And how poverty and insecurity entwine in myriad ways in pushing individual cases about migration and trends in general. So the first thing to understand about the region is that northern triangle has long been a place where globally circulating violence and insecurity seem to become distilled and erupt with terrifying intensity. What is now known as the old violence among people studying the northern triangle, at the height of the cold war, overarmed military governments insalvador, trained and funded by the United States, performed mass tr travesties against the community. These became because elites refused to allow poor citizenry to engage in the basic activities, from elections, forming unions, or learning to read. Rather than heed the calls for Fair Division of economic and political communities come frin from a diverse range of voices, the military in the 70s and 80s resorted to scorched Earth Campaigns, claiming hundreds of thousands of lives. The bloodiest is guatemala, where i have done most of my work. This drove the first massive waves of refugees out of the region seeking refuge in mexico and the United States. Those who very engaged in this a long time can think of parallels and echoes from that time with the situation that Central Americans face now. Although now, the kinds of violence that are taking place are very, very different. Since the end of the cold war, the rise of what scholars call the new violence, has really hit hard in the northern triangle, honduras, guatemala, and el salvador. The rise of democracy has been accompanied by the rise of criminal chaos, in the words as described by many observers in the region. This new violence is difficult to pick apart. Legacies of Armed Conflicts are very important. They haunt the post cold war order. Armed conflict didnt bring peace as wed imagine. In the 90s, the triangle saw a rise in sudden violence, concentrated in urban centers, guatemala city, salvador, et cetera. This new violence, in many ways, is harder to diagnosis than was the old. Government officials and outside observers gauge it through homicide counts, right . Through the 21st century, guatemala, el solalvador, and honduras has the highest percentage, coming in the top five consistently until the last few years where things have gotten moderately better, at least in the counting op dead bodies. But in a sense, heres 2018 homicide map of guatemala. You see the concentration of the highest murder rates in border regions. Ill talk about that in a second. That is thought to have much to do with the drug trade and the competition between different organizations for control of lucrative border crossings. El salvador was primarily affected by gangrelated violence. Although, again, gangs themselves are not as clear cut as the media and many outside observers and Law Enforcement would have them be. Violence is more equally spread through the country. Honduras is, in many ways, sort of in between guatemala and el salvador in terms of who is driving the violence. Gang violence in urban centers as well as along major Drug Trafficking corridors in the northern and western parts of the country. So homicide counts all well and good as a way of gauging whats happening in terms of violence, but in a sense, the body counts obscure more than they reveal. As hard and fast as numbers may see seem, what makes the violence so terrifying to so many is profound uncertainty. Across the region, less than 5 of Violent Crimes ever make it to trial. Making the northern triangle a great place to commit murder, to paraphrase a u. N. Observation. Forces of order and disorder make distorted reflections of each other. At best, the law appears helpless. At worst, complicit, making the usual suspects in every murder, extortion, kidnapping, robbery, long and badly defined. Police change places with the kidnapping rings, gangs, so on, theyre supposed to bring to justice. What is more a massacre, torture, dismemberment and other spectacular forms of violence that are literally made for media consumption, make murder register far and wide beyond its particular local. So the cacophony of reaction, politicians grandstanding, the rumors coursing through violencestricken communities warps the fear of the violence and insecurity into every realm of public life. So this uncertainty, the general sense no one is to be trusted, i think, explains why, for example, even as homicide rates across the region have apparently dropped, especially if you check out this image up here in honduras, which is essentially cut in half the number of people murdered per 100,000 per year between 2013 and 2018. The fact is, generally, levels of fear, paranoia, and pervasive insecurity remain very, very high. In fact, almost untouched. The general population has no trust that their governments can effectively combat crime, much less count the dead. And understand the state in its under world coexist in relationships with each other. There is a sense state agents are a key player in the reproduction of crime and imp n impuni impunity, as they are with estimates of the percentage of police and organized crime ranging between 30 and 60 of the total. This makes for a particularly volatile and powerful violent actor ecosystem. Those at the top are widely considered to be Drug Trafficking organizations, right . This is a map of from 2016. I couldnt find one from more recently that was as telling. Things havent changed much. An estimation of the number of noncommercial boating incidents connecting the Southern Cone to the northern triangle and it is a way of measuring the amount of cocaine going through the region. So the impunity that criminal actors, especially Drug Trafficking organizations, enjoy is truly aweinspiring. The drug traffickers are probably at the height, the very top end of the violent actor food chain in this part of the world. The last 30 years, the u. S. War on drugs pushed the flow of cocaine and list of other commodities through honduras and guatemala, away from the caribbean and, since 2006, out of mexico and into primarily honduras and guatemala. It is believed upwards of 90 of the cocaine consumed by the socalled insashable north american nose comes through these territories. The profits and power of Drug Trafficking circulate at every level of state power. This image is drown from my friend Steven Dudley at insight crime, latin american studies at latin university. It details the connections between one of the lead narco traffickers until his capture five, six years ago in the western part of kwaut ma la. It details the level of his interaction and involvement and filtration of the various levels of government, Civil Society, evangelical churches, as well as local politics and local businesses. Another example, this is the cachiros, one of the major organizations in honduras, also captured and the leaders extradited. The kingpin strategy doesnt work. We can talk more about that if we want to. It only leads to more violence and competition between the surviving groups that are still there. This is a multibillion dollar industry. Taking out the leaders only makes the underlings more ambitio ambitious. This details the circulation of power and influence between Drug Trafficking organizations and the powers that be in those particular countries. Particularly, an example of this is one orlando hernandez, the president of whonduras. U. S. Partner and the signing of a ridiculous thirdcounty agreement, which my colleague will talk about. Also, his brother is facing trial in new york for involvement in narco trafficking. This is talk that one of orlandos or as known this honduras, ho has received money from traffickers dealing with his brother, allegedly. All right. The other sort of most well, one of the most visible violent actors in Central America are, of course, gangs. This is probably an image that many of you have seen. This is since the early 90s. Transnational gangs, ms13, 18th street, sort of the face of crime in the region. For those of you who dont know, theyre born out of circular migration between the u. S. And Central America through the 70s and 90s. Ms13 morphed into extortion machines in Central America, especially in honduras. Ms13 has evolved to become an important player in urban drug market distribution. Some people say taking the place of the Drug Trafficking organizations that were taken out by usdea efforts and subsumed a higher level of involvement in transnational traffic of cocaine. So gangs like ms13 are an urban phenomenon. Part of my work, and much of my work has been involved in tracing the evolution of gangs, but really understanding the evolution of gangs is understanding violence in society, and its been to try to get beneath the spectacular image of the tattoo gang member residing behind bars. By and large, it is a much smaller part of the gang population today than it has been because of increased enforcement against people who have face tattoos and so on and so forth. These days, important thing to understand for asylum cases, as well, is gangs are embedded in the communities over which they rule. You cant pull apart the police, the local community, and the operation of the gangs, which is one of the reasons it makes it a terrifying phenomenon. Literally, its neighboring fighting and killing their neighbors. This is affiliates of a gang extortion network. Some 36 people indicted. These are mothers, daughters, sisters, and wives of incarcerated gang members involved in extortion network. Another gang member, member of ms13, in a guatemalan prison. Another young man, 19 at the time, striking to me about this picture is, you know, he has the prototypical gang tattooed face, but he has the image of himself he painted with his 4yearold daughter in visiting quarters in prison. So these gangs have become the very face of crime, as i said. Theyre important criminal actors ordering life in the area they control, but theyre also a smoke screen. Important to remember. A specter invoked over and over by political actors to distract the populus, to distract outside observers from a host of structural factors that feed out of control insecurity. Now, there is a tendency also to call the violence nonstate violence. It is a dangerous misnomer. Even nonpolitical violence. It is a mistake to imagine the state, guatemala, honduras, el salvador, as having no part in the violence today. Whether it is through weakness or complicity, the state feeds off the impunity that drives out migration. Theres literally almost no way to draw the state apart from the criminal underworld upon which it rests. All right. Now poverty. Poverty in the region remains as pressing, if not quite as widespread, as it was in the 1970s and 80s when, as i said before, massive social movements for workers and subsfarmers dro there are no formal market jobs. 2018, more than 300,000 Central Americans joined a labor pool while there are less than 4,000 jobs created by the formal economy. These are concentrated almost entirely in urban areas. So that relegates the vast, vast majority of Central Americans, especially rural Central Americans, as scraping by in the informal market. The economies themselves depend upon export of a few commodities. Primarily u. S. Markets. They employ a tiny fraction of the work force. Talking sugar cane, tequilas, manufactured goods. One riseing export industry is business es employing the Call Center Employees because of the accented english. Always an opportunity, right . Right. This general reliance on a few commodities meant for exports to primarily u. S. Markets created society split between an extremely small and extremely rich elite group at the top, and masses of poor at the bottom, with a tiny sliver of a