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Covid-19 is making things worse for Latin Americans

Cristina Camacho, a first-year International Development concentrator at SAIS, offers the following account of a February 17 even on “How Organized Crime is Evolving in Mexico and Central America” hosted by the Americas Society/Council of the Americas (AS/COA). The video is here.
Panelists:
• Luis Guillermo Solis, former President of Costa Rica, current Interim Director at the Kimberly Green Latin American and Caribbean Center at Florida International University
• Andrew Selee, President of the Migration Policy Institute
• Sonja Wolf, Assistant Professor with the Drug Policy Program at the Center for Economic Research and Teaching in Mexico
• Cecilia Tornaghi (Moderator), Managing Editor at Americas Quarterly
Key Takeaways:
• Criminal groups, specifically cartels in Mexico and street gangs in Central America, have thrived during the pandemic.
• As law enforcement is otherwise occupied and courts slowed down, gangs and cartels are recruiting, loansharking, and profiting off extortion, drug trafficking, and smuggling migrants to the US.
• Local governments have been unable or unwilling to tackle violence. Institutions are weak. Corruption and impunity are rampant.
• Though homicide rates have decreased, this is only one measure of violence. In some cases, a decrease in homicide rates is a result of back-door deals with gangs, which may have electoral benefits for political leaders.
• The Biden administration should balance working directly with counterpart Presidents and with civil society/nonprofit organizations on the ground.
• The Biden administration’s efforts to reform asylum mechanisms and legal pathways to migration will take time to implement. In the short-term, migration will rise if migrants are not turned back at the border.

Criminal groups have thrived during COVID-19
While economies are failing, unemployment is rising. Communities are regressing into poverty. Local and transnational criminal organizations have thrived. This has been due to several factors. Law enforcement is concerned with other tasks (such as enforcing curfews), more people are unemployed and increasingly likely to join criminal groups or turn to them for loans, and courts are closed or delayed due to lockdowns.

This contributes to already alarming levels of impunity and signals to criminals that they won’t face legal repercussions. Criminal groups have also taken to handing out food baskets and assistance to local communities. These dynamics raise questions about the health of local institutions, strength of community organizations, and the capacity of local security forces.

There has also been increased demand for human smugglers, as people seek to migrate to the US. Smugglers have benefitted from this rise in demand and have increased their prices accordingly. Selee explained that that The US-Mexico border has been closed under Title 42, which allows public health concerns as a reason to expel migrants and asylum-seeker. This enables smugglers to charge higher prices and extort migrants stuck along the way to the U.S.

Interpol has warned criminal groups will try to traffic COVID-19 vaccines; panelists agreed that this is not unlikely.

Challenges for local governments
Though many leaders in Central America have learned to speak the language of democracy, anti-corruption, and human rights, their institutions are not equipped to tackle investigations or properly combat violence. Some leaders are benefitting from using this discourse but not effecting real change. For example, anti-corruption commissions in Honduras and El Salvador have been ineffective compared to the one in Guatemala. Homicide rates have decreased, but Wolf cautions that this positive trend is not an indicator that overall violence has decreased. Truces with street gangs have allowed the state more access to certain areas needing public goods and services, but this also has clear electoral benefits for leaders. Local leaders must strengthen institutions and combat corruption and impunity.

Challenges for the Biden Administration
Panelists agreed that President Biden must shift his focus from Trump’s hands-off approach, toward addressing root causes of violence in Central America and Mexico, including institutional strength and trustworthiness, rule of law, and providing citizens with a perceived opportunity for a viable future.

Another challenge for the administration will be to decide when to partner with civil society groups or nonprofits rather than foreign governments. According to Selee, during his time as Vice-President, Biden favored working with foreign presidents. However, many of them are now accused of corruption. Biden needs tot know when to work with other partner organizations on important issues where governments may not be willing to contribute, such as anti-corruption.

The Biden administration plans to include rebuilding asylum application mechanisms (making them more accessible) and increasing the availability of work visas (such as H2A visas) for Central Americans. In 2019, 260,000 H2A visas were granted to Mexican workers, but only 9,000 to Central Americans. Adding opportunities for legal migration would help decrease irregular migration. In the short-term and to discourage peaks in migration, Selee advocated continuing to turn back migrants at the border as the only effective way of discouraging migration.