When deportation becomes a death sentence

In the case of U.S. citizens committing misdemeanors, once the jail time is served and the fine is paid, the individual can reasonably expect to resume his/her normal life. But in the case of undocumented individuals, the typical punishment administered — immediate and indefinite deportation — can realistically result in a life sentence of unemployment and displacement, or even a death sentence if immigrants are deported to home countries marked by persecution, violence and corruption.

Undocumented individuals in our country facing danger back home may come from Latin America, but also from Middle Eastern, African or Asian nations in which they find themselves part of a religious minority or an oppressed class.

However, the largest group of undocumented people currently in the U.S. comes from Mexico and Central America (roughly 60 percent and 25 percent, respectively, of the estimated 11 million). According to Amnesty International’s 2016 report, “Home, Sweet Home? Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador’s Role in a Deepening Refugee Crisis,” the situation in these three so-called “Northern Triangle” Central American countries is extremely dire. Three major threats to citizens come from gangs, extortionists, and attacks against vulnerable groups (women, children, LGBT). The United Nations High Commission for Refugees has censured the governments of these countries for corruption and for failing to protect their own citizens from “organized and well-armed transnational criminal groups.”

In desperation, some Central Americans detained by ICE will claim to be Mexicans so they can be deported just across the border and make their way back to the U.S. more quickly. If they have the means, they may succeed. But they also risk being swept up by Mexican gangs and forced into human trafficking with no one to rescue them because no one knows where they are — U.S. authorities don’t usually notify the Mexican embassy that they’re sending deportees, and the deportees themselves rarely have the opportunity or means to contact family members in their home countries for help.

Although some immigrants from Honduras, Nicaragua and El Salvador may qualify for refugee status under the Temporary Protected Status program of the U.S. State Department, the TPS provision for these three countries is set to expire in 2018.

Of course every country needs to maintain the integrity of its borders, but recent proposals to spend billions of dollars to build a wall at our southern border reflect a profound disregard for the desperate life-and-death conditions affecting our neighbors to the south. A wall addresses the symptoms, not the causes of the problem; it makes us feel safer, but it also helps us to turn our back on human suffering.

Resolving the dilemma of illegal immigration will require international cooperation to address the root problems of poverty, discrimination and corruption in the sending countries so that people can find the security and stability they long for in their own homelands. America’s national economic, security and humanitarian goals need not be mutually exclusive.