Posted on 11/29/2018 7:27:59 AM PST by SeekAndFind
I am a U.S. citizen married to a Honduran. Since we said our vows five years ago, we have parented 11 orphaned and abandoned children and teens in this third-world country in response to God’s call on our lives. Seven still live with us and call us Mom and Dad. We intentionally live without air-conditioning, television, high-speed internet and without a washing machine or dishwasher. The cinderblock home we inhabit on the outskirts of our little rural Honduran town is less than half the size of the home in which I grew up in the Texas suburbs.
I am not involved in politics but would like to present to you a new perspective in regards to the current immigration crisis based on our daily life and experiences on the northern coast of Honduras. I speak fluent Spanish and live alongside Hondurans every day in the workplace, in the local community and in the most intimate corners of my own home. Although I will never be able to change the color of my skin or re-write my cultural history, I do know and love the Honduran people and have lived in this culture my entire adult life.
As many are aware of the press covering of the current drama of the large caravans of Hondurans and other Central Americans parading north to the U.S. border, many of us here in Honduras (on the other end of the equation) are deeply troubled as this wrong mindset affects many who are in our area. I personally feel very uncomfortable about the chaos many of the uneducated immigrants will thrust upon the United States. And the way in which they have forsaken international laws and police barricades cannot be justified.
Some are indeed refugees seeking legitimate asylum. But others are simply fleeing generally difficult (but not dire) conditions, or have simply chosen what seems to be the easier route of escape. It is not impossible to forge a humble living in Honduras (over 9 million Hondurans survive in this culture every day), although it is true that much corruption, lack of opportunities and violence abound. There are very heavy “war taxes” that gangs place on local businesses, making it very difficult for many to earn an honest living. If you don’t pay the demanded rate each month, your life may be taken.
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Many dignified Hondurans work the same professional jobs as Americans and earn about a tenth of what an American earns. That was my experience as a college graduate in the first job I had in Honduras as a bilingual elementary-school teacher. I worked 8-10 hours per day, 5 days per week and earned the equivalent of $330 per month. Many Hondurans live off a similar salary (or less). That kind of budget requires almost all common luxuries to be forsaken — but one can indeed survive.
In regards to unpunished violence, my husband’s brother was shot dead point-blank two years ago and no police action was taken even after filing several reports with eye witnesses. And three years ago, my husband was kidnapped and brutally beaten by local gang lords only to confront similar apathy from the authorities once he escaped.
When cattle thieves stole and killed our two milking cows last year, I walked down the gravel road to the local police station only for the policeman to shrug and tell me that that type of crime is to be expected. No action was taken to investigate or punish the crime.
We who are on the frontlines in Honduras have offered high-quality free education and character formation in the Living Waters Ranch school we operate out of our rural homestead to over 100 at-risk Honduran youth in the past five years. More than half have walked out because they admittedly had no interest in studying or preparing for the future. This type of apathetic attitude is common among youth in our area.
They are now vagabonds in our rural neighborhood, zipping up and down gravel roads on their bikes and falling into the traps that drugs, petty crime and sexual promiscuity present. Many of them decided to go no further than a second- or sixth-grade education despite our repeated attempts to visit them in their homes, counsel their parents and encourage them to seek God with their lives.
Many of these rogue teens — whom we know and love personally — seem to have enough money to buy junk food and show off a nice cell phone, but there are supposedly no funds for the important things in life. These are oftentimes (but by no means always) the same people who wish to run off to the United States because Honduras doesn’t have any opportunities. They were given open doors and even when they were pleaded to walk through them, they decided not to.
Just two weeks ago, a single father who had his three children in our school suddenly decided to withdraw them from our program and join the illegal caravan in hopes of a better future. A respected friend of ours informed us that his children appeared on the news about a week ago as now being held in the Honduran capital seven hours away from where we live, where they will now be placed in an orphanage (while Dad continues marching onward to the United States). Is this the better life he was hoping to forge for his children?
There are many opposing views on the immigration crisis, but we respectfully stand firm in our belief that laws and protocols should be respected.
To explain the situation further, several days ago my husband and two of our teen foster daughters, who were driving home around dinnertime, found the intersection of our rural neighborhood filled with close to 200 people all frantically trying to form another caravan to follow after the first. There were people screaming and trying to get more people to abandon their homes as they would gamble everything for their slice of the American Dream. My husband and teen daughters were devastated, as we know too well that many marriages are broken, children abandoned, lies believed and laws broken when people choose this route.
There are many opposing views on the immigration crisis, but we respectfully stand firm in our belief that laws and protocols should be respected. If anyone (from any country) would desire to enter a foreign land, it should be done so with the appropriate paperwork, under specific circumstances and with a collaborative attitude.
We are working very hard on our end to inform our students and their families of the harshness of the trip through Mexico and the reality of what will most likely wait for them if they even make it across the border. Our desire is to offer opportunities — educational, employment and in Christian discipleship — right here in Honduras. To teach this generation how to live a dignified lifestyle and make productive choices here.
Honduras is in desperate need of reform. But that does not mean that the solution is for Hondurans to flee the country illegally.
I am currently teaching an intensive 5-week Geography class that the majority of our 40-plus students and teachers participate in as we seek to bust many myths about illegal immigration and convince those under our care that a peaceful, honest life before God and before men is possible right here in Honduras (even if that means forsaking many modern luxuries). Many of our teenage students have been very surprised by the information and photos presented in this class, and we are excited that many (possibly all) are being convinced to stay in Honduras rather than chase after an illusion (and an illegal illusion at that).
I paid one in-depth visit last week to a local mother who was on the brink of being swept off into another immigrant caravan, and I have on my to-do list another visit I would like to pay to a dear neighbor of ours who is likewise considering leaving amid the frenzy.
Let us consider this perspective amidst much political confusion and potential anger between opposing parties: Honduras is in desperate need of reform and an effective judicial system as it is overwhelmingly true that injustice and violence reign. But that does not mean that the solution is for Hondurans to flee the country illegally.
If the United States accepts the several thousand immigrants in the caravan, there are still over 9 million Hondurans living in what those who have fled claim to be unbearable circumstances on Honduran soil. What good can be brought about by extending help to a very small percentage who present themselves as refugees unless wide-scale change will be brought about by and for the masses who have stayed behind?
Welfare recipients in America live like kings as compared to hard-working Hondurans. That’s why they come.
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The whole "asylum" thing is a total lie.
The economic refugee caravans are illegal in US *and* international law. They are immoral, as the intent of organizers is to break the back of the US Government’s constitutional charge to protect against invasion.
The answer is, and must be, a resounding “NO” from this side of the US border.
Jennifer didn’t explain how it is that this ‘spontaneous’ organizing appeared coincidentally with President Trump’s orders to stop asylum.
People don’t suddenly run into the streets with a plan to storm the US border.
There had to be organizers behind it.
But if Jennifer had reported on who was really behind it, she and her adopted children would be walking dead.
Honduras should offer itself as a colony to some superior nation. Seems like the only chance of reform.
Yes, and I fear that after this article is read in Honduras that the follow on will be that she has been murdered as an object lesson to anyone who opposes the criminal elements both in Honduras and paying for the attempted US invasion.
I personally feel very uncomfortable about the chaos many of the uneducated immigrants will thrust upon the United States.
...
But Democrats and corrupt Republicans are very comfortable with it. The more chaos in society, the less they will be held accountable for their corruption.
When the UN objects, tell the members of the UN that we will ship the Honduran immigrants to whichever country wants to take them.
A heart for ministry, for certain. An excellent synopsis of the problem - it’s a mindset developed by dealing with a culture of corruption, greed and apathy. I’ve lived in Venezuela and Panama and I can relate. What many of us American military types who have lived there want most is for these people to rise up and water the tree of liberty, but most of us don’t want to get entangled in yet another nation-building rescue mission. It’s a real conundrum.
The Nation story, written by Greg Grandin, revisited [Hillary] Clinton and her role in Honduras after the murder of indigenous and environmental rights leader Berta Cáceres made global headlines last week. In his piece, Grandin, who covered the 2009 coup, wrote:
Cáceres was a vocal and brave indigenous leader, an opponent of the 2009 Honduran coup that Hillary Clinton, as secretary of state, made possible. In The Nation, Dana Frank and I covered that coup as it unfolded. Later, as Clinton’s emails were released, others, such as Robert Naiman, Mark Weisbrot, and Alex Main, revealed the central role she played in undercutting Manuel Zelaya, the deposed president, and undercutting the opposition movement demanding his restoration. In so doing, Clinton allied with the worst sectors of Honduran society.
In a 2015 op-ed for Al Jazeera America, Weisbrot referred to what Clinton wrote about Honduras in her memoir, Hard Choices:
In “Hard Choices,” Clinton describes her role in the aftermath of the coup that brought about this dire situation. Her firsthand account is significant both for the confession of an important truth and for a crucial false testimony.
First, the confession: Clinton admits that she used the power of her office to make sure that Zelaya would not return to office. “In the subsequent days [after the coup] I spoke with my counterparts around the hemisphere, including Secretary [Patricia] Espinosa in Mexico,” Clinton writes. “We strategized on a plan to restore order in Honduras and ensure that free and fair elections could be held quickly and legitimately, which would render the question of Zelaya moot.”
“Let’s go to USA where even the poor people are FAT!
You speak the truth methinks. Perhaps there will be a way to provide small arms to a home grown army that wants to squash the gangs and corruption.
Of course the risk is a new gang rising up that we armed.
Thanks for posting.
A very worthwhile read to get an on the ground firsthand account of what is going on with those joining the caravan to the US.
A quick read of the author's website makes it appear she and her family are doing very good, dedicated and inspiring work on the ground in Honduras. She and her husband appear to be nourishing the growth of a better future for Honduras.
Two sincere questions for the author:
"Can you give us examples of such legitimate asylum claims?"
"By what objective means does the U.S. determine a claim is legitimate?"
And the moral of the story is
Leave your suburban life in Texas to live in a sh!thole country and you’ll get the Darwin award!
Very informative, thanks.
The problems she describes sound very much like U.S. ghettos. My wife also encountered the same mindset in special reading programs for Hispanic kids here in Silicon Valley. Mom and Dad did not value education at all. Generation after generation have said “sixth grade was good enough for my parents, it was good enough for me and it is good enough for my kids.”
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