The Dark Triangle




El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua are some of the largest drivers of migration to the U.S. Extreme violence, political persecution, corruption, climate change and poverty push hundreds of thousands of people to flee every year. Over years of covering migration, I have learned that people leave their homeland for one reason, or for multiple  reasons all at once. 

The desperation of the Central Americans has driven them to organize “caravans” of thousands of people, including a massive one in October 2018, when some 8,000 migrants triumphantly marched to the U.S. border. Their extraordinary journey inspired international news coverage. But it would also come to mark a turning point: a before and after in international migratory patterns and immigration policies.

With no clear-cut solution to the migration crisis, governments have attempted to make the journey to the U.S. as difficult as possible in an effort to deter them from coming. They have turned a blind eye as cartels have targeted migrants for kidnapping, extortion and forced labor. But people keep fleeing. Many migrants have told me that they prefer to take their chances and attempt the journey rather than return to the unbearable life from which they fled. In an era where migrants and refugees are rebuffed and criminalized, I believe it’s necessary to illuminate the factors driving migration from Central America.

A version of this project was published in Lens of The New York Time.






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