A photo captured by the Associated Press today shows Honduran migrants being beaten and tear gassed by Guatemalan soldiers in Vado Hondo, Guatemala.
According to news reports, Guatemalan authorities estimated that as many as 9,000 migrants crossed into Guatemala to try to reach the U.S. border.
Today's violence against innocent women, children and young men is a direct result of our current oppressive immigration policies. Since he took office, the Trump administration, led by anti-immigrant extremists, has required that countries like Guatemala and Mexico use their military and federal police to stop caravans of innocent migrants from reaching the U.S. border -- at all costs.
These failed U.S. policies and its multi-country agreements come at the cost of human life, human dignity and violations of human rights without really addressing the root causes of why people migrate -- lack of opportunity, lack of jobs, lack of basic infrastructure, climate change disrupting local ecosystems, intended and unintended consequences of U.S. trade policies, decades of U.S. intervention to destabilize the region to keep it dependent on the U.S., crime and violence due to failed governments and corrupt leaders, and many other factors.
We must put an end to these cruel and oppressive federal policies that impact not just immigrants already living in the U.S. but also innocent people outside our borders.
This is why Voces Unidas has an open petition to demand immediate changes to our immigration policies. Join us!
Tell President-Elect Biden to end the attacks on our immigrant and migrant communities inside and outside the U.S.
We are calling on the new administration to release and reunite children with their families, stop deportations, close private detention centers, end attacks on migrants in other countries, end the Muslim ban, undo the biased citizenship test, expand DACA, pass the Dream and Promise Act, and finally address comprehensive immigration reform.
