Opinion: Trump’s self-defeating plan to end aid to Central America
A young Guatemalan girl in the back of a Border Patrol vehicle last year in New Mexico. By León Krauze León Krauze Bio Follow April 22 at 4:53 PM Over the past two years, President Trump has put in place a long list of increasingly punitive measures from the nativist playbook to discourage immigration — both legal and illegal — into the United States.
Jonathan Blitzer of the New Yorker recently published a series of reports from western Guatemala, an area of the country known for its continuous outflow of immigrants toward the United States. Blitzer painted a bleak picture. The area, poor and rural, has been ravaged by climate change, sinking most communities into anguish. Extreme weather variations have made farming vexing.
One of the few things that have managed to ameliorate the dismal situation in places like western Guatemala and others like it in Central America is assistance from the United States. In December 2015, the Obama administration allocated $750 million in aid as part of the “Alliance for Prosperity," a plan first introduced in 2014 to address the rising flow of immigration from the region.
I recently spoke with Charchalac about the sudden reversal and its consequences for people in Guatemala. “Financial aid from the United States has been very important. It has had significant impact,” he told me. Even though only between 10 and 15 percent of aid to Guatemala finds its way to the struggle against the consequences of climate change, the money has been well spent. “We have had tangible improvement,” Charchalac said.
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