Poverty, violence fuel exodus of youths from Honduras to U.S.

*It’s hard to find something new in the media-din coverage of the immigrant children border crisis. The same information is hashed and rehashed in spiraling levels of decibels, anger, and intolerance. Here’s a good piece, though – solid journalism, good reporting. VL

By Alfredo Corchado, Dallas Morning News

SAN PEDRO SULA, Honduras — Twelve-year-old Maynor Serrano points to the rows of houses where his friends and neighbors used to live. All are gone — many fleeing to the U.S.

Two of his friends were killed as 10-year-olds, their bodies chopped to pieces in a suspected gang vendetta.

He saw homes reduced to crumbling wrecks, their walls pockmarked with bullet holes. Entire neighborhoods were abandoned in hours — the result of monstrous gang violence.

For generations, poverty and endemic violence have prodded Hondurans to leave for the U.S. But new forces are helping push out the waves of young people now pouring over Texas’ southern border. They include enticing family package plans offered by savvy smugglers.

They also include a spate of rumors — widely circulated over social media — that relaxed policies in the U.S. make this a critical time to move north.

“The rumors grew rampant, like wildfire,” said Nelson García Lobo, director of a Mennonite church group known as the Commission of Mennonite Social Action. His organization represents some of the poorest barrios in the country, whose residents are often targeted by smugglers.

Click HERE to read the full story.

[Photo by Repositorio Peninsula/Flickr]

 

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