Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez and local news sites can’t seem to agree on how safe it is to flee the country and head to the U.S.
The President
Hernandez has decided to intervene with the issue of migration from Honduras to the United States, Honduran news site La Prensa reports.
He expressed his concern with Hondurans fleeing toward the U.S. border searching for “the paradise.”
“I want you to know that passing through [the border] will not be easy and in the majority of occasions they will capture and trial you. The message is clear. Over 22 years in jail is what you will get according to the national legislation. It’s best to think twice,” Hernandez said.
President Hernandez met with General John F. Kelly about a week ago in hopes of reducing the amount of drug trafficking and transnational crime occurring between the two countries.
The Media
Just a few days before Hernandez’s statement, the same news site, La Prensa, wrote an article on how the United States “will use a military base in California to house minors.”
The article states that these children will be housed for three to four months, while trying to “locate the parents or families in the United States and give them responsibility of their child.”
White House spokesman Josh Earnest, during a White House briefing, stated that “they [the undocumented minors] go through a process to determine whether they’re going to be sent back to another country, how they’ll be sent back to another country, or how that process is otherwise resolved.”
With that being said, it is not one-hundred percent certain that the children will be able to stay in the U.S.
The article states that besides food and housing, the children also receive English classes and get to play sports. This is a stark contrast to an article the news site published three days later where Tony Banegas, of the Consular Corps of Arizona, stated that the kids constantly yell, “Consul, get us out of here!”
Another article, titled “USA seeks shelter for undocumented minors,” by El Salvador’s “El Mundo,” states the conditions of these shelters. The minors are indeed given shelter, but this article does not mention the English classes or playing of sports, rather, it highlights the living conditions of these children: “beds” made of plastic and blankets made of aluminum foil, as well as portable toilets.
Wednesday, an article by El Mundo was released titled “Guatemala rescues 23 Cubans who were looking to reach the United States.” The word “rescue” would probably not be what came to mind for Fredy Pichardo, one of the fleeing Cubans who stated that they all decided to leave the country because of the bad economic conditions.
This type of back and forth within the media causes confusion, and sways Hondurans, among others, to think it is secure to send their children to the border in hopes of reaching the United States without being caught. In reality, the process is much more complicated, and much more dangerous.
