Trump’s Tariff Threat Will Only Put Migrants in Greater Danger
Increasing economic pressure on Mexico may tap into its authorities’ tendency of violence toward migrants
In 2014, only months after the Mexican government implemented Programa Frontera Sur — a sharp expansion of Mexico’s immigration enforcement efforts, imposed under pressure from the Obama administration — a young man from rural Honduras named Beylin Sarmiento set off toward the United States. He crossed into Guatemala and then into southern Mexico, riding the freight trains north, sleeping at shelters and in trainyards. Just a few days after leaving Mexico City atop yet another freight train, still bound northwards, gunmen on the engine car of a passing train started shooting at Sarmiento and the other migrants. Sarmiento was shot in the chest and died on the spot. The freight car, for the next 30 or so miles, kept carrying his body in the direction of “el norte.”
Though the government denied it, the gunmen (as seen in a video obtained a few months after the shooting) resembled federal police officers, and at least three direct witnesses said the shooters were wearing federal police uniforms.
Beylin’s murder is newly relevant because it occurred the last time the U.S. tried to strong-arm Mexico into doing its…
