{"id":10491,"date":"2021-01-19T18:04:29","date_gmt":"2021-01-19T18:04:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.radiofree.org\/?p=152047"},"modified":"2021-01-19T18:04:29","modified_gmt":"2021-01-19T18:04:29","slug":"as-guatemalan-forces-beat-back-migrant-caravan-biden-urged-to-reverse-trump-policies-of-cruelty-and-coercion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2021\/01\/19\/as-guatemalan-forces-beat-back-migrant-caravan-biden-urged-to-reverse-trump-policies-of-cruelty-and-coercion\/","title":{"rendered":"As Guatemalan Forces Beat Back Migrant Caravan, Biden Urged to Reverse Trump Policies of ‘Cruelty and Coercion’"},"content":{"rendered":"
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As nearly 2,000 mostly Honduran migrants traveling through Guatemala toward Mexico and the United States were violently pushed back toward the border of their homeland on Monday, a new report released by Senate Democrats called on the incoming Biden administration to rescind Trump-era agreements with three Central American countries that have made asylum-seekers fleeing poverty and dangerous conditions much less safe. <\/p>\n

“For far too long, the United States has treated Central America as its ‘backyard,’ exerting an inappropriate level of interference in the political and economic affairs of the region.”
\u2014Civil society groups, to President-elect Joe Biden<\/span><\/p>\n

Reuters<\/em> reports<\/a> Guatemalan security forces on Monday cleared hundreds of people from a road near the village of Vado Hondo, Chiquimula department, which borders both Honduras and El Salvador.<\/p>\n

After authorities blocked a migrant caravan which reportedly contained some 8,000 people when it departed from Honduras last week, around 2,000 migrants\u2014including many families with young children\u2014camped out on the road with little food or water over the weekend. A separate group of around 300 Salvadorans caught up with the caravan by Monday. <\/p>\n

Al Jazeera<\/em> reports<\/a> that after attempting to negotiate with members of the caravan and giving two warnings, military and police in riot gear aggressively advanced on the crowd as many of the migrants sang the Honduran national anthem. The security forces pushed and beat their way through the crowd, injuring men and women alike as they dispersed the migrants. <\/p>\n

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VIDEO: Honduran migrants trying to reach the United States on foot remain stuck in Guatemala, their advance stymied by security forces.
The group hopes to be allowed to continue forward after it was met by police in the southeastern town of Vado Hondo pic.twitter.com\/sImM8Kzsgx<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 AFP News Agency (@AFP) January 19, 2021<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n

“This isn’t a war,” Andres Gomez, a Guatemalan in the caravan, told Reuters<\/em>. “It’s a caravan with women and children. The soldiers have no right to beat anyone. There are women who’ve been beaten.” <\/p>\n

Migrants in the caravan who spoke to Al Jazeera<\/em> said they were fleeing the destruction caused by a pair of recent Category 4 hurricanes<\/a>, as well as chronic unemployment and violence at home. Kayla, a 16-year-old transgender girl hoping to make it to Mexico, said she was “so scared” during the clearing operation, and that she feared for her life in her homeland. <\/p>\n

“In Honduras, people threaten to kill us,” she said of trans people.<\/p>\n

The latest migrant caravan set out toward the U.S. just days before President-elect Joe Biden\u2014who is expected to reverse some of President Donald Trump’s most controversial and harmful immigration policies\u2014takes office.<\/p>\n

Senate Democrats took aim at one of those policies, the unilateral third-country deals\u2014called asylum cooperative agreements (ACAs)\u2014under which three Central American nations agree to take in migrants denied entry into the United States, in a report published Monday urging Biden to immediately terminate the ACAs. <\/p>\n

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1\/ Today the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Democratic staff released a report exposing the cruelty, coercion, and legal contortions in the Trump Administration\u2019s Asylum Cooperative Agreements (ACAs) with Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Senator Bob Menendez (@SenatorMenendez) January 19, 2021<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n

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3\/ It is clear the Trump Administration weaponized asylum laws to purposely endanger vulnerable people, and I urge the incoming Biden administration to cancel these disastrous agreements.<\/p>\n

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Read my full statement belowhttps:\/\/t.co\/URVr5BM3mO<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 Senator Bob Menendez (@SenatorMenendez) January 19, 2021<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n

The report<\/a> (pdf)\u2014entitled Cruelty, Coercion, and Legal Contortions: The Trump Administration’s Unsafe Asylum Cooperative Agreements with Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador<\/em>\u2014was produced by the office of incoming Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.). Among its key findings:<\/p>\n