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UNITED NATIONS HIGH COMMISSIONER
FOR REFUGEES
Addressing the protection of the
Migrant Caravan Refugees
-STUDY GUIDE-
Contents
Letter from the chairs……………………………….. 3
Introduction to the topic…………………………….4
Current Issue…………………………………………..6
Subtopics……………………………………………….7
Relevant documents and treaties………………….9
Trump tweets and controversy…………………….10
Timeline of Events……………………………………14
Countries Positions…………………………………..16
Guiding Questions……………………………………18
Further Reading………………………………………18
Bibliography…………………………………………..19
Letter from the chairs: Dear delegates, It is an honour to welcome you to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. We, the chairs, are thrilled for this year’s MiniMUN! The few hours that you will have in-conference, will serve as a great learning experience. The topic chosen is “ Addressing the protection of the Migrant Caravan Refugees”. The Chairs structured the conference for all delegates, from Middle Eastern countries, to European countries and countries that are suffering directly from the issue will find their positions and conditions. That been said, the matter at hand should be pressing for all present, and we expect to pass feasible resolutions in order to protect the migrants that are suffering as you read this in the caravans. Regards, Chair - Valentina Luchesi
[email protected] Vice-Chair - Arthur Schahin
Vice-Chair - Rafaela Ganzer
Introduction to the topic: On October 12, 2018, a group of about 160 Hondurans set forth from the town of San Pedro Sula — which in the first half of the decade was often referred to as the “murder capital of the world” — in hopes of arriving to present themselves for asylum in Mexico or the United States. Seventy-five miles and two days later, the caravan was more than 1,000 strong, according to the estimates of Associated Press reporters. By October 15, the AP estimated about 1,600 Hondurans had amassed at the border with Guatemala.
Zarracina/Vox; location and date information via Associated Press The earliest spokespeople for the caravan were a journalist and former leftist legislator named Bartolo Fuentes and his wife, human rights activist Dunia Montoya. The conservative government of Honduran President Juan Orlando
Hernández (with the help of friendly media outlets) has accused Fuentes of organizing the caravan to embarrass the Hernandez administration and promote instability. Fuentes has vehemently denied that he organized the caravan even in its early stages, and has laughed off any idea that he coordinated an exodus of 1,600 people. Instead, he’s painted the caravan as an illustration of how miserable life is in Hernandez’s Honduras: The situation is bad enough, he argues, that so many people have been inspired to pick up and leave. The government of Guatemala attempted to close the Guatemalan-Honduran border to the caravan on October 15; after a standoff of several hours, Guatemalan officials backed down. The caravan continued to grow as it crossed Guatemala, and arrived about 3,000 strong at the Mexican-Guatemalan border on October 19, when the members slept overnight on a bridge at the border after being driven back by Mexican riot police with pepper spray. Mexico has begun slowly admitting caravan members to ask for asylum: as of October 24, the Mexican government said it had processed 1,743 applications. But many have decided to stop waiting and swim across the river to enter without papers. On October 21, a surging group of migrants — thousands bigger than the group that had waited on the bridge — agreed to continue onward from Chiapas, Mexico, to the US. Why are they leaving their home countries? There are various reasons of why members are leaving, but the main concerns are due to safety (due to drug-dealing, gang violence, violence against women, persecution of the LGBTQ community, political persecution, death threats, etc.) and poverty (low salaries, starvation, inability to support their families and poor working conditions). In the majority of cases, people are motivated by more than one of these — a generalized sense of desperation and a sense of hope for a better life. Therefore, you can divide
the migrants into two main groups: "asylum seekers" threatened by gangs and the local government who is either complicit or absentee and "economic migrants" who are seeking for better jobs and fleeing desperate poverty.
Current Issue:
How to solve the problem? The White House wants a travel ban for the Mexico border. How would that work? What happens if it reaches the US border? Over the past decade, there’s been a rise in the number of unaccompanied children and families crossing the US-Mexico border. Increasingly, they are people fleeing violence and insecurity, coming from the Northern Triangle of Central America — Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador. Meanwhile, unauthorized border crossings of single adults, Mexicans, and people looking for seasonal work have greatly declined. The result is a change in the character of who is seeking to cross into the US:
US Border Patrol apprehensions of Mexicans and Northern Triangle residents,
fiscal years 2007-2017
To get to the US-Mexico border, Northern Triangle emigrants have to get through Mexico. Under current US and international law, asylum seekers from Central America are allowed to apply for asylum either in Mexico or in the US. Many take the first option: Asylum applications in Mexico have gone up more than 1,000 percent since 2013, and most are from citizens of Northern Triangle countries. Mexico has been accused of indiscriminate long-term detention of asylum seekers (exacerbated by a two-year backlog in processing applications), and some parts of Mexico aren’t safe for people who are already fleeing violence. The US has enlisted Mexico to apprehend Central American migrants before they get to the US. Some 950,000 Central Americans have been deported from Mexico over the past several years, and human rights groups have reported torture and disappearance by Mexican security forces. For some Central Americans, the solution to this problem is hypervisibility: traveling out in the open, as part of a large group of people that can’t simply be grabbed or disappeared. That’s the reason small human rights organizations have gotten people together, on occasion, in “caravans” — and the appeal to hundreds or thousands of migrants who’ve joined them in trying to get to the US. Hundreds of Central American migrants planning to seek asylum in the United States have reached the Mexican border city of Tijuana as the US military reinforced security measures, laying razor wire and erecting barricades
Subtopics: Pueblo sin fronteras and past caravans
Pueblo Sin Fronteras is an organization which reaches out to the most vulnerable immigrants and refugees inside or on their way into the United States, being in “permanent solidarity with displaced peoples.” They provide humanitarian aid and legal advice to migrants and refugees in the hopes that they are eventually granted asylum, and dream to “build solidarity bridges among peoples and turndown border walls imposed by greed.” Pueblo Sin Fronteras have organized a number of caravans, and supported the group of Central Americans and their plight to be granted asylum in the United States. These caravans include: Holy Week 2017 Caravan, Holy Week 2018 Caravan and the most recent and publicized one, The October 2018 Caravan. U.S. Laws (asylum and military forces) Under United States law, any foreign national who meets the international law definition of a ‘refugee’ is eligible to be granted asylum when at the border or already in U.S. territory. However, after all of the legal processes to grant asylum have taken place, if a person does not qualify as a refugee and does not have a credible reason to have freed their country, U.S. law states that they will not be granted any form of asylum. The United States is bound legally and has the obligation of complying to the articles established treaties and convention and therefore must provide protection to all of those who qualify as a refugee. Moreover, regarding the President’s military orders, the U.S. military cannot be lawfully used to detain or send away immigrants at the border. They may use arms for self defense, but they cannot be used to enforce civil law or use active duty force against unarmed people. Lastly, deadly force may only be used as a last resort.
Violence in Central America Another question commonly asked is why the migrants simply do not reside in their home country instead of undertaking a dangerous journey to the U.S. Central America’s homicide rate (of 33 murders per 100,000 people in 2016)
is over 5 times the global rate, and 23% of people aged 14-24 are neither in school nor employed, making it difficult to resist joining gangs and engaging in criminal activity to sustain themselves. El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras (who’s citizens compose the majority of the caravan) are in the top 5 most crime ridden country in Central America.
Relevant documents and treaties: UN declaration of human rights http://www.un.org/en/universal-declaration-human-rights/index.html
- Article 14 : (1) Everyone has the right to seek and to enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution; (2) This right may not be invoked in the case of prosecutions genuinely arising from non-political crimes or from acts contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations.
- Article 30 : Nothing in this Declaration may be interpreted as implying for any State, group or person any right to engage in any activity or to perform any act aimed at the destruction of any of the rights and freedoms set forth herein.
The 1951 Refugee Convention http://www.unhcr.org/3b66c2aa10
- "The 1951 Convention consolidates previous international instruments relating to refugees and provides the most comprehensive codification of the rights of refugees at the international level.”
- “A refugee, according to the Convention, is someone who is unable or unwilling to return to their country of origin owing to a well-founded fear
of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group, or political opinion.”
- “Apart from expanding the definition of a refugee, the Protocol obliges States to comply with the substantive provisions of the 1951 Convention to all persons covered by the refugee definition in Article 1, without any limitation of date.”
- “The Governments of the following twenty-six States were represented by delegates who all submitted satisfactory credentials or other communications of appointment authorizing them to participate in the Conference: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Colombia, Denmark, Egypt, France, Germany, Greece, Holy See, Iraq, Israel, Italy, Luxembourg, Monaco, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland (also representing Liechtenstein), Turkey, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, United States of America, Venezuela, Yugoslavia.”
The 1967 Refugee Protocol https://www.ohchr.org/Documents/ProfessionalInterest/protocolrefugees.pdf ⁃ Article 2: “The States Parties to the present Protocol undertake to cooperate with the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, or any other agency of the United Nations which may succeed it, in the exercise of its functions, and shall in particular facilitate its duty of supervising the application of the provisions of the present Protocol.” ⁃ Article 4: “Any dispute between States Parties to the present Protocol which relates to its interpretation or application and which cannot be settled by other means shall be referred to the International Court of Justice at the request of any one of the parties to the dispute.”
Trump tweets and controversy:
There has been substantial controversy revolving around President Trump’s response to the caravan of asylum seekers. Many have criticized his attempt to alienate and dehumanize the migrants, paint them as illegal and invaders, further polarize American voters and incite divisiveness by blaming his opposition, and his unlawful use of the military to defend the U.S. border. The following tweets are records of a collection of Trump’s tweets regarding the caravan:
Timeline of events
Here is a look at the caravan and actions by U.S. leaders since the group's journey began in October: Oct. 13 — Migrant caravan forms in the Honduran city of San Pedro Sula and begins to head north. Oct. 15 — The caravan arrives at the Guatemala-Honduran border, facing a blockade by local police for nearly two hours. Police eventually allowed the migrants to continue through after they refused to turn back. Oct. 16 — President Donald Trump tweets he's told Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández, El Salvador, and Guatemala that "no more money or aid" will be given if they allow the caravan to continue to the United States. Oct. 19 — Migrants reach the Guatemala-Mexico border and begin to request asylum in Mexico.
Oct. 20 — Battling sweltering heat while waiting to cross the border, some migrants begin to cross into Mexico using makeshift rafts to cross the Suchiate River and climbing over fences. Oct. 21 — Crowds of migrants continue their journey north from the Mexican border town of Ciudad Hidalgo. Buses took migrants about 23 miles to shelters in Tapachula. Oct. 24 — Another caravan is reportedly forming in El Salvador, bound for the U.S.-Mexico border. The migrants reportedly plan to leave on Oct. 31. Oct. 23 — Migrants reach Huixtla, Mexico, about 50 miles from the Mexico-Guatemala border. The caravan remains an estimated month or more from the U.S. border. Oct. 26 — Pentagon approves a request for additional troops, possibly hundreds, at the U.S. southern border to assist Border Patrol. Oct. 27 — Migrants reportedly reject Mexico President Enrique Peña Nieto's offer to apply for refugee status and obtain shelter, medical attention, schooling, and jobs in the Mexican states of Chiapas and Oaxaca. Oct. 31 — Department of Defense says 7,000 troops will be deployed to the U.S. southern border based in Texas, Arizona, and California. Troops locally could be staged at Marine Corps Air Station Miramar, Camp Pendleton, Naval Base Coronado, Naval Base San Diego, and Naval Base Point Loma. Troops may be moved by the end of the week. Oct. 31 — President Trump says troop deployment to the southern border could total as high as 15,000 troops before the caravan arrives, which remains about 1,000 miles away Wednesday. Anywhere from 3,500 to 10,00 individuals now estimated to make up the caravan.
Countries position USA – The government is, at all costs, attempting to infringe and reduce the number of caravans and migrants trying to enter the country. They have set their army at the border in order to not allow migrants to enter the country illegally. President Donald Trump said that he would cut aid to Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador for not stopping the group. Delegations must be aware of the problems concerning the entry of migrants to the country, what factors could occur and reasons why USA are not seeking asylum Mexico – country is partially divided regarding this issue. Mexico is attempting to reduce the number of migrants and caravans crossing the Mexico-USA border and therefore backing up the USA in this situation, however they do not want to create hostility with population which can lead them to future problems. The delegation must be aware of the problems concerning unemployment, overpopulation, cheap labour, etc. Honduras – Honduras is beefing up their border security under the pressure of Mr Donald Trump. However, there is a sue against the President which claims that he is violating the Fifth Amendment and is “abusing” his power on border policies Venezuela – According to Mr Trump and Mr Pence, the caravans are being partially funded by the government, however denied by the Venezuela which are attempting to stop the population on leaving the country. Nicaragua – Mr Trump announced that he will put an end for the protected status for Nicaraguan immigrants had in 2019. This was given to over 5000 Nicaraguans, which protected them from deportation
UK – Ms Theresa May and Mr Trump has a very good relationship. The delegation should choose which position he would take in this committee, either supporting France, USA or take another stand France – Mr Macron said that he backs up Ms. Merkel on immigration policies, thus, implying that France will aid more in the help of refugees in Europe and Middle East. Mr Trump said that he has “zero tolerance” regarding immigrants. The delegate should infer France’s position from this situation. Guatemala – government is urging the population not to join the caravan after Mr Trump’s threat to stop aiding the country El Salvador – As Mr Trump has threatened to cut the aid to the country, the government is trying to intervene and therefore stop its population which are attempting to head north to the USA Israel – Mr Trump accused that some of the migrants in the caravan are from the Middle East, presumably in an attempt to link the caravan to fears among some voters about Islam and terrorism. However no reporting assures this statement Iran – Mr Trump accused that some of the migrants in the caravan are from the Middle East, presumably in an attempt to link the caravan to fears among some voters about Islam and terrorism. However no reporting assures this statement Syria – Syria suffers every year with several refugees leaving the country due to their conditions (may sympathise with Central American countries). Mr Trump accused that some of the migrants in the caravan are from the Middle East, presumably in an attempt to link the caravan to fears among some voters about Islam and terrorism. However no reporting assures this statement
Guiding Questions
- What is the difference between a refugee and an asylum seeker? - Why isn’t the USA seeking asylum? - What are the future problems for the countries that are potentially losing
part of its population to the the United States? - What are the pull and push factors for the migrants? Why Central
Americans join the caravan? Why are they willing to take the risk? - How has the rise of social media helped the caravans? - What challenges will the migrants face? - What actions countries might do to reduce the caravans? - What may happen to the migrants when they reach the border?
Further reading
- The border is tougher to cross than ever, but there still is one way into America: https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2018/national/border-asylum-claims/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.5f5de12506f7
- Seeking asylum: one family journeys with the caravan from Honduras to the Bronx: https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2018/local/immigration/asylum-family/?utm_term=.7599cfb7e0ac
- Hondurans in migrant caravan sue Trump administration over ‘abuse’ of power on border policies: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/migrant-caravan-trump-honduras-sue-immigration-border-class-action-lawsuit-a8615396.html
- Where is the migrant caravan from - and what will happen to it at the border?: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/oct/24/caravan-migrants-what-is-it-where-from-guatemala-honduras-immigrants-mexico
- The UNHCR 1951 Refugee Convention: http://www.unhcr.org/1951-refugee-convention.html
- The 1967 Protocol relating to the Status of Refugees: https://www.ohchr.org/Documents/ProfessionalInterest/protocolrefugees.pdf
Bibliography https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/10/honduran-migrant-caravan-advances-fortified-borders-181019203930805.html https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fg-mMIV53go (venezuela financing) https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/nov/01/migrant-caravan-el-salvador-more-visible https://mg.co.za/article/2018-06-19-macron-backs-merkel-in-political-battle-on-immigration https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-immigration-protections/u-s-to-end-protected-status-for-nicaraguan-immigrants-in-2019-idUSKBN1D704X (end to Nicaragua immigration protection) https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2018/10/24/migrant-caravan-updates/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.40e16aa961cb https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/trump-administration-to-tighten-asylum-rules-as-caravans-approach/2018/11/08/69a06a08-e2a7-11e8-a1c9-6afe99dddd92_story.html?utm_term=.359b9ed1d1dc http://www.un.org/en/universal-declaration-human-rights/index.html https://www.uscis.gov/humanitarian/refugees-asylum/asylum https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/research/asylum-united-states http://www.unhcr.org/3b66c2aa10 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_American_migrant_caravans https://www.pueblosinfronteras.org/index.html https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convention_Relating_to_the_Status_of_Refug
ees https://www.ohchr.org/Documents/ProfessionalInterest/protocolrefugees.pdf https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump https://www.dw.com/en/can-donald-trump-use-force-against-the-migrant-caravan/a-46300123 https://theglobalamericans.org/2018/01/violence-central-america-no-harm-mr-trump/ https://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTLAC/Resources/FINAL_VOLUME_I_ENGLISH_CrimeAndViolence.pdf https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/oct/13/central-america-violence-refugee-crisis-gangs-murder https://www.voiceofsandiego.org/topics/news/everything-you-need-to-know-about-the-migrant-caravan-and-those-that-came-before/ https://www.10news.com/news/timeline-migrant-caravan-continues-journey-to-us-mexico-border https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2018/10/24/migrant-caravan-updates/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.499f529737bc https://www.vox.com/2018/10/24/18010340/caravan-trump-border-honduras-mexico https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/nov/13/migrant-caravan-latest-us-border-security-toughened
