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In the summer of 2018, the world and many people in the United States are horrified and shocked by US immigration policy of separating and detaining children as they cross the Southern border with their parents. Some mainstream media coverage, following the Trump narrative, implies that the United States had no choice but to separate children and detain their parents; that somehow the US is a “victim” in this situation. Such a narrative requires historical amnesia as well as a basic lack of understanding of US foreign and domestic policy.

In order to understand why so many families embark on dangerous journeys that lead to crossing the border without documentation, we need to focus on some underlying causes. Since the mid-twentieth century, the US as the dominant hegemonic powerin Central America has created the conditions for the present economic, social and political realities of the region. In the 1950s the CIA fostered a coup in Guatemala, resulting in the deaths of at least 200,000 Guatemalans over 5 decades. (1) From the late 1970s to 1992, the US conducted a war against the people of El Salvador, resulting in the deaths of over 75,000 men, women and children. (2)

From 1979 -1990, the US conducted a Contra war against the people of Nicaragua that killed over 50,000 people. The wars in Nicaragua and El Salvador occurred after decades of US- imposed dictators, since the 1930s. The numbers of people killed doesn’t reflect those who were injured and those whose lives were destroyed or impacted economically and socially. They