By Khury Petersen-Smith, July 18, 2018 .
People across the United States and around the world have been rightly outraged by U.S. federal agencies' detention of migrants and separation of their families at the U.S.-Mexico border. Shortly after, the Supreme Court's ruled to uphold the Trump administration's racist travel ban on several Muslim-majority countries, reviving another fierce reaction to the administration's policy toward immigrants, travelers and asylum seekers.
The cases are united by more than one administration's xenophobia. Much of Latin America and the Muslim world share a legacy of U.S. interventions driving the very migration now being cruelly restricted.
While the Trump administration talks incessantly about its favorite villain, the gang MS-13, it says nothing about the origins of the gang. MS-13 was actually incubated on the streets and in the prisons of Southern California, where so many Salvadoran migrants were incarcerated in the 1990s. Washington's deportation of former prisoners — among other Salvadorans — back to El Salvador was the context for the development of the MS-13.
According to the United Nations, the worst humanitarian crisis in the world todayexists in Yemen — a striking distinction, given that there's no shortage of other disasters around the globe. There is a civil war in Yemen, in which combatants on both sides have taken actions that have had severe consequences for civilians. But the overwhelming responsibility for the destruction lies with a coalition led by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, which has bombed Yemen mercilessly in support of the Saudi-friendly Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi, whom the Gulf States seek to install as the president.
The United States has bombed Yemenis. It is supplying the weapons for other countries to bomb Yemenis now. And, as it's doing toward Central Americans in the most callous way, it is denying Yemenis the right to enter the United States.