La Lima, Cortés
Emerson sells bananas on the edge of a dusty street in La Lima, northern Honduras, but hopes to quit soon and migrate to the United States. He believes President-elect Joe Biden will let it go.
After two cyclones damaged his home and his school closed due to the pandemic, the 18-year-old believes there isn’t much to do here.
“We hope it will change, that it will benefit us” the departure of Donald Trump and the arrival of the Democrat Biden January 20, says Emerson Lopez to AFP from the Buen Samaritano neighborhood, on the outskirts of La Lima, 180 km north of Tegucigalpa and adjacent to San Pedro Sula, the starting point of other migrant caravans that have been trying to reach the United States since 2018.
Following the outgoing government’s restrictive policies, many of the approximately 9.5 people in Honduras believe roads are now being opened. A new caravan of migrants was called for January 15. “If they arrive properly, most of us here will make the decision to leave later,” Emerson added.
– Cyclone damage –
La Lima, with a population of 90,000, is showing signs of the destruction left by cyclones Eta and Iota in November. The floods caused reached Buen Samaritano, as well as several communities in the productive Sula Valley, the heart of the country’s economy.
Tropical storms and the closure by COVID-19 in 2020 have cost Honduras, one of the poorest countries in Latin America, about $ 5 billion, according to government calculations, about one-fifth of the country’s GDP.
The banana cultivation of the transnational Chiquita, in the area of La Lima, was devastated.
Emerson’s house, where he lives with his parents and four younger siblings, was made homeless. And without a school, closed by the corona virus, he lost hope of graduating in computer science.
With this scenario “should I make the decision to leave, how do I get a job with no experience and not old enough?” He complains.
– “Make the fight” –
Martha Saldívar, a neighbor of Emerson, is also preparing to march to the United States.
“It has been heard that Biden is removing the wall [que construye Trump en la frontera] and we will have to fight “to get there,” says the 51-year-old woman, in front of her house, still surrounded by rubble and without a piece of roof.
Since December, calls for the “Caravan January 15, 2021” have abounded in social networks, which are planning the Honduran San Pedro Sula and adding the way Guatemalans, Salvadorans and Mexicans were drawn to the “American Dream.”
A lot of Hondurans want to be part of the more than a million compatriots living abroad – the majority in the United States – a powerful resource for the country, which in 2020 received from them the record of nearly $ 6 million in remittances, more than 20 % of the gross domestic product (GDP). Remittances represent 14% of Guatemala’s GDP and 16% in El Salvador.
But Esteban Rosales, minister of a Pentecostal temple in the flood-stricken area, tries to convince them to stay.
“Members of the Church have considered leaving. One of them as a pastor motivates them not to, that the battle continues. God allowed us to stay alive so we could move on,” he says.
Since October 2018, more than a dozen caravans have left Honduras, at least four of them carrying up to 3,000 people. But they have collided with immigration controls at the US border and are increasingly stopped by the authorities of Mexico and Guatemala.
The Guatemalan government has warned that foreigners entering the territory must submit a negative Covid-19 test and documents.
Meanwhile, the Mexican consulate in San Pedro Sula assured that its government “neither promotes nor will permit the illegal entry of migrant caravans”.
– “Opportunity to Work” –
As a reminder of the difficulties, several flights of deportees come to Central America every week, although their numbers decreased last year due to the pandemic.
But Cecilia Arévalo, 54, who has lived in California for 20 years and recently returned to visit relatives on the outskirts of San Salvador, hopes that “with Biden, immigration laws in the United States will change and become more humane.”
15 km to the south, in Santo Tomás, Cristian Panameño shares optimism.
“I think with this new president things are for one migrant which arrives without changing papers, because with Trump We’re screwed, ”says this 42-year-old mechanic, who saved up after his eviction to try to migrate for the second time.
“When I arrive in the United States, I strive to have a chance to work.”