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good night everyone in this bus They are foreigners, right? I repeat, everyone in this bus They are foreign? Well, they’re all going to get off me and they’re going to line up for me by nationality, the women who are out there staying inside. So, it is going to circulate downwards,” a Honduran national police officer firmly ordered 50 foreign migrants and an undercover journalist from the Investigative Unit of The Herald PlusFrom Tegucigalpa.
This is simple, every foreigner who passes through here must pay a tax, you, being Cubans, are going to pay 20 dollars each and say that you did well, Ecuadorians have to pay 100, the same for Colombians, only you and Venezuelans, because they are shitty, pay 20.
The criminal policemen, that night alone, stopped at least 10 buses with 50 migrants each, extorted almost all of them and took thousands of dollars in loot. This happens on the highway that goes to the border with Guatemala with special buses to transport migrants.
Something worse happens in the towns and cities of Guatemala, although they are free from extortion in Honduras, they cannot avoid blackmail in their own towns and cities. According to anthropologist Rick Mines, who has interviewed numerous Guatemalan migrants in California, the extortion comes from the Maras who have information about the situation of migrants in the United States. Now the families of the migrants are extorted because the gang members they know who has relatives in the United States, earning in dollars and sending remittances.
Before, it was normal for usurers and moneylenders to pressure migrant families to pay off their debts with leonine interest. Also known is the system of loans to low-income families, which offer money in informal deals, with high interest, and then come pressure and aggression. The rumor of Colombian gangs that are dedicated to this in cities and towns is widespread. There are also white-collar extortionists on the Internet, on dozens of pages offering loans with great facilities and high interest rates.
But this is different, it is not about loans and aggressive collection systems, it is simply extortion to avoid being attacked. Even in paying right of floor there is a counterpart, which offers protection and control in an area and does not allow more extortion or robbery.
Anyway, extortion and right of floor they are a cancer that corrodes any business or entrepreneurial effort, as they say today, from its foundations. The millionaire remittances that our countries receive are diminished at each step of the process. First, the payment of the transfer, which finally, due to the intervention of the migrants in a lawsuit against Western Union and other firms that send remittances, had to reduce their prices. Secondly, the banks that receive them, who earn from the exchange rate and from the collection of commissions. Third, the government that collects taxes (VAT) from any product or service that is purchased with the money from the remittances. We must not forget the exchange houses and their commissions to change money in cash, checks and money orders. In other times the milks
was done in the mail, where money orders and even United States tax refund checks were easily distinguished, the famous tax returns.
But now it is different, it is plain and simple extortion to anyone who receives or has some money. For some years now, migrants have stopped building houses and opening businesses in their hometowns. They say that where there is construction there is money and it is a perfect place to extort money.
The gangs and Maras they have international connections precisely because of migration, deportation and links between different groups and factions. In addition, they enjoy impunity and operate in complicity with the police and judges, who are also often threatened, as would be the case in Guatemala.
The other extreme is El Salvador, where a state of emergency has been declared and more than 50,000 prisoners have been imprisoned. gang members and extortion practically ended and the homicide rate decreased significantly. This measure has the majority support of the population, but due process is in question.
There are no easy solutions in democratic contexts and where human rights are respected. In practically all the nations of Europe there are gangs, many of them linked to criminal organizations, but there are limits and red lines that are not crossed.
The extortion of migrants along the migratory route is a verified and denounced reality, little or nothing has been done. But the extortion of families that receive remittances is already the last straw.
