As election day nears, the Let's Find Common Ground podcast speaks with two members of Congress, one Republican and one Democrat, who are reaching across rigid partisan divides, recognizing the value of compromise and seeking constructive change.
Migrants from Guatemala prepare to cross the Rio Grande, to enter the United States in February. The best way to address immigration is fix problems caused by past interventions in foreign countries.
Yates-Doerr is an associate professor anthropology at Oregon State University and the author of “Mal-Nutrition: Maternal Health Science and the Reproduction of Harm.” She is also a fellow with The OpEd Project.
Immigration is a hot-button topic in the presidential election, with Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump both promising to crack down hard at the border. But neither candidate is talking about a root cause of immigration: the long history of U.S. meddling, which has directly resulted in displacement. If our politicians really wanted to address immigration, they would look not at the border but at past actions of the U.S. government, which have directly produced so much of the immigration we see today.
Consider the case of Guatemala, the origin point of 11 percent of migrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico border. Over the past 20 years, I have worked as an anthropologist in a region with one of Guatemala’s highest rates of exodus to the United States. Twenty years ago, it was mostly men who would migrate. Now women and children migrate regularly too. They are leaving conditions of extreme poverty and oppression for low-paid farm and factory labor. Though political discourse focuses on the “deterrence” of migrants at the border, this ignores the open secret that the U.S. economy relies on the labor force that migrants provide.
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To secure this labor force, the U.S. government has destabilized Guatemala for decades. People familiar with U.S. history will know that in the 1950s, the government helped to topple Guatemala’s democratically elected president, Jacobo Árbenz, who was implementing modest land reform. Powerful American politicians had financial ties to the United Fruit Company, which ran banana plantations throughout the country. Because Árbenz’s support of farmworkers interfered with company profit, the U.S. government worked to violently depose him.
What started as a terror campaign and coup in the 1950s became an outright strategy of Indigenous massacre by the 1980s. Military and paramilitary forces with U.S. training targeted Indigenous leaders, including mothers and midwives because they were skilled at caring for and nourishing their communities. Mercenary armies, operating a scorched earth campaign, razed and deforested communities with the goal of depopulating entire regions. The U.S. and Guatemalan governments worked together so that Guatemalans would starve.
A less familiar history is that the U.S. government's destabilization of Guatemala also took a form more covert than military violence, and that these activities continue to the present day. As the United Fruit Company was withdrawing from Guatemala in the second half of the 20th century, the U.S. Agency for International Development set up a headquarters in Guatemala’s capital. Under the pretense of encouraging development, USAID promoted monoculture farming. Many of the genetically hybridized seeds the agency distributed were ill adapted to Guatemalan climates and required industrial fertilizers and pesticides — several of which were banned as too dangerous for use in the United States. Meanwhile, cancer rates, miscarriage and neurological problems all began to spread.
In parallel to USAID’s development interventions, in the 1970 and ‘80s the U.S. government helped fund scientists to develop a synthetic protein powder, ostensibly meant to solve malnutrition. The powder was licensed to Guatemala’s largest beer corporation to mass-produce at scale and branded as a healthy alternative to traditional staples of corn, beans and squash. Guatemala has since seen decades of U.S.-backed nutrition interventions reliant on cheap, mass-produced powders. These can be found all across the country, and still Guatemala has one of the highest rates of chronic malnutrition in the world. Health workers frequently blame so-called uneducated mothers for being inept at feeding their families, pushing more packaged nutrients as the solution to their problems. If mothers object, they risk losing access to care.
But the challenges Guatemalans are experiencing are the result of cruel policies — not women’s ignorance. The forced reliance on agrochemicals has damaged soils and landscapes; the forced replacement of protein powders for traditional foods has damaged entire ways of life. Many Guatemalans who migrate today are looking for modest wages to care for family members sick with cancer, kidney failure or other diseases associated with living in a poisoned environment. Guatemalan soils used to be among the richest in the world; today crop failures are common and deforested hillsides are susceptible to deadly landslides. People are desperate. They are willing to work for pennies and they are willing to risk dying — which has been the point.
The narrative that immigrants are stealing jobs from people in the United States has the story backwards: The U.S. government has been complicit in destabilizing the livelihood and labor of Guatemalans for decades. Until this is addressed, people living in poverty and oppression will continue to migrate, no matter the obstacles put before them. If politicians were serious about addressing migration, they would stop talking about policing the border and instead work to reverse the harm that U.S. interventions have caused.
A mobile home destroyed by a tornado associated with Hurricane Milton is seen on Oct.12 in the Lakewood Park community of Fort Pierce, Fla.
Frazier is an assistant professor at the Crump College of Law at St. Thomas University and a Tarbell fellow.
Before I left for the airport to attend a conference in Washington, D.C., I double checked with my wife that she was OK with me leaving while a hurricane was brewing in the Gulf of Mexico. We had been in Miami for a little more than a year at that point, and it doesn’t take long to become acutely attentive to storms when you live in Florida. Storms nowadays form faster, hit harder and stay longer.
Ignorance of the weather is not an option. It’s tiring.
I arrived in Washington and incessantly checked the weather. Each hour introduced a new wrinkle in the forecast. And, as a result, another text to my wife — asking how hurricane prep was going, pledging I’d make my way home and nudging her to cross her fingers for a little longer. I carried on in hopes that it would be another instance of a storm shifting direction — subjecting some other community to its wrath (a horrible thought that you just can’t think too long about).
The storm didn’t shift. My schedule had to change. Twelve hours after landing in D.C., I found myself again going through TSA, finding a quick meal and praying my flight would take off (and land) smoothly. I arrived home around 12:30 a.m. and slept on the couch to avoid waking up the dog (and, by extension, my wife). We woke up and continued the storm prep. Our friends and family called to check in. Our coworkers asked if we’d be on time to various meetings. The storm protocol carried on.
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The storm shifted. Well, at least a little. Miami didn’t experience nearly as much devastation, flooding and harm as its neighbors to the north. We breathed an odd and awkward sigh of relief. What a terrible feeling. The two of us were exhausted. But home. Safe. Warm. Many couldn’t say the same.
It’s going to be hard to keep this up when more storms head our way. The local weatherman who cried “Category 5!” becomes a little less reputable after even one storm dives in a new direction. The email from the landlord encouraging you to stockpile supplies seems a little over the top. It’s all emotionally, physically and, in some cases, monetarily expensive. For all those reasons it’s not surprising why some people become numb to emergency warnings.
Disaster fatigue is a real thing. We need a cure.
Our interconnected, chaotic and turbulent world is going to continue to test us. Storms will keep coming. Political turmoil won’t just disappear. Economic swings will continue. Tranquility is officially a scarce commodity. Individually, we must remain vigilant and resist the temptation to hope that the latest storm, stock market drop or otherwise crisis isn’t going to take us out. Societally, we need to make it easier to transition from the status quo to prepped for the worst-case scenario.
The solution is raising our collective level of preparedness across every dimension. With respect to natural disasters, periods of smooth seas and clear skies should be used to spread emergency kits. Storms like Helene show that even so-called climate havens like Asheville, N.C., need to be ready for the worst.
When it comes to political stability, we ought to continue to explore ways to decrease the partisan temperature. This may include greater investment in local news outlets that can make sure folks have alternatives to social media for essential information.
And, in light of financial uncertainty, we should develop and encourage novel means to bolster the size of the average savings account. This may take the form of traditional tax incentives to reward wise financial decisions to more creative approaches like savings lotteries in which each dollar saved increases the odds of earning a jackpot of sorts.
Disasters aren’t going away. Our policies should reflect the reality that preparedness must become our new normal. It’s not fun. It won’t be easy. But it’s necessary.
One arm of the government defines homelessness narrowly, focusing on those living in shelters or on the streets. But another deparmtent also counts people living in doubled-up housing or motels as homeless.
Arzuaga is the housing policy analyst for the Latino Policy Forum.
The majority of Latinos in the United States experiencing homelessness are invisible. They aren’t living in shelters or on the streets but are instead “doubled up” — staying temporarily with friends or family due to economic hardship. This form of homelessness is the most common, yet it remains undercounted and, therefore, under-addressed, partly due to conflicting federal definitions of homelessness.
The Department of Housing and Urban Development defines homelessness narrowly, focusing on those living in shelters or places not meant for habitation, such as the streets. This definition, while useful for some purposes, excludes many families and children who are technically homeless because they live in uncertain and sometimes dangerous housing situations but are not living on the streets. This narrow definition means that many of these “doubled up” families don’t qualify for the resources and critical housing support that HUD provides, leaving them to fend for themselves in precarious living situations.
In contrast, the Department of Education, under the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act, adopts a broader definition that includes students who are doubled up, living in motels or in other unstable housing situations. This definition is more reflective of the reality faced by over 1.2 million public school students during the 2021-22 school year, with 76 percent of these students experiencing doubled-up homelessness.
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The conflicting definitions create significant disparities in how homelessness is understood and addressed. While the Department of Education recognizes and provides some support for students in doubled-up situations, HUD’s narrower definition excludes these families, leaving them without the crucial housing assistance they need. This discrepancy even extends to how homelessness is counted. For instance, HUD’s Point-in-Time count focuses solely on those living in shelters or on the streets. In contrast, the McKinney-Vento count by the Department of Education includes all children without a fixed, regular and adequate nighttime residence, capturing those in doubled-up situations or motels. As a result, many homeless families are greatly undercounted and left out of policy decisions that determine federal housing funding.
Latino families are at high risk of facing housing instability and more likely to experience homelessness by doubling-up with other households due to economic challenges and systemic barriers. The situation becomes even more complicated for those who are undocumented. While both immigrant and migrant children and youth are eligible for McKinney-Vento services, such as free school meals, if they lack a fixed, regular and adequate nighttime residence, accessing broader housing support is more complicated. HUD’s stricter immigration requirements often bar undocumented families from receiving the housing assistance they need.
This gap in resources has real consequences for Latinos. Homeless children face a 18 percentage point drop in their chances of graduating high school compared to the national average. Even when schools provide support through the McKinney-Vento Act — such as tutoring, school supplies and transportation — students living doubled-up still lack what they need most: stable housing because HUD doesn’t recognize their living situation as homelessness.
While it won’t solve housing insecurity overnight, aligning HUD’s and the Department of Education’s definitions of homelessness would be a step in the right direction for truly addressing the needs of doubled-up families, ensuring that everyone is seen and counted. By expanding our understanding of what homelessness can look like, we can begin to connect these overlooked families and children to the housing resources and stability they desperately need.
If you think you may have experience living doubled-up, please consider taking this anonymous survey.
Cardenas is a freelance journalist based in Northern California.
The future of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program remains in limbo after judges from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit heard arguments in October. DACA offers temporary protection from deportation and provides work permits to undocumented immigrants brought to the United States as children, who are often referred to as "Dreamers."
For six years, Stephanie Canizales listened to the coming-of-age stories of unaccompanied migrant youth inside Los Angeles’ church courtyards, community gardens, English night classes, McDonald’s restaurant booths and more.
“Story after story… as much as there was pain and suffering, there was resilience and hope,” Canizales said.
Her first book, ‘Sin Padres, Ni Papeles’ compassionately weaves together the voices of Central American and Mexican immigrant youth who struggled to adjust to life in the United States after migrating without parents nor papers.
“It’s both a story about inclusion but also deep marginalization,” Canizales said.
Nearly 129,000 unaccompanied minors crossed the U.S. southern border in 2022, according to the Department of Health and Human Services. The issue was widely reported earlier, when a surge in immigration exposed the public to photos of detained children in cages in 2014.
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Canizales’s research began in 2012, when the Obama administration created the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which allowed some immigrant youth temporary relief from deportation and renewable legal work authorization.
Though DACA had positive impacts on some, it left out 62 percent of the undocumented youth who did not meet the policy’s educational requirements, Canizales wrote.
Among those left out were the youth she met in L.A., many of whom took on the role of low-wage worker instead of student because they did not travel with a legal guardian or documents.
Canizales gently probes at the hearts of youth like Tomás, a garment worker who left Guatemala when he was 14 years old, a few years after his mother abandoned him and his older sister, Susana.
Susana was the first to leave Guatemala and initially welcomed her younger brother to her home in the Pico-Union neighborhood of central L.A., where her undocumented husband and U.S.-born children had settled.
But Susana soon kicked Tomás out because she was afraid he would place her family at higher risk of deportation, leaving the young boy emotionally callused with no one to turn to for support.
“Tomás’s only social connection was to his employer, who allowed him to sleep in the factory until he found a room to rent in an apartment with other young garment workers,” Canizales wrote.
Many unaccompanied youth like Tomás struggled to find community, leading some down the path of what Canizales described as perdición, or perdition.
This is when youth fall into drugs, get into unhealthy relationships, commit self-harm and more.
“These things are not failings on young people’s part … or immigrants are not inherently destined to do these things,” Canizales stressed. “What I really try to highlight is that anyone without meaningful social ties would fall into these circumstances as a way of coping with the loneliness.”
Despite experiencing hardships, youth would often portray on social media that they are “doing better” in the U.S. than they actually were, which “perpetuates the idea of the American Dream,” Canizales said.
“There is an attempt to save face with the families and communities they’ve left behind,” Canizales said. “They send the best stories of success at work, they send as much as they can in financial remittances and don’t tell families that they are left with $5.”
On the other hand, when youth do form close relationships, they are more likely to experience adaptación.
“There are cases where young people can become materially adapted to what it means to be a worker, or how to use public transit or where to go for groceries,” Canizales said.
Moreover, Canizales said that while writing the book she wanted to “critique the top-down markers of success that we’ve imposed, not just [on] immigrant groups, but [on] society at large.”
Frequently the “success” of “a good immigrant” is measured by socioeconomic markers, such as if they earn a college degree or start a business, Canizales said.
“You are looking at a group of kids who are completely dislocated from childhood, from parent-led households, from K-12 schools, from the U.S. legal system, for indigenous youth, from the Latino category but also just in a society that is both anti-black and anti-indigenous, and anti-immigrant,” Canizales said. “All of these compounded, there was never a chance in heaven on earth or in hell that these young people would be able to accomplish those things because they are just so far from the normative.”
Instead Canizales said she ended all of her interviews by asking the youth what success meant to them.
“Young people said, ‘Success to me is I can sew faster, I learned some skills, I speak a little bit better English, I went from being a dishwasher to a busser, to a server,’ Canizales said. “In that same vein, it was always measuring their emotional selves by those metrics. ‘I was abused in my home country, I was really depressed when I got here, me sentia disorientado and now look at me, I don’t feel as depressed.”
Canizales said she was continuously “shocked” while hearing the stories of youth throughout her six years of research.
“I’m listening to people talk about now a decades-long experience that they were not anticipating, that has been very painful for them,” Canizales said. “But they still hope that tomorrow will be better.”
