Honduras coup: Why the 10-year anniversary matters today

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Honduras coup: Why the 10-year anniversary matters today

Why We Wrote This

Why do migrants keep coming to the U.S., even as the border tightens? Across Central America, some factors seem the same: corruption, impunity, violence. But the backstory is different in each country – and key to understanding.

    By Whitney Eulich Correspondent   
    @weulich

On Monday, the Trump administration announced a new rule for asylum-seekers at the southern border: people who pass through another country en route to the U.S. and fail to seek asylum there will not be eligible for U.S. protection.

Few people who leave home for the U.S. apply in countries like Guatemala, though more have sought refuge in Mexico in recent years. And many regional experts consider these transit countries unsafe, since they struggle with some of the challenges people are fleeing in the first place, like gang violence.

So how did those problems get so entrenched? History helps provide some clues. Take Honduras, which this summer marked 10 years since the ousting of a democratically elected president. It’s still feeling aftershocks from the crisis, which exacerbated deep political divides, weakened institutions, and fed a widespread lack of faith in elected officials.

Read more at: https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Americas/2019/0716/Honduras-coup-Why-the-10-year-anniversary-matters-today