Globalization, Poverty, and Migration

Abstract

The situation in which we live now in Guatemala is in a certain way worse than the situation we lived through during the armed conflict. In other words, there is more poverty in Guatemala now than during the conflict. One indicator of this growing impoverishment is the increase in the number of people who are trying to come to the United States. That is why the debate going on right now in the United States on the reforms of immigration laws is very important for us. And that is why we received with a lot of indignation the news of the approval by President Bush of the construction of a wall along part of the border between the United States and Mexico. We do not believe this wall is going to prevent migration. The wall, I think, will have two immediate, negative effects. On the one hand, the migrants are going to try to find other routes that could be more risky