Background

People migrate for many reasons, and these reasons shape their legal rights. Some migrants seek economic opportunity, while others travel to reunite with family members who have migrated. Many migrants are forced to leave their homes because of conflict, persecution, or natural disaster. These reasons often overlap, presenting a challenge to policymakers. A migrant is anyone who has decided to leave their home country, either temporarily or permanently, for any reason. If a migrant has left their home country for economic reasons, such as to look for work opportunities, they are known as an economic migrant. If a migrant has left their home country because of war, violence, or persecution, they are known under international law as a refugee and are entitled to different rights than economic migrants. Under U.S. law, people who leave their homes because of war, violence, or persecution are categorized even more precisely. U.S. law uses the term refugee to describe someone who fears war, violence, or persecution and has applied for entry to the United States before arriving at the border. Someone who has already fled their home country for these reasons and applies for entry when they reach the U.S. border is known as an asylum seeker. Other countries use the terms refugee and asylum seeker differently.

Migrants are also classified based on whether they entered the country they are in with or without authorization. Unauthorized immigrants are often referred to as “undocumented” because they do not have a valid visa or, often, even a valid ID. Due to their lack of identification, undocumented immigrants  often cannot access public services such as health care or education. Undocumented immigrants are also not allowed to work under U.S. law. As a result, they face more risk of labor exploitation and sex trafficking because others can threaten to report them to the authorities for being unauthorized.

International attitudes toward migration, refugees, and asylum largely took shape in the wake of World War II. In the aftermath of the war, an estimated twenty million people were displaced in Europe alone. After the war, the newly formed United Nations declared that anyone had the right to seek asylum in other countries if they feared persecution in their own. The United Nations adopted treaties establishing the rights of refugees and the responsibilities of nations toward them. One of the most important of these responsibilities is the fundamental principle of non-refoulement, which forbids a country from returning refugees to a country in which they would likely be in danger. Crucially, these treaties require countries to provide asylum to those who have entered without authorization but are found to meet the established definition of a refugee. The United States officially adopted the UN definition of refugee in 1980 with the Refugee Act. This established an annual refugee admissions cap that the president can adjust from year to year, and standardized asylum processes. 

International arrangements established to aid refugees have proven helpful but ultimately inadequate to deal with the amount of different people in the world who are forced to move away from their home region. The UN definition of a refugee provides only a general basis for determining refugee status, leaving the interpretation of what persecution means largely up to individual governments. Governments willing to accept refugees could be reluctant to accept and provide for large numbers of these migrants. Moreover, determining a migrant’s status can be challenging because many people migrate both for economic reasons and because they fear war, violence, or persecution. Migrants from the Northern Triangle are no exception; most make the difficult journey north for a variety of reasons, and often more than one. 

Much of the current increase in immigration to the United States is rooted in worsening economic and security conditions in the countries of migrants’ origin—particularly those in El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras. The Northern Triangle countries are among the poorest in the Western Hemisphere. They suffer from intense economic inequality and violence. Homicide rates in the Northern Triangle are among the world’s highest. Throughout the 2010s, a large majority of those crossing the U.S.-Mexico border from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras have reported fleeing extortion or physical threats from gangs. Children are particularly vulnerable, as they often face a choice between recruitment into the local gang or death. In 2019, El Salvador and Honduras had Latin America’s highest rates of femicide (murders of women and girls). The region’s governments suffer from high levels of corruption and lack institutions and social services that could effectively combat these problems. In addition, changing climate conditions increase the likelihood of droughts and other natural disasters, further driving migration from the region. 

All of these reasons lead many people to leave their home countries in search of increased safety or greater opportunity. Those making the journey north face a long and perilous route. Many migrants hire coyotes (smugglers) for assistance during their journey, putting themselves at risk of abuse and violence. Kidnapping and death—from accidents, violence, injury, and illness—are also major threats. Recent immigration trends show that more unaccompanied children and families are migrating from the Northern Triangle, resulting in more women and girls than ever making the dangerous journey.

Upon arriving in the United States, asylum seekers need to turn themselves over to U.S. officials and make an asylum declaration. The next step is an interview to determine whether the asylum seeker faces a “credible fear of persecution” if they return to their home country. Those who do not pass the interview can be deported in a matter of days. Although 90 percent of asylum seekers pass the credible fear interview, doing so only allows them to proceed to the next step in the process: making their case in immigration court. Asylum seekers can wait years for their cases to be heard, as U.S. immigration courts face a chronic backlog of hundreds of thousands of cases. As migrants wait, their futures remain uncertain. During this time, they need to house and support themselves as well as complete paperwork to secure employment authorization. A successful court hearing leads to permanent residency, the right to work, and a path to citizenship. A denial can be appealed, entailing another multiyear wait. If the appeal is denied, asylum seekers then need to decide whether to leave the United States or attempt to remain without authorization.

As the backlog of those awaiting asylum determinations grows, so does displacement from the Northern Triangle. According to the UNHCR, between 2011 and 2016 the number of people from the Northern Triangle who sought refuge in surrounding countries rose 2,249 percent and is expected to continue to grow. Managing migration flows is therefore an increasingly urgent challenge for policymakers.