Kensy Michell E. Zelaya Sabillon
The Migration Crisis:
Globalization and the Destabilization of Central America
Central American migration has been a controversial topic in the United States, as migrants are often framed as a threat to national security. These mainstream accounts fail to explore the role of the U.S. itself in spurring the migration crisis. This paper explains how Central America was destabilized as its national economies were restructured through neoliberal policy reforms. How did Central America’s integration into U.S.-led global capitalism set the groundwork for the migration crisis of the 2010s? Central America faced a debt crisis in the 1980s that spurred the integration of the region into globalizing capitalism. Neoliberal policy reforms benefited an emerging Transnational Capitalist Class, but undercut working class living standards, as social welfare programs were rolled back, access to education limited, and employment opportunities diminished. This research adopts a multi-level analytic approach that: 1) examines global capitalism at a structural level; and 2) uses ethnographic interviewing to provide evidence of personal struggles of migrants caused by neoliberal globalization. This analysis is important because it challenges mainstream narratives that the Central American migration crisis is due to national level failures. Additionally, this research unearths the direct impacts of globalization at an individual level.