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Calling Upon the Sacred: Migrants' Use of Religion in the Migration Process
International Migration Review . Winter 2003, vol. 37. no. 4, pp. 1145-1163.
Hagan, Jacqueline. Ebaugh, Helen Rose
Abstracted by: Leah Persky
Abstract:
This article explores the role religion plays throughout the migration process. The authors believe the religious component to migration has been overlooked by most research and literature in sociology and immigration studies. They explain how religion plays a very important role in the migration process, by providing spiritual resources, informing the decision to migrate, influencing attitudes of migrants, and creating social networks. The authors study a Maya community from the western highlands of Guatemala, and their ties to Houston, Texas. Through field study in both the highlands of Guatemala and Houston , the authors have found migrants and their families to increasingly turn to the Pentecostal church as a result of the increasing dangers of migration. The town the researchers focused on in Guatemala has strong ties to Houston, as a great number of townspeople have migrated there. The cost of undocumented travel to the U.S. both in terms of expense and danger has increased a great deal in the past few years, causing residents to turn increasingly towards the Pentecostal church for counsel, prophesizing and religious services. The authors paid special attention to services called ayunos, which are informal prayer services, where pastors who lead them are believed to have the power to hear the will of God and to predict the future. Many people attend ayunos, in order to hear the pastor's final decision on if their migration should take place and if so when their migration should take place. The authors found that as undocumented travel becomes more difficult, the number of ayunos, and the people attending them increases dramatically. The authors support the idea that for many Pentecostal Maya: "The decision to migrate, though driven by economic considerations, can ultimately be based on the advice or premonitions of Pentecostal pastors. . . (and) helps the migrants and their families feel more comfortable with whatever decision is made." (p.1152)
The authors divide the migration process into six stages: deciding whether or not to migrate, preparing for the journey, the journey, the arrival, the role of the ethnic church in immigrant settlement, and the development of transnational religious linkages. Through out the migration process, the migrants keep in touch with their home community, family, and pastors through phone calls, mail and in the later stages by visiting family in Guatemala. The concluding hypothesis the authors make is that migrants come to rely more heavily on religion when they feel little or no control over their situation, and when they must confront many risks during their journey. This being the case, the authors believe that religion will be an important component/resource for other groups of undocumented migrants around the world. They see evidence of their hypothesis in other groups such as undocumented catholic Mexicans. They briefly mention that particular religious beliefs and practices of Pentecostalism may account for the use of religion in undocumented travel, but more research across religious groups must be undertaken to test this hypothesis.
Peacebuilding in a war zone: the case of Colombian peace communities.
International Peacekeeping , Summer 2003, vol. 10, no. 2, pp. 107-118.
Sanford , V.
Muggah, H.C.
Abstracted by: Lisa Kunkel
Abstract:
This article analyzes the role of different governmental and non-governmental institutions in supporting Colombian peace communities and is based on the authors experience with a UNHCR-sponsored delegation. Colombia ’s peace communities are formed by internally displaced people who have chosen to return to their communities of origin and to declare the neutrality of their community in the civil conflict. With the support of local, national, and international organizations, they prohibit the entrance of armed actors into their community whether they be governmental, paramilitary, or guerilla. Peace communities are assisted through accompaniment, material aid, and promotion of national and international awareness and scrutiny. Each of the supporting organizations and state agencies shares the goals of community protection and humanitarian aid. However, the author argues that they employ different strategies of protection, some of which more effectively support peace communities and their self-determination. The UNHCR strategies tend to focus on “state strengthening” measures that will aid IDPs. However, in the case of the Colombian government, the state’s ties to paramilitary organizations and the strength of the military are principle sources of displacement and violence. Given these dominant forces, state agencies that are part of the human rights apparatus are relatively weak, with little or no enforcement potential. In this particular case study the author and the UNHCR-sponsored delegation, made up of state and non-state agencies at the international, national, and local level attempted to escort a small peace community in a journey to join with a larger community in order to deter potential massacres. The state’s human rights representatives were willing to abandon the IDPs when their own security was threatened. To make matters worse, they blamed aborting their protective mission on international volunteers claiming that they needed to protect the “gringas”. Though this was not a truthful account, international NGOs did pull out of high risk accompaniment missions. A new delegation with local church-based NGOs (and the author of the article) returned to the community and successfully accompanied them to the larger peace community. They were stopped by guerilla and paramilitary forces that threatened violence to community members. However, through church based NGO solidarity, the new delegation and peace community members were able to keep one another safe. Given this experience, the author concludes that the human rights regime ought to focus on empowering IDPs and peace communities, rather than state strengthening measures. As the strength of peace communities and their supporters grow, there is more leverage and legitimacy to pressure the state to prevent displacement and provide adequate support to effected citizens rather than being a key actor in violence and displacement.
The Rise and Fall of "Internally Displaced People" in the Central Peruvian Andes
Development & Change, 2001, vol. 32, no. 4, pp. 769-791(22)
Stepputat, F. and Sorensen, N.
Abstracted by: Hayden Gore
Abstract:
In the 1980s, the Peruvian Central Highlands saw a dramatic increase in terrorist activity as the Maoist guerilla group Sendero Luminoso (SL) engaged the Peruvian military in armed conflict. As a result, the region experienced a significant rise in the number of massacres, assassinations, rapes, and destruction of property, which displaced many thousands of people from rural areas under the control of the SL to urban centers still controlled by the government. Beginning in the early 1990s, the category of "internally displaced person" or IDP, was introduced into the lexicon of transnational NGOs and government agencies in order to describe those individuals that had fled the violence in the Central Andes. Though this appellation helped to publicize the plight of the displaced by endowing them with a group identity and, therefore, enhancing their bargaining power for assistance from the state and international NGOs, the authors of the article argue that the term was sometimes wrongly applied. Due to historic patterns of migration, many of the more prosperous peasants of Central Peru's Montaro Valley had developed dual sources of income from both rural agriculture and urban commerce. However, when they fled the violence in the rural areas of the Valley and relocated in the departmental capital of Huancayo in the 1980s, they were forced to shift from their rural/urban mobile livelihoods to an exclusively urban existence. In many ways, this shift imperiled the economic stability that agricultural production had always offered them. According to the authors, the "internally displaced" label applied to these individuals discounted the degree to which they had oscillated back and forth between rural and urban settings and wrongly categorized them as an exclusively static, rural population. International NGOs tended to deemphasize the fact of their livelihoods because it made the "displaced" people's story less compelling " presumably international donors would not respond to the story of people who fled their homes in the country for their homes in the city. Additionally, government negotiators embraced this concept and insisted that any resettlement would have to be permanent and exclusive to rural areas, reducing the mobility these people had previously enjoyed between the two settings. As a result, the authors argue that this mis-categorization hindered the resettled communities by limiting their ability to resume their mobile urban/rural livelihoods, leaving them economically vulnerable and dependent on aid programs that more closely resembled emergency assistance than long-term development strategies.
Women's Political Consciousness and Empowerment in Local, National and Transnational Contexts: Guatemalan Refugees and Returnees
Identities, 2001, vol. 7, no. 4, pp. 461-500(40)
Pessar, Patricia R.
Abstracted by: Hayden Gore
Abstract:
In the early 1980s, the Guatemalan military initiated a scorched earth" campaign that attempted to annihilate the country's guerilla insurgency by targeting its base of support among indigenous people of the Guatemalan western highlands. The resulting violence caused an estimated 200,000 Guatemalans to flee into neighboring Mexico, where they settled in refugee camps and received support from the Mexican government, the UNHCR, and international NGOs. In these camps, indigenous Guatemalan women encountered an international refugee regime that was just beginning to take the special needs of refugee women into consideration in the provision of protection, economic assistance, and human rights education. This new approach reflected an emerging acknowledgement within the UNHCR and among international NGOs of the importance of empowering women to engage in the camps" decision-making process and the search for durable solutions to their predicament. Encouraged by their new contacts with these transnational organizations, indigenous refugee women began to organize and assert themselves under a new feminist consciousness that emphasized women's autonomy and inherent equality to men. As a result, indigenous women began to recognize and claim citizenship rights within the transnational context of the refugee camp in ways that had not been possible in the gender-biased local or national context of Guatemala. The author, therefore, describes the refugee camps in Mexico as sites of a liberating "feminist conscientization" that challenged the predominate view of women refugees as despondent, downtrodden and marginalized victims. This burgeoning feminist consciousness among refugee women was best reflected in the emergence of Mam" Maqu"n, a women's organization that at its height boasted about 8,000 members within the Mexican camps.
Despite the achievements of Guatemalan refugee women in organizing themselves and asserting broad-based citizen rights for the first time, the author offers their story as a cautionary tale of what happens when refugee women are resettled to their country of origin, abandoned by the transnational organizations that once supported them as refugees, and newly subjugated by a state that is hostile to ideas of female empowerment. Though certain gains remain, the author concludes that much of the progress that women made in the refugee camps has eroded due to deceitful male leadership that happily returned to its hegemonic position once resettled within Guatemala, a gender-biased Guatemalan state, and the relative abandonment of refugee women by the UNHCR and the international NGOs that once vigorously supported their empowerment.
Guatemalan Returnees and the Dilemma of Political Mobilization
Journal of Refugee Studies, 1997, vol. 10, no. 1, pp. 61-78(18)
Krznaric, Roman
Abstracted by: Hayden Gore
Abstract:
In the late 1980s, Guatemalan refugees living in camps in the three Mexican states (Chiapas, Campeche and Quintana Roo) established Permanent Commissions of Guatemalan Refugees (CCPP) in order to negotiate with the Guatemalan government for the right of a collective return. On October 8, 1992, the Guatemalan government and the CCPP agreed to allow the refugees to return and guaranteed them freedom of association, freedom of movement, right to life and personal security, as well as access to land. At the time of the returns Guatemalan refugees were thought to share a unifying sense of common identity, shaped from their experience in the camps and their struggle for recognition from the Guatemalan government. This article, however, suggests that any attempts to see the Guatemalan refugees as a monolithic, cohesive community are inaccurate and asserts that the high level of political mobilization achieved among refugees in the camps (once seen as a source of their extraordinary unity) actually created internal conflicts that negatively impacted their ability to negotiate for development projects and rights protections in the resettled communities. According to the author, the political mobilization of previously undetermined groups (such as women in the case of Mam" Maqu"n) and their appropriation of human rights language (which was acquired in the transnational space of the camps) created a complex system of competing power centers that eventually challenged the authority of the CCPP. The resulting discord has manifested itself in disputes over control of local resources and a general disagreement about the extent to which the returned communities should cooperate with the government and private industry in local development projects. While the author acknowledges that such conflicts could be interpreted as indications of a flourishing, participatory democracy in returned communities, he asserts that these divisions and the resulting political fragmentation has almost certainly impaired their ability to present a unified front in the struggle with the government to gain full implementation of the rights contained in the October 1992 refugee accord.
Risks, Safeguards, and Reconstruction: A Model for Population Displacement and Resettlement
Risks and Reconstruction: Experiences of Refugees and Settlers, Washington , D.C. : The World Bank: 11-55.
Cernea M.
Abstracted by: Lisa Kunkel
SEE LISTING ON REFUGEE PAGE
Conflict-Induced Displacement and Involuntary Resettlement in Colombia : Putting Cernea’s IRLR model to the Test. Disasters, 2000, vol. 24, no. 3, pp. 198-216.
Muggah, H.C.
Abstracted by: Lisa Kunkel
Abstract:
The author explores the utility and applicability of a model designed for development induced displacement (DID) for conflict induced displacement (CID). Cernea’s Impoverishment Risks and Livelihood Reconstruction model (IRLR) is applied to the experiences of internally displaced people in Colombia. The author argues that Cernea’s model is an improvement over cost-benefit frameworks but is perhaps too narrowly focused on economic issues. Some risk dimensions are added to the model in order to account for the impact of conflict induced displacement including access to education, opportunities to participate in the political process, and the ongoing risk of violence. According to the author, a more fundamental limitation of the model is that it is “effects based” and does not address the human rights violations that precipitate displacement. Application of the IRLR model is also less problematic in DID than CID because the state can prepare for resettlement and may have more of a political incentive to do so in order to enhance the popularity of large-scale development projects. Conflict displacement is much less predictable and poses greater challenges to planning and intervention. The author also highlights important features of the Colombian case to illustrate both the advantages and shortcoming of the IRLR model. Government, guerilla and paramilitary forces all play a role in conflict induced displacement in Colombia . As such, both the blame and responsibility are dispersed and the state feels less pressured to address the needs of IDPs. The pattern of conflict displacement in Colombia also poses challenges for comprehensive resettlement and redevelopment. Families often initially move to a nearby town or community so that they can periodically check on their land and property with the hope that they may be able to return when the conflict de-escalates. The result is that IDPs make multiple moves before reaching a resettlement community. By then it is quite possible that certain impoverishment risks have taken their toll. The author evaluates impoverishment risks for both rural and semi-urban IDP resettlements to empirically evaluate the model. She concludes that the IRLR model provides a useful set of criteria for assessing problems that arose for IDP communities, particularly when modifications for CID were included. Increased impoverishment according to IRLR variables is documented in both communities. Within the communities, perceptions of risk differed according to age and gender. For example, adult men worried primarily about the lack of employment, whereas women were often concerned with their children’s access to education (which also impacts whether women can work during the day). Adolescents sited violence as their primary concern in addition to worries about their future. Though the model provides a fairly comprehensive assessment and analysis tool, the intervention component is quite difficult to utilize in the case of Colombian IDPs. The idea of being able to turn factors “on their head” is less plausible in the Colombian conflict than in the context of DID given the state’s inability to plan for CID, as well as the state’s complicity with causes of displacement and its lack of political will to address an overwhelming problem.
Beneath the Rio Negro
Sierra Magazine, November/December 2000, pp. 73-75
McConahay M.
Abstracted by: Christine VanDerwill
Abstract:
This article gives an overview of the forced migration that took place in the highlands of Guatemala as a result of a World Bank-subsidized development project and the subsequent plight of the environmental refugees displaced from 15 villages in the Rio Negro Valley. The author presents an ecological dimension to the conflict in Guatemala, while drawing upon issues of refugee protection and resource allocation. In 1975 the Guatemalan government began plans for the construction of the Chixoy hydroelectric dam in the Rio Negro Valley. The project completed in the early 1980s has displaced 5,000 Achi Maya Indians from their ancestral lands and villages. The author suggests that the relative scale of movement as a result of the Chixoy dam compared to other contemporary dam projects in China and India is minimal; however, the consequences for the Achi Maya Indians have been as equally fatal. The land was a source of livelihood for the villagers, as well as a link to their Mayan past and culture. The ancestors of the Achi Maya had lived in the Rio Negro Valley for at least a thousand years and sacred ceremonial and burial sites were flooded. The Achi Maya were never consulted on the project nor was any dialogue facilitated between the government and the villagers to discuss the project. Initial protests on the part of the Maya led to the promise of relocation and possible compensation from the government. However, between 1980 and 1982, the efforts to negotiate and organize dissipated as civil patrollers and soldiers raped, kidnapped and killed the protestors. The author illustrates that environmental refugees can easily fall victim to acts of violence during times of conflict and certainly require the same legal and physical protection as political refugees. Civilian populations are increasingly the targets of military action as was the case in Guatemala's violent civil war. Initially, the massacre at Rio Negro became another tragedy in the war and the government was quick to brand the Achi Maya as guerillas or subversives essentially legitimizing the killings. By 1983 the dam project was completed and the remaining Achi Maya were displaced to sites closer to major towns and military bases. Living in resettlement schemes hours from their ancestral lands, the reorganized Achi Maya have pursued legal action - three of the civil patrollers from the 1982 massacre have been brought to trial and a forensic anthropology team has been assigned to research remains found in the Rio Negro Valley. In concluding, the author points to the irony of the displaced Achi living in towns where electricity is scarce and firewood is found hours away by foot. This further underscores the impact that access to resources " in particular land and water " has on both environmental and political refugees in forming durable solutions in resettlement and integration.
Guatemalan Refugees and Returnees: Local Geography and Maya Identity
Center for Research on Latin America and the Caribbean, Working Papers Series, York University, May 1997, No. 11, Nolin Hanlon C.
Abstracted by: Christine VanDerwill
Abstract:
The present-day Maya of Guatemala are one of the most geographically dispersed indigenous societies in the Americas . This article examines Maya patterns of flight, exile and return during and after the violent civil war of the 1980s and how the process of resettlement and return has shaped the identity of the Maya. Focusing on the Maya who fled into the Southern Mexican state of Chiapas , the author contends that the decision of flight was a political response to counterinsurgency military operations in the highlands of Northwestern Guatemala . Historical-roots with Chiapas coupled with proximity and a familiar landscape made flight from their ancestral lands into Chiapas a logical geographical response. An overview of exile in Mexico and the avenues of return follow with a focus on the advent of collective voluntary return developed by the Maya in an attempt to return to their lands under starkly different conditions from those which they fled. Voluntary repatriation and resettlement into refugees camps located on the Yucatan Peninsula were met with resistance and the Maya began an unprecedented effort to organize themselves and engage in negotiations. Continued land reform schemes and lack of political will on the part of the Guatemalan government factored in to a slow repatriation process. Impediments to return included low intensity violence, intimidation by the military, denial of access to former lands and denial of land credits. Bowing under pressure from the military and economic elite, the Guatemalan government failed to guarantee the safe return of the exiled. Regardless, the desire to return home to their places of birth even under perilous conditions underscores the strong bond the Maya have to their ancestral lands. In the latter part of the article a link between geography and cultural identity is presented. Two key elements of exile and displacement " the shifting of place and the passing of time " are presented as contributing to a metamorphosis in the identity of the Maya. An identity formally based on connections to land and birth place is transformed by the creation of new communities formed in refugee camps and in exile over the course of a decade. Communities of association and a unified political voice are illustrated as complementing "birthplace" and municipal ties in forming identity. The changing perceptions and powers of the Guatemalan government and dominating class challenge the Maya identity as well. In conclusion, the author maintains that culture and ethnic identity is dynamic particularly for those Maya that have been in exile and struggle to return to their homeland. The resultant transformation of the Maya will also contribute to the restructuring of Guatemala, future geographic movements and prospects for returning populations.
"A Dark Obverse": Maya Survival in Guatemala ,: 1520-1994
Geographical Review, Latin American Geography, July 1996, Vol. 86, No. 3, pp. 398-407
Lovell G.; Lutz C.
Abstracted by: Christine VanDerwill
Abstract:
From the time of the Spanish conquest the Maya Indians of Guatemala have endured warfare, slavery, disease, exploitation, forced migration and resettlement. In spite of these atrocities, the Maya have sustained a population growth rarely recorded in Native American cultures. This article examines democratic trends of the Maya in Guatemala dating from the time of the Spanish conquest (1520) to present-day (1994) with emphasis on the percentage of Maya in relation to the total population of Guatemala. It provides a historical and geographical context in which to analyze the marginalization of the Maya by the state of Guatemala despite their ability to maintain a decreased but significant population inside of and out of Guatemala. The data outlined in the article indicates a significant decline in population during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries"owing in large part to disease - followed by significant recovery and growth until the end of the nineteenth century. By the 1880s the Maya constituted nearly 70% of the total population of Guatemala; however, growth would decline in subsequent decades and by the 1960's the Maya constituted only 42% of the total population. From this point on the Maya would officially be a minority within Guatemala and an ethnic and numerical inferiority would now coincide. The decreases in population are attributed to labor reform and consequent forced migration and later seasonal migration from the Highlands to the Pacific piedmont under Guatemala's developing commercial agricultural programs. It is argued that the massive movements out of their ancestral lands in the Highlands and the subsequent disruption to sedentary life contributed to lower fertility rates. The authors also point to the possibility of inadequate documentation and statistical manipulation" on the part of the Guatemalan government in an attempt to illustrate a "whitening" of the overall population. The civil wars of the 1970s and 1980s further uprooted the Maya and led to massive flight and resettlement into Mexico , the United States and Canada which further obscures official census counts. Looking at present-day figures, the authors estimate that 5 to 6 million Maya have survived the recent civil war, and although many are internally displaced and nearly 1 million have migrated to the U.S. and Canada , they still account for a significant portion of Guatemala s population. The authors conclude that Maya population history and trends are significant in a socio-political context when looking at how the Maya fit into the modern day nation-state of Guatemala and their future prospects to gain cultural and political equality. As the Maya resettle in exile and repatriate to their ancestral lands in Guatemala their capacity to sustain population levels will be a critical factor in shaping modern Guatemala.
The Bella Vista of Belizean Refugees
Migration World Magazine, Volume XXVII No. 3, 1999, pp. 26-28
Author?
Abstracted by: Christy Jeziorski [2010]
Abstract:
Bella Vista is one of 18 resettlement areas for refugees in Belize. The area "accepted" mestizo refugees from Central America, beginning with refugees from El Salvador entering the country in the 1970s, due to growing violence and overcrowding. In the mid-1980s, Guatemalans fled their country due to the civil war. These migrations shifted the ethnic population structure of Belize, where today, mestizos make up about 40% of Belize's population, 75% of whom are refugees. This article focuses on conflicting land lease claims in Southern Belize and the Bella Vista resettlement area in particular, among the mestizo refugees and Belizean nationals, including the Creole, Garifuna, and Maya populations. Expanding Mayan populations and refugees were competing against each other in leasing land in the settlement areas. The settlement area of Bella Vista was mainly comprised of refugees who initially resided in illegal squatter settlements on unused land on large farms, and in particular, on a neighboring banana plantation for nearly 5 years. Most of the refugees worked there. In response to complaints by the Belize Banana Growers Association, the Refugee Department and Lands Office in conjunction with the UNHCR procured land from an absentee Honduran lease holder and moved the refugees to Bella Vista in 1996. Since then, many of those who worked on the banana plantations continue to do so, although they do so under extenuating circumstances. The walk to and from Bella Vista is 3 hours each way. In addition, residents of Bella Vista are not given access to electricity and water, and do not receive police protection. Bella Vista was "partnered" with San Juan, a neighboring village some 15 kilometers away to handle civic matters, yet residents of Bella Vista do not receive the benefits or protections that have been promised to them. The residents of Bella Vista desired to establish a junta to raise issues with the ministry, yet the government refused to recognize this process. The article describes additional issues regarding rights and protection such as the Government of Belize refusing to grant asylum to refugees, stating that the fear of probable persecution on return to home countries has disappeared in Central America due to a variety of regional negotiated peace settlements. Yet, despite such ill treatment and lack of rights, some refugees still believe that their lives are better in regard to wages and standards of living.
Fertility among Central American Refugees and Immigrants in Belize
Human Organization, 1993, Volume 52, No. 2, p. 186-193
Moss, Nancy, Michael C. Stone, and Jason B. Smith
Abstracted by: Debbie Martinez [2010]
Abstract:
This article, written in the early 1990s, carefully examines the influx of Salvadoran and Guatemalan immigrants into Belize throughout the 1980s. At the time, civil wars were taking place in both El Salvador and Guatemala; therefore, a large number of migrants sought refuge in neighboring countries. The authors investigate three settlements in Belize and develop a study that examines the correlation between displaced women, their legal status, and the rates at which they had children. Women were placed in one of three classified groups " refugees, displaced persons without legal status, or permanent residents. Their study explored the women's desired family size, their views on family planning, and methods of contraception they were aware of. The authors found that the women without legal residency status were the most interested in family planning with the least amount of knowledge on contraceptive methods. Therefore, the authors chose to further examine the health services and education available to the women living in these settlements. Three key components of the Belizean health services at the time were the availability of free primary and hospital care for residents, readily available contraception, and free family planning assistance. Evidently, the reproduction rights of displaced women were being considered. However, it was not a requirement to refer all displaced persons (including those without legal residency status) to these family health services. According to the authors, it should not only be an obligation to provide these services, specifically health education, to all the women living in these settlements, but they should also be presented in a way that is sensitive to their cultural and linguistic needs. These Salvadoran and Guatemalan displaced women were concerned with family planning, but suffered from an inequitable distribution of contraception and health education. The authors conclude their article by offering a compelling argument towards the importance of introducing these health services to all displaced women, regardless of their legal status.
Colombia: The Ignored Humanitarian Crisis
The University of Miami Inter-American Law Review 31 (3): 439-62.
De La Asuncion, A.
Abstracted by: Jonathan Page [2010]
Abstract:
This article advocates for the provision of Temporary Protective Status (TPS) for Colombians; in doing so, it imparts a thorough description of the present situation and examination of court rulings regarding asylum seekers. The author finds that while the United States claims to have an open door policy for those fleeing persecution and even describes itself as a safe harbor, the current legal situation fails to provide adequate protection for Colombian asylees. Due to the lack of media coverage and international attention, the current state of affairs is not widely known worldwide and continues to remain ignored. This is despite the fact that Colombia is the only country within the region which is still affected by a civil war, and that its population of internally displaced people was estimated at one million in 1997 (with only the IDP populations of Sudan, Angola, and Afghanistan surpassing theirs). The author finds that the United States has a severe general misunderstanding concerning the crisis in Colombia. This is evidenced by the Supreme Court case of INS v. Elias-Zacarias in 1992, which ruled that coercion by a guerilla organization does not necessarily constitute persecution for asylum purposes because an alien's decision to remain neutral during civil strife does not satisfy their interpretation of a political opinion. De La Asuncion details Colombia's history of civil war, providing a description of the parties involved, including guerilla groups, the Colombian armed forces, and paramilitary groups as well as the alleged human rights abuses each group has been accused of. She goes on to state that refugee policy in the United States is heavily influenced by foreign policy, as the US is hesitant to imply that a nation with whom the government has a favorable relationship is persecuting its citizens. The author finds that the provision of TPS to persecuted Colombians is the ideal solution. TPS was introduced under the Immigration Act of 1990 and allows the United States to provide protection to individuals whose native countries are experiencing civil strife and who do not meet the criteria for being granted refugee status. In addition, De La Asuncion points out that TPS would allow the US government a way in which to provide protection to individuals without making negative judgments in regards to foreign governments. Until the US government realizes that the decision to remain neutral in Colombia's armed conflict is, in fact, a political decision that often results in persecution, thousands of Colombians will be denied political asylum, which is a critical need.
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