Everyone Who Is Gone Is Here: The United States, Central America, and the Making of a Crisis

by Jonathan Blitzer

Typically, maize was planted in April, prior to a period of extended rain; in 2018, however, both May and June were dry. “No one knows whether to plant their crops or not,” López said. “When do you do it? If the rains don’t come at a predictable time, how do you know? These crops are for survival. If there aren’t crops, people leave.” In places like these, the question was no longer if someone would emigrate but when. Extended periods of heat and dryness, known as canículas, had increased in four of the past seven years. Yet even measurements of annual rainfall, which was projected to decline over the next fifty years, obscured the effects of its growing irregularity on agriculture. At the border, American officials often spoke in seasonal generalities: more immigrants arrived in the spring when the weather was mild, fewer attempted the journey in the summer heat. But in the spring and summer months of 2018, the deterrent effects of zero tolerance were moot where people were starving.