There is a growing presence of Muslim migrants in the American continent
Migration is not a new phenomenon, sometimes it is not even important for many governments, but globalization and the lack of opportunities in the native countries is an increasingly notable reality in many countries in Africa and the Middle East. Wars, economic crises, hunger, disease or lack of work are one of the many conditions that force thousands of people to leave their borders in search of a better life. And whoever leaves their country not only becomes a migrant, but also a person with a culture, with faith and with beliefs that many times mean an aggravating factor in the horror of reaching a better country.
In this case, the novelty lies in America and in the increasing presence of Muslim migrants on the continent from African and Asian countries. There are no official figures on the flows of Muslim immigrants through the Latin American route, but organizations that help immigrants in the region report that their numbers have been increasing.
These migrants, in addition to facing the usual difficulties of traveling north, such as the exploitation of coyotes, those mafias that secretly transport illegal immigrants sometimes in exchange for money between Mexico and the United States, also face difficulties added by the place of origin, such as religious prejudices along the way and obstacles related to the observance of your faith.
Latin America is the gateway
In any case, it all starts with entering Latin America. According to the latest data from the Islamic Organization for Latin America (OIAL), there are currently large concentrations of Muslims, both immigrants and natives of the place, which exceed the number of six million. One of the main gateways for Muslim migrants and refugees is in Brazil, which has some more than 1,500,000 followers of Islam, followed by Argentina with 700,000.
These migrants and refugees have traditionally seen Brazil as a transit country when arriving in America, especially in recent years due to the country’s economic decline and lack of opportunities. This transitory country would only be the beginning of the Latin American route that migrants travel to the United States as their final destination.
Nevertheless, the arrival of the coronavirus pandemic in 2020 further accentuated the difficulties of these migratory movements. To the closing of the borders of the Latin American States, the expulsions of the United States are added. According to the public health order issued in March of that year by the Trump Administration, the expulsions were justified on the grounds that the migrants were carrying COVID-19 to the United States. That is why the Mexican border city of Chiapas received daily flights from people expelled from the United States, which increased asylum applications made by July 2021 by 70%.
Then the cities that were foreseen to be transitory become the final destination. “They enter Brazil with tourist visas and then apply for refugee status”affirmed Paolo Parise, director of the Catholic center for immigrants Misión Paz in the city of Sao Paolo, who also affirmed the high number of migrants from Southeast Asia, the Middle East and African countries in recent years. “I estimate that 20% of all the people we received in 2020 were Muslim,” he added.
The power of humanitarian aid
Despite the increase in the Muslim population in Latin America, this religion remains a minority throughout the continent that faces various difficulties. The lack of knowledge among the largest population of Islamic culture and religion, the lack of formal teaching of both the Arabic and Spanish languages or the lack of financial resources hinder integration in the Caribbean and Latin American countries.
But nevertheless, many groups have maintained their identity and have decided to collaborate in supporting Muslim communities. So much so that the presence of migrants in Latin America from Muslim countries in North Africa and the Middle East also leaves great examples of humanitarian aid for all migrants. The Latina Muslim Foundation project is an example of this. There they are in charge of building shelters for migrants to whom they offer food and shelter, medical and psychological assistance and even offer spaces for prayer. With this, the organization also offers legal assistance for all those Muslim migrants who want to request asylum in a country.
This project has had a particularly relevant job since last summer of 2021 for offering to host people of Afghan origin. The Taliban’s seizure of power in Afghanistan caused thousands of people to flee the country as refugees, a reality that was soon addressed from the Latin Muslim Foundation that began to build a shelter in Tijuana, Mexico, for the reception of Afghan refugees.
Despite this, humanitarian aid aimed at Muslim migrants is not many, and with so many difficulties, most of these end up seeking help from Catholic institutions. Misión Paz, the Catholic Church for Latin America or the Caribbean Network on Migration, Refugees and Human Trafficking are only three of all those that exist throughout the center and south of the American continent.
End of the journey: the United States and Islamophobia
That Muslims have an increasing presence in the United States is a fact, but it is no less true that they face an enormously polarized society that leads to the Islamophobia towards all those American Muslims or migrants.
In any case, and according to the latest data provided by the Pew Research Center (PRC), there are currently more than 3.85 billion Muslims in the United States, a figure that allows us to intuit the exponential growth of the followers of Islam in the country. The number of Muslim places of worship has also increased, counting more than 2,769 mosques in 2020, according to the Congregational Sutudies Partnership.
But as their numbers have increased, Muslims have also reported encountering more discrimination in the country. Especially after the September 11 attacks, Islamophobia grew exponentially, making Muslims have to strive to maintain their existence in all spaces of society. During the Trump Administration in early 2017, about half of American Muslim adults, 48%, said they had experienced some form of discrimination because of their religion, according to a PRC study. And it is that American society believes that Islam is more likely than others to promote violence, emerging a partisan division between Republicans and Democrats on this issue.
However, they are several organizations that today make themselves felt in the Muslim community in the United States and that fight against this Islamophobia and for civil rights. The Islamic Association of North America (ISNA), the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA), the Muslim Society of America (MAS), and the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) are the four main organizations seeking to carry out these tasks.
The Triple Frontier: the origin of prejudice
The meeting of The boundaries between Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay has been a focus of controversy for the last thirty years that has involved a flourishing Islamic community. Not on a few occasions this so-called Triple Border has been identified as a refuge for international jihadist terrorism. It is believed to be a meeting point between Central American drug cartels and radical Islamists, allegedly under the complicity of governments and local authorities that do not administer justice there. Similarly, what happens there cannot be confirmed with certainty, but it may be the possible case of the creation of prejudices against Islam.
Since the terrorist attacks in Argentina in 1992 and 1994 and even the attacks of September 11, 2001, they were cause enough for, especially the United States, put the magnifying glass on the Triple Frontier. However, these accusations have nothing to do with these cases because in reality this community is only made up of merchants and businessmen, in addition to not having a sufficient magnitude to allow such actions to be carried out.
On the other hand, the community could be related to financing for armed groups in Syria and Lebanon, such as Hezbollah or Daesh. So much so that in 2018 he was arrested Assad Ahmad Barakat, in charge of managing the finances of the organization for all of Latin America and the Caribbean, in the Brazilian city of Foz do Iguazú.
The Triple Frontier, in any case, presents a challenge for the region in many ways. The global context and the accusations greatly fuel the sentiment of Islamophobia, which ultimately only further harms the delicate situation of Muslims in Latin America, many of them migrants.
Ahmed Kabeer, the real face of migration
Ahmed Kabeer flees mutilated from the conflicts produced in Sudan towards a place that is not the Mediterranean. The United States is their final destination, but the hundreds of kilometers that divide the two points are nothing but a furrow of hope carved out of the horrors left by the Latin American routes. “In Africa there are many problems. There is no work and there is a lot of corruption “explains the 34-year-old Sudanese man to the AFP news agency.
“I discovered that it is not difficult to obtain a visa to go to Brazil,” Ahmed said. Since his landing, the young man has traveled several kilometers by land, which he hopes will lead to “a safe place where he can speak English, like the United States or Canada.” From Sao Paulo, where he arrived in America, he went through Peru, Ecuador and Colombia, from where he hopes to go to Panama and continue on his way to North America. However, what he fears the most is crossing the jungle corridor of the Darien Gap, between Colombia and Panama, a route that usually takes about ten weeks and in which you can suffer violence, both physical and psychological.
Ahmed may be the human face of Muslim migrants in Latin America, at least one of the more than 5,000 people who crossed Panama in the year before the pandemic and possibly of those people crammed into temporary shelters, if not on the street, due to the closure of borders.
Latin America Coordinator: Jose Antonio Sierra
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