The journey of Central American migrants to the U.S. border â a perilous trip across thousands of miles of mountains and deserts â starts in places like the dry corridor in western Honduras.
Many of the regionâs 1 million small farmers still live in adobe huts with no running water. Corrupt Honduran officials have invested too little in stabilizing or modernizing the region, allowing violent gangs to extort families. Recent droughts and hurricanes have created widespread hunger.
These longstanding problems throughout Central America are driving the current crisis on the southern U.S. border, where more than 170,000 migrants arrived in March in search of jobs and asylum. As the Biden administration grapples with this mounting surge, itâs proposing a $4 billion long-term plan (the biggest ever for the region) to attack the root causes of migration â corruption, violence and poverty â in Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala.