There is plenty of outrage in Guatemala and other Latin American countries over President Trump's already infamous comments about the quality of certain countries that send immigrants to the United States. But columnist Claudia Nunez, writing in the Guatemalan Newspaper Siglo 21 has used the occasion to criticize the leaders of migrant-sending countries for failing to provide opportunities for their people on the home front.
"He is definitely not a person who is politically correct," Nunez wrote of Trump. "And the epithets he uses to describe certain groups are unfortunate and exemplify the decadence of the current political scene. But he has also said things that are true, for example, that it is we citizens of migration countries who have accommodated ourselves to the need to export people, as we have calmly allowed excessive levels of corruption to grow for decades."
Continuing her essay on the theme of emigration as a safety valve that keeps public frustration from provoking civic unrest, Nunez wrote, "Only mediocre governments are content to demand that others accept the permanent avalanche of their migrants, instead of building a better social, political, and economic environment so that migration would not be necessary...."