Digital Commons Network^™

Alvaro Uribe Velez: Maintaining Popularity Despite Significant Government Scandals, Juliana A. Canas Baena

Scripps Senior Theses

Despite the scandals and the increase in violence towards vulnerable communities, Uribe and his government still had an extremely high approval rating. His popularity may be explained as a result of the majority of citizens benefitting from his policies because while they violate human rights, they function as mechanisms that support and enhance his success in delivering stability to Colombia’s middle and upper-classes. Moreover, Uribe did not address critics of his government or the media, instead he created a discourse that his government and its policies were responsible for successfully combatting the guerrillas and cartels and improving the economy. Thus …

Think Of The Children: How U.S. Domestic Policy Undermined Good Foreign Policy And Contributed To The 2014 Central American Migration Crisis, Rebekah D. Vermillion

CMC Senior Theses

Why was the United States caught completely unprepared for the Central American refugee crisis during the summer of 2014? Although thousands of unaccompanied children from Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador streamed across the southwest U.S. border in unprecedented numbers, the systemic problems plaguing the region stem back decades, and recent data clearly shows a trend of increasing yearly migration flows to the United States from these countries. Even in the face of the crisis, the U.S. government’s response was targeted more towards mitigating the symptoms of the crisis while insufficiently addressing its underlying causes.

This is largely due to U.S. …