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Comment by avaldes | Hacker News Reader

That's ignorant bullshit. Venezuela is the only SA country one can call a failed state. The rest is doing well. No first world countries nor the highest HDI but call them failed states it's just stupid.

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South American countries are not doing well. The region is one of the places with more inequality "Of the 20 most economically unequal countries in the world, eight are in Latin America"[1]. So maybe the rich in latinamerica are doing well. Also is a political polarization scenario between left and right extremism some countries close to a conflict or war. [1] https://blogs.worldbank.org/developmenttalk/inequality-and-s...

Then why are so many migrants crossing Mexico (walking, spending lifes' savings on coyotes, sending children alone, ...) to come to the US?

Mexico could be worse, but could also be better.

Earning potential is simply better in the US. It’s not just Mexicans that figured it out, but immigrants worldwide did. People with decent lives all over the world fly here and overstay their visas because the earning potential is just greater. The truth behind the ‘all immigrants are desperate’ narrative is most are not desperate, but ambitious, and literally making a business decision.

Mexico isn't in South America

Are you proposing that it is possible to travel by land from South America to USA without entering Mexico? Or perhaps the impoverished South Americans are buying yachts and tourist visas to bypass Mexico?

Mexico and Central America are not South America.

How many of those are from South America? My understanding was that most of that migration was from Central America, largely Guatemala and Mexico itself.

Among other things walking (or traveling in any way, really) through the border area between Colombia and Panama, including southern Panama, is tough-bordering-on-impassable, even relative to crossing the US border in the desert.

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