Startup Cities in Central America: A Long-Term Solution to Illegal Immigration?

The recent surge of
undocumented immigrants from Central America
has exposed gaping holes in our legal system. The New York
Times reports that lawyers are restricted from meeting
potential clients held in detention centers. There aren’t nearly
enough lawyers trained in handling these kinds of cases. And above
all, what is to be done with the 46,300 unaccompanied children who
were apprehended over the last ten months?

“We’re very limited by, one, the short time that they’re here
and, two, the federal procedures,” said Benny Agosto Jr., a
Houston-based lawyer spearheading a task force created by the
Hispanic National Bar Association to help migrants. “There is still
the discussion over if the children should be brought to the front
of the line. It depends on what federal judge, in what region
you’re in.”

A short-term fix to American immigration crisis will depend on
our legislators. But Honduras is looking much farther ahead,
considering a radical solution that aims to permanently prevent the
mass outflow of its citizens. As Reason TV’s Zach Weismueller puts
it,

Some call it a Startup City or Free City, others a LEAP Zone,
and in Honduran law it’s known as a ZEDE. They are politically
autonomous, privately run zones that supporters believe could
transform not only Honduras, but the entire developing world.

Weismueller’s four-part video series, How to Grow a City in
Honduras, examines the hopes and fears behind the birth of
this bold experiment in governance. It was originally published on
August 21st, 2014.