Salvadorans: the faces of the deported

Trying to make it into the United States as an undocumented migrant is not such an attractive option anymore for Moris Peña, a Salvadoran who was deported from that country in 2014.

“The situation in the United States is getting more and more difficult,” the 39-year-old construction worker from Chalchuapa, a city in the west of El Salvador, told IPS.

Peña went to the United States in 2004, and worked for years in Rockville, Maryland on the east coast, in construction and remodeling.

Now he has no steady income, and is trying without much success to make a living back home. He would like to go abroad to ensure a better future for himself and his family – but to a different country this time.

In the first quarter of the year, 6,559 Salvadorans were deported from the United States, 13 per- cent more than in the same period in 2016, according to official figures.

By contrast, deportations of Salvadorans from Mexico fell 99.2 percent in the January-April period, to 4,374, which local authorities attribute to the fear that Central Americans will fall victim to Washington’s stricter new policies against undocumented migrants, which has led many people to cancel or postpone plans to make the hazardous journey through Mexico.

“How can it be that to address such a complex issue as migration, the U.S. approach is military and countries in the area second the strategy?” -- Francisco Rico

Peña is among those who are aware that making the trip now is much more complicated than when he did it over a decade ago.

That is partly because the government of Republican President Donald Trump, in office since January, is militarising the border with Mexico and cracking down harder on the influx of Central American migrants, with actions similar to those taken by governments in the area, arguing the need to fight terrorism, drug trafficking and organised crime, civil society organisations complain.

Much of Trump’s antiLatin American immigrant rhetoric has remained just that, such as the wall he threatened to build along the border with Mexico.

Cooperation is militarised

But on the other hand, the Trump administration is quietly pushing ahead with military actions to clamp down on cross-border movement from Central America, the director of the Salvadoran Migration Institute, César Ríos, told IPS.

“You could say that there is a military wall between Mexico and Guatemala, and between that country and El Salvador,” to block the flow of Central American migrants, he said.

Ríos said there have been reports of cases of Salvadorans detained and deported as they head north through Guatemala – a new phenomenon.

That shows, he said, that Guatemala is also backing the U.S. government’s effort to curb migration.

In February, international media outlets reported that U.S. Defence Department officials and members of the U.S. Southern Command and Northern Command met with a Mexican delegation in the city of Tapachula, in the southern state of Chiapas, on the border with Guatemala, to discuss security initiatives.

The meeting focused on Mexico’s commitment to close its southern border against organised crime as well as undocumented Central American migrants attempting to reach the United States. (IPS)