IMMIGRATION

“We’ve always thought about going, but we haven’t been able to scavenge together enough money,” said Pena, looking around nervously out of fear a gang lookout might spot him talking to a journalist. “And now we have to think about this,” he added, referring to what he worries could be a cruel reception if he manages to reach the U.S.

The same feeling of desperation and impotence is felt throughout Central America, where the lawlessness, poverty and gang violence akin to war zones that have driven so many families from their homes show little signs of abating, despite the Trump administration’s policy of “zero tolerance” toward illegal immigrants.

The rate of violent death in El Salvador is still higher than in all countries suffering armed conflict except for Syria, with a murder rate of 99.7 per 100,000 inhabitants in 2016, according to the most recent global study by the Switzerland-based Small Arms Survey. The number of people displaced Police investigators carry a body to a forensic vehicle after a shootout between private security guards and gang members at the central market in San Salvador, El Salvador. Violence, poverty and gangs are among the reasons why Central Americans seek refuge in the U.S. in the nation of 6.5 million by turf battles between the country’s two biggest gangs, MS-13 and Barrio 18, skyrocketed last year to 296,000, according to the Norwegian Refugee Council.

In neighboring Honduras, one of Latin America’s poorest and most violent nations, adding to the sense of insecurity is the country’s role as a major transit point for South American cocaine as well as the political turmoil that have followed hardline President Juan Orlando Hernandez’s re-election last November amid allegations he stole the vote.

In Guatemala — the third

of the so-called Northern Triangle countries of Central America — criminal activity is also spreading, adding to the discrimination and abuse long faced by the indigenous communities that are among the largest groups fleeing poverty.

“This isn’t about immigrants chasing the American dream anymore,” said Sofia Martinez, a Guatemalabased analyst for the International Crisis Group and author of a recent report on gang violence in Central America, “Mafia of the Poor.”

“It’s about escaping a death sentence,” she said.