Undocumented Salvadoran children migrating north in record numbers--why now?
| Autor | Witte-Lebhar, Benjamin |
An upsurge in child migration to the US, where border officials have intercepted record numbers of unaccompanied minors in recent months, has exposed Central America's smallest country, El Salvador, to a suddenly large dose of outside scrutiny. But while the phenomenon--which also involves Honduras and Guatemala--has prompted plenty of finger-pointing, it has produced little so far in the way of solutions.
Migration to the US from Central America in general and El Salvador in particular is nothing new. More than 2 million Salvadorans are already estimated to be living in the US, concentrated largely in the states of California and Texas, and in and around Washington, DC. They send home approximately US$3.5 billion in annual remittances, the country's single-largest source of revenue, according to the World Bank.
What has changed, US authorities claim, is that so many of the people now arriving from El Salvador and from its neighbors in the "Northern Triangle" (an area that also includes Honduras and Guatemala) are unaccompanied children and adolescents. In 2011, US border officials detained nearly 4,000 unaccompanied minors from those three countries. The number more than doubled the next year (10,443). In 2013 it doubled again (21,537). And, in just the past nine months, US police and border agents stopped more than 40,000 unaccompanied Salvadoran, Honduran, and Guatemalan children, along with another 20,000 undocumented minors from Mexico.
Fleeing gang violence
Observers trying to explain the situation point first and foremost to the extremely high incidence of violent crime in the Northern Triangle, where powerful street gangs have killed tens of thousands in recent years. This year's UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) report listed Honduras as the most-murder-prone country in the world, with an annual average of 90.4 homicides per 100,000 residents. The global average is 6.2. El Salvador (41.2) and Guatemala (39.9) ranked fourth and fifth, respectively, on the UNODC list. Venezuela (53.7) ranked second, followed by Belize (44.7).
El Salvador's homicide rate was significantly higher prior to a government-backed truce brokered in early 2012 between the country's rival Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) and Mara 18 (MS-18, or Barrio 18) gangs (NotiCen, April 26, 2012). The gang accord proved early on to be a major success, nearly halving the country's murder numbers (NotiCen, Dec. 20, 2012). In the past year, however, the deal has largely...
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