San Salvador, El Salvador
The President of El Salvador, Here’s to watchHe said on Wednesday that the United States must “abandon the concept of the Northern Triangle,” “if it is to seriously tackle immigration at the southern border.”
Bukele was thus responding to a series of tweets from Washington Post journalist Nick Miroff, who published that “ much of the conversation about border solutions is based on the idea of a violent and undifferentiated mass called the Northern Triangle, but this thought is becoming increasingly common. more separated from the current reality of Central American migration. “
“If the United States is to seriously tackle immigration at the southern border, it really needs to let go of the Northern Triangle concept and start working with its all-time partners to pursue PROVEN solutions,” the Salvadoran president posted on his Twitter.
Miroff shared data on migrants, including children, from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, member states of the so-called Northern Triangle, in different years and compares the figures.
“Honduras remains unstable, with deep-seated gang violence, deep poverty, poor rural harvests and now devastating hurricane damage. Many Hondurans see migration almost as a form of protest, a rejection of the country’s political elite, which are increasingly linked to drugs . ” he said.
As for Guatemala, he noted that “it has the most developed smuggling networks, high unemployment and a young population. Coyotes (traffickers) in rural areas have benefited from the desire for family reunification, the failure of subsistence farming amid drought and climate change. “
Regarding El Salvador, he noted that “waves of migration have largely responded to gang violence and insecurity in recent years and that, despite authoritarian tendencies, the popular Bukele government appears to show that improvements in security are reducing emigration”.
Bukele recently confirmed that insecurity is one of the main reasons Salvadorans migrate to various destinations, mostly to the United States.
“The main reasons for migration are uncertainty and lack of economic opportunity. Migration will only decline if we fix those two things,” the president said in an interview with Fox News.
Despite a noticeable drop in violence in recent years, El Salvador is under siege by the Mara Salvatrucha (MS13) and Barrio 18, which is also home to the Sureños faction, which consists of about 60,000 members spread over more than 600 rural cells. most murders on record.
These gangs have also been attributed to the forced displacement of civilians living in populated or rural areas of the Central American country.
According to Bukele, “people don’t want to leave their homes or their families, but the lack of opportunities and security means they have to leave.”
According to data from the Directorate-General for Migration, the reasons for irregular migration in the Central American country include the search for better living conditions, family reunification and violence.