ZCZC
BFF-15
US-SALVADOR-MIGRATION
US says El Salvador began implementing controversial migration rules
WASHINGTON, Dec 16, 2020 (BSS/AFP) – The US Department of Homeland Security
said Tuesday that El Salvador has begun implementing an immigration scheme
that allows people seeking asylum at the US border to be transferred instead
to that dangerous Central American nation.
The controversial measure known as the Asylum Cooperative Agreement (ACA)
helps establish a “regional approach to migration” while also offering
“protection to those migrants who are victims of persecution,” said Acting
Secretary of Homeland Security Chad Wolf.
The measure affects “certain migrants requesting asylum or similar
humanitarian protection at the US border,” who then “will be transferred to
El Salvador to seek protection in El Salvador,” according to a DHS statement.
President Donald Trump’s administration signed agreements in 2019 with El
Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala as part of its policy to prevent
undocumented migration along the southern US border.
In an attempt to halt migrants reaching the southern US border — many of
whom come from Central America — Trump threatened to impose tariffs on
Mexican products and halt assistance to several Central American countries
for failing to help staunch the flow.
According to the DHS, 71 percent of migrants detained at the southern US
border in fiscal year 2019 came from El Salvador, Guatemala or Honduras.
El Salvador, however, is one of the world’s most violent nations:
according to World Bank figures from 2018, there were 52 homicides per
100,000 people, as opposed to five per 100,000 in the United States.
The homicide rate is expected to slip to 23 per 100,000 by the end of
2020, according to the Salvadoran government.
In 2019, El Salvador, which has a population of 6.6 million, had a rate of
35.6 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants, according to government figures.
This means that it was one of the countries with no war that experienced
the highest rate of violence in the world.
BSS/AFP/MSY/1038 hrs