ABSTRACT
In the summer of 2014, an increase in the number of unaccompanied children migrating to the United States unleashed a media backlash against immigration from Central America and Mexico, despite illegal immigration to the country being at a historically low level. At the same time, the hype served to shed light on the humanitarian crisis fed by chronic violence that had been building up in El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras. Indeed, in 2017, El Salvador and Honduras were among the countries with the highest rates of asylum-seekers in the world. Instead of considering the influx of refugees as a humanitarian crisis and addressing the root causes of out-migration from the Northern Triangle, the U.S. government response emphasized a strategy of “aggressive deterrence” of immigrants, engaging Central American governments to take security measures to stop migrants at their own borders. This transnational policy response has fed into a repressive approach toward migrants, increased gang conflict, and moved further away from potential resolutions to violence. Aggressive deterrence does not address underlying causes of conflict, and is contributing to aggravate the dynamics of armed violence in the region, rather than attending to humanitarian needs for international protection.
