Violence and corruption in Central America, particularly in the Northern Triangle countries, is causing a wave of outward migration. The Trump administration's response to the problem could make it worse. Meanwhile, efforts at reform across the region face opposition from entrenched interests that benefit from the status quo. Explore WPR’s extensive coverage of the Central America crisis.
For years, Central America has contended with the violence and corruption stemming from organized crime and the drug trade. Now the countries of the region also find themselves in U.S. President Donald Trump’s line of fire, due to the many desperate Central Americans who make their way across Mexico to seek asylum at the United States’ southern border.
The steady stream of outward migration is driven by ongoing turmoil, particularly in Nicaragua and the Northern Triangle countries of El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras. The three Northern Triangle countries rank among the most violent in the world, a legacy of the civil wars in El Salvador and Guatemala, which destabilized security structures and flooded the region with guns. In that context, gangs—often brought back home by deportees from the U.S.—have proliferated, and along with them the drug trade and corruption, fueling increasing lawlessness. Popular unrest has done little to produce political solutions, leading many of the most vulnerable to flee.
The highly publicized and politically instrumentalized caravans of migrants have drawn Trump’s ire, resulting in threats to cut U.S. development aid to the region. Some experts predict this will only fuel more people to flee. Meanwhile, Washington’s influence is also being steadily eroded as administrations across Central America consider deepening their ties to China.
The presidential election in early 2019 of a 37-year-old populist in El Salvador and an anti-corruption crusader in Panama raised hopes that new efforts to address graft and violence were on the horizon. But entrenched interests have done their best to maintain the status quo, much as they have in the face of reformist efforts in other countries in the region. And El Salvador’s president, Nayib Bukele, has more recently raised fears of a return to authoritarianism due to his politicization of the military.
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