Undocumented Salvadorans are fleeing to the United States in record numbers. In fact, according to an article published by Fusion, apprehensions of undocumented Salvadoran families crossing over the southern US border was up over 85% YoY in July.
Meanwhile, the number of Salvadorans facing deportation proceedings in the U.S. eclipses even those of Mexican citizens.
According to El Salvador's attorney general, Douglas Meléndez, the surge in illegal immigration to the U.S. might have something to do with the anticipation of rising violence with the county's notoriously brutal MS-13 gang. Per Fusion, according to a lawsuit filed last week, the Salvadoran government foiled an attempt by MS-13 gang members to purchase $1mm worth of assault rifles, surface-to-air weapons and bullet-proof vests.
The attorney general’s office last week announced that state security forces recently foiled a dangerous terrorist plot by the MS-13 (Salvatrucha) that could have escalated the country’s gang war into something more akin to a guerrilla insurrection.
In a voluminous case filed against 78 MS-13 leaders, state prosecutors accused the criminal group of plotting to purchase high-calibre weapons in Mexico and Guatemala to arm and train an “elite” commando unit of 500 gangbangers to coordinate nationwide terrorist attacks against government targets.
The prosecutor’s case, which is allegedly based on intelligence gathered from wiretaps, says the MS-13 was in the process of raising $1 million to buy assault rifles, surface-to-air weapons to shoot down helicopters, commando uniforms and bulletproof vests, according to local media outlets allowed to review the document. The plan was allegedly to place two elite commandos in each of the 249 MS-13 cliques to lead an offensive aimed at asserting territorial control while destabilizing the country’s economy and political establishment.
Still, others point to recent reductions in recorded violent crimes as a sign that the Salvadoran government is manufacturing a crisis for it own political convenience. Former mediator, Paolo Luers, said the operation by the Salvadoran government is "an operation of psychological warfare" intended to provide government officials the political cover needed to execute the "extraordinary" measures it adopted in earlier in the year to crack down on gang violence. Per Fusion:
“I think this whole business about the 500 men is total lie,” Luers told me. “The official policy agreed to among the three gangs (The MS-13, 18-Sureños and 18-Revolucionarios) in March is to not fall into the government’s trap by getting involved in a military-style final battle, rather to retreat and reduce the level of confrontation.”
Luers says the gangs are smart enough to realize that they would lose a war against the government. Even trying to organize a military campaign on that scale would require so much money that it would mark “the beginning of the end” of the gangs’ control in the neighborhoods, he says.
The gangs themselves insist they are trying to avoid going to war with the government. In the most recent communique issued by the MS-13 and the two factions of Barrio 18, the gangs claim the recent drop of violence in El Salvador is thanks to their decision to quiet their guns.
Vice News also recently called attention to El Salvador's efforts to crack down on gangs by passing legislation to define gangs as "terrorist organizations" and explicitly authorizing the use of lethal force, among other things.
Human rights groups have lambasted the previous phases of the government's crackdown, which has included officials encouraging the use of lethal force, the formation of new special units aimed at taking the battle to the gangs in rural areas, and the transfer of gang leaders to new prisons.
In May, police controversially arrested 18 people for alleged ties to the gangs, some of whom had helped put together a truce four years ago that helped bring the murder rate down for a while.
Activists also object to new legislation passed in March that defines the gangs as terrorist organizations, and which they fear can be used to scare off criticism of the government.
This week's crackdown — which reportedly uses terrorism charges against some suspects — also prompted allegations that the government is using gang-related charges to round up its most outspoken critics, including Dany Romero, who claims to be a former gang member campaigning for human rights.
The decline in violence does seem to correspond with the timing of a ceasefire called by leaders of Salvadoran rival gangs MS-13 and Barrio 18. Per Vice News, the video posted on March 26, 2016 calls for a ceasefire among the gangs:
"We want to show the people, the current government, and the international representations that there is no need to propose measures that just come to violate our constitution and all the laws coming from it," said one of the purported leaders, who kept his face covered with a cloth.
Still, it may not matter which conspiracy theory ends up being most accurate as the consequences of the perception of escalation by both sides may inevitably lead to the same outcome of a rise in violence. Certainly the rising wave of undocumented immigration to the U.S. seems to imply that something is brewing beneath the surface.
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