Tag Archives: El Salvador

A Marshall Plan Approach to Immigration?

El Salvador is one of the so-called “Deadly Triangle” countries of Central America, along with Guatemala and Honduras. These are the countries from which many of the refugees flocking across the southern border of the United States are coming, fleeing violence and abuse.

For decades, these countries have been ruled by corrupt dictators. During the Cold War, the dictators beguiled the U.S. with fears of a communist takeover, leading Americans to turn a blind eye to horrible human rights abuses. Catholic Archbishop Oscar Romero was assassinated in El Salvador when he stood up for the victims.

Nayib Bukele, newly elected president of El Salvador, has called for a new approach to the violence and poverty in his country.

He wants economic and social investments, like job creation and schools. He has called for working with Mexico on immigration issues and beginning a new relationship with the United States.

President Bukele is not from either of the two parties which have ruled El Salvador for decades. Instead of our dealing with immigration only as a border problem, the United States might work with President Bukele on a new approach.

Perhaps we could base it on the Marshall Plan, used so successfully to build up war-torn Europe after World War II.

Tattoos and Bibles

“Many people in El Salvador [a Central American country] say that the only way to quit a gang is in a body bag. But . . . Pentecostal churches offer a way out alive.” (The Economist 1848 Magazine, April/May 2018, “Salvation,” Sarah Esther Maslin)

The violence in El Salvador’s gang ridden culture is horrific. Tattooed gang members and police fight daily battles. A church in that country’s capital, San Salvador, the Eben-Ezer, attempts to make a difference. Besides religious meetings, members bake bread, which they sell for support.

The work offers no quick fix. Members sometimes revert to past ways, unable to quit drugs or drawn back to the former way of survival. A couple of pastors “acknowledge that they’re trying to do what many consider impossible: spirit away members of El Salvador’s powerful gangs. But they believe this is the country’s only hope.”

El Salvador is one of the most dangerous places on earth in terms of homicides, The gangs appear to meet the needs of young men from dysfunctional families searching for community and a place to belong.

Gangs offer protection and a kind of family. Serving a gang gives at least some sense of purpose.

Thus, the church as community is not a mere slogan. A refuge for former gang members must be powerful enough to overcome the expectation from police and the gangs themselves that this new life will fail.

Indeed, the struggle to survive in El Salvador is intense. One can only hope and pray for divine deliverance, even one person at a time.