Why People from El Salvador Still Feel Forced to Migrate to the US

[Judi Lynn]

A mural representing El Salvador's internal armed conflict decorates a cafeteria in Carasque. Photo: Oliver de Ros for El Intercambio

A program designed in the Obama administration was supposed to solve the root of immigration from El Salvador and the rest of Central America. However, people are stuck with no opportunities after facing deportation, forcing them to leave again.

PUBLISHED ON JUL 17, 2020 7:00AM EDT

Elsa Cabria
@ecabria
See more

Ximena Villagrán
@ximenavillab

Aníbal Martínez and Víctor Galeas were born into a life of turmoil during the early days of El Salvador’s Civil War.

As children, they were forced to flee deep into the mountains. The army killed two of Aníbal’s brothers. Blanca, Víctor’s mother, suffered two miscarriages while fleeing the violence.

But even after the war ended, Aníbal and Víctor couldn’t find peace at home. The state of Chalatenango where they lived had few jobs, so they made their way to the United States in their early twenties — and faced another wave of struggles.

Aníbal, now 41, washed dishes in Los Angeles for three years before being deported for the first time in 2006. By 2010, he had left El Salvador again, this time for Denver and back to the restaurant business. He lasted seven years before slipping up — he says his roommates got into a drunken brawl, leading to their arrest and deportation. After his second deportation, Aníbal says, he had no desire to go back to the U.S.

Víctor, now 37, spent 12 years as a line cook in Arlington, Virginia. He sports a deep, vertical scar above his belly button and can no longer lift heavy objects because in 2018, he says a complete stranger approached him and, in Spanish, said: “I’ve been looking for you.” He then stabbed him in the stomach. Victor suspects that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement discovered him through his subsequent trip to the hospital. He was detained during a smoke break outside the Salvadoran restaurant where he worked.

More:
chron.com/news/nation-world/nation/