Refugee Survey Quarterly, 2017, 36, 1–24 doi: 10.1093/rsq/hdx011 Advance Access Publication Date: 8 September 2017 Article Political Refugees from El Salvador: Gang Politics, the State, and Asylum Claims Patrick J. McNamara*
ABSTRACT Social conditions driving refugees from El Salvador to seek asylum in the US have changed dramatically since the summer of 2015. After more than a decade of inter- gang warfare and criminal violence, the maras in El Salvador have become political actors. They have declared the formation of a new supra-organization, Mara-503, and announced that they intend to shape the political process in El Salvador and poten- tially the entire Central American region. As a result, people fleeing violence in El Salvador should be considered political refugees as defined by US immigration courts and United Nations charters. This essay is based on research conducted in El Salvador, and as an expert witness in cases for refugees from El Salvador. It outlines the emer- gence of a “Third Generation” of gang organizations, the threats to social order in El Salvador, and the approach immigration lawyers should pursue in refugee cases. KEYWORDS: El Salvador, gangs, refugees, private security
1. INTRODUCTION For more than 35 years, the path to legitimate political power in El Salvador has been through violence. The Nationalist Republican Alliance (ARENA) began in 1980 as a “death squad”, led by its founder Roberto D’Aubuisson. According to human rights reports and declassified documents from the US Government, ARENA carried out the assassination of Archbishop Oscar Romero, in addition to hundreds of other extra-judicial killings. The Farabundo Martı´ National Liberation Front (FMLN) began as an armed coalition of five separate leftist organizations who declared war against the Salvadoran Government in 1980. In January 1992, after more than 12 years of protracted civil war, the Government under President Alfredo Cristiani of the ARENA Party signed a peace agreement with the leaders of the FMLN. Known as the Chapultepec Peace Accords, this agreement allowed the FMLN to participate in electoral politics, and set into motion the complete re-organ- ization of El Salvador’s military and police forces.
* Associate Professor, Department of History, University of Minnesota, 271 19th Avenue South, Minneapolis, MN 55455, USA. Email: [email protected]
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