MEXICO CITY — The new president of El Salvador said that his country was to blame for driving tens of thousands of its citizens to emigrate every year, including a father and daughter who became a focal point in the migration debate when they drowned while trying to cross into the United States last week.
“People don’t flee their homes because they want to,” President Nayib Bukele said Sunday at a news conference in San Salvador, the capital of El Salvador. “They flee their homes because they feel they have to.”
“They fled El Salvador, they fled our country,” he continued. “It is our fault.”
Mr. Bukele’s statements came in response to questions from reporters about the deaths of the father and daughter, and about what he intended to do to address the economic and security concerns that have pushed so many Salvadorans to leave the country and try to reach the United States.
His comments were remarkable in a region where political leaders have been loath to assume any responsibility for the social and political dynamics that drive migration and have generally paid lip service to the idea that conditions must improve at home to encourage people to stay.
There are nearly 1.4 million Salvadorans — the equivalent of about one-fifth of the country’s population — living in the United States, according to the Migration Policy Institute.
Migration from El Salvador, and its perils, were highlighted last week with the publication of a photograph of the corpses of the young father and his daughter — Óscar Alberto Martínez Ramírez, 25, and his 23-month-old daughter, Angie Valeria — who were found lying face down in the Rio Grande, between Mexico and the United States.
Their bodies were returned to El Salvador on Sunday and are reportedly scheduled to be buried in a private ceremony on Monday.
In his comments on Sunday, Mr. Bukele, who took office a month ago, acknowledged the two main forces driving so many of his citizens to take their chances on a perilous migration north in search of a better life: insecurity and economic duress.
“They feel safer crossing a desert, three frontiers, and all of the things that may happen in the road to the United States because they feel that’s more secure than living here,” he said. “So we want to make our country safer.”
He also vowed to address the poverty and lack of employment opportunities that so many migrants cite as their reason for fleeing.
“We will make a country that is more prosperous and that can provide decent paying jobs for all of our people,” he said. “If people have an opportunity for a decent job, a decent education, a decent health care system and security, I know that forceful migration will be reduced to zero.”
Source : Nytimes
