Almost two decades have passed since Central America's civil wars ended, but authorities in those countries are now fighting a new enemy: street gangs and wide spread delinquency and carnage that is terrorizing and victimizing the populace.
Meanwhile, the U.S. is now routinely deporting Latino gang members back to their native homelands where authorities as in El Salvador and Honduras have launched an all-out war, cracking down hard on the gangs (mareros). Many young people have been caught-up in routine mass police sweeps, and it is widely feared that as the government is in fact losing control over the rising gang related crime wave, and that vigilante self-defense groups may arise and target those associated with gangs as has been the case in Brazil’s notorious "City of God" slum, where even police fear to tread.
It is thought that gang violence in Central America is fed by many factors, including: dysfunctional families, family dislocation caused by war with the inevitable consequence of internal displacement and a huge population of refugees that left their countries never to return; a harsh economic environment with persistent unemployment that has caused millions of people to leave their countries, heading north to the United States in search of work and a paycheck to help their families survive back home (in many of these countries, the so-called "remesas familiares" - money send home from those working abroad) has become the principle source of foreign currency in the country; and, as fuel for the fire, new U.S. immigration policies that have brought about the deportation from the U.S. of hundreds of thousands of "criminal aliens" who have overwhelmed the legal systems of Central American and other impoverished countries.
In many cases, the deportees came to the U.S. with their families when they were babies or young children and know nothing of the countries from which they came. They are sent back to an experience of profound alienation, isolation, and loneliness, often turning to gangs for protection or even a sense of family. It is estimated that there could be up to 60,000 gang members throughout El Salvador itself, a Massachusetts size country where the murder rate exceeds 16 homicides per day, and where extortion, muggings, drug trafficking, institutionalized corruption and the inability of an overwhelmed government to protect its citizens and guarantee the rule of law and order has created a generalized condition of mayhem and desperation among the terrorized population.-
Meanwhile, the U.S. is now routinely deporting Latino gang members back to their native homelands where authorities as in El Salvador and Honduras have launched an all-out war, cracking down hard on the gangs (mareros). Many young people have been caught-up in routine mass police sweeps, and it is widely feared that as the government is in fact losing control over the rising gang related crime wave, and that vigilante self-defense groups may arise and target those associated with gangs as has been the case in Brazil’s notorious "City of God" slum, where even police fear to tread.
It is thought that gang violence in Central America is fed by many factors, including: dysfunctional families, family dislocation caused by war with the inevitable consequence of internal displacement and a huge population of refugees that left their countries never to return; a harsh economic environment with persistent unemployment that has caused millions of people to leave their countries, heading north to the United States in search of work and a paycheck to help their families survive back home (in many of these countries, the so-called "remesas familiares" - money send home from those working abroad) has become the principle source of foreign currency in the country; and, as fuel for the fire, new U.S. immigration policies that have brought about the deportation from the U.S. of hundreds of thousands of "criminal aliens" who have overwhelmed the legal systems of Central American and other impoverished countries.
In many cases, the deportees came to the U.S. with their families when they were babies or young children and know nothing of the countries from which they came. They are sent back to an experience of profound alienation, isolation, and loneliness, often turning to gangs for protection or even a sense of family. It is estimated that there could be up to 60,000 gang members throughout El Salvador itself, a Massachusetts size country where the murder rate exceeds 16 homicides per day, and where extortion, muggings, drug trafficking, institutionalized corruption and the inability of an overwhelmed government to protect its citizens and guarantee the rule of law and order has created a generalized condition of mayhem and desperation among the terrorized population.-
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