EL SALVADOR is the ideal country in which to observe the effects of massive emigration. This is unsurprising, given its scale: between 1.7 million and 2.5 million Salvadorians, 25-34% of the population, live abroad, the majority in the United States. A deputy minister is responsible for looking after the interests of this highly organised diaspora. Daily newspapers contain entire sections devoted to them, especially El Prensa Grafica, whose `Departamento 15′ pages are named after El Salvador’s 15th department, the US.

Salvadorian migrants are generous. According to the central bank, remesas (remittances) amounted to $2.1bn in 2003, $2.5bn in 2004 and almost $3bn in 2005. This is equivalent to 15% of El Salvador’s gross domestic product, more than the country’s education and health budgets put together. For families, remesas are a significant additional income. The UN Development Programme estimates that 20-25% of the population benefits by $400 per person a year. In regions along the frontier with Honduras where emigration is especially prevalent, these contributions can amount to almost 30% of income.

A negative consequence has been the emergence and development of maras, bands of violent young delinquents. In the problematic social climate of the US, many young Salvadorians joined gangs that flourished in the ghettos. They were arrested, condemned, imprisoned and deported to their native land, where local gangs benefited from their expertise with firearms and their readiness to commit violence. This led to the emergence of networks acting as subcontractors for organised crime across El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala.

Meanwhile, as US immigration policies tighten, the presence in the US of hundreds of thousands of emigres is influencing Salvadorian foreign policy. Nobody is prepared to endanger the source of the remesas that sustain the economy by offending the US. El Salvador supports the US in every international institution and is the only country in Latin America to maintain troops in Iraq.

Emigration from El Salvador’s southwesterly department of La Unión has proved an opportunity for other foreign workers. Salvadorians turn their noses up at jobs on the plantations and in construction, which cannot compete with remesas. So a flood of mostly illegal labour is pouring in from the poverty-stricken rural areas of El Salvador’s neighbours.

Honduran and Nicaraguan migrants, typically carpenters, street peddlers, domestic workers and labourers, are also attracted by the dollarisation of the Salvadorian economy in 2001. El Salvador now rivals even Costa Rica as a host for migrants.

Translated by Donald Hounam

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