El Salvador has left the list of the 10 countries with the largest population migrating irregularly to the United States (USA), according to information published by the Customs and Border Protection Office (CBP) of that North American nation, with records from October 2022, to start fiscal year 2023.
According to said office, the list is headed by Mexico, Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua, and Colombia.
They are followed by Guatemala, Honduras, Peru, Ecuador, and Haiti as the other five nations where the highest numbers of people who sought to enter US territory illegally come from.
Only 65,788 people were registered from Mexico, 28,848 from Cuba, 14,806 from Guatemala, and 14,003 from Honduras.
The total reported by CBP for the previous month is 230,678 (including other countries). Given this report, the President of the Republic, Nayib Bukele, stressed that El Salvador does not appear in the top 10 of that list, where it had been for years, even in the first place.
«After being in the top 3 of the countries that sent the most migrants to the United States, now we are not even in the top 10,» he wrote on Twitter.
The Salvadoran president added: «There is still a lot to do. Rome was not built in a day; but we are advancing by leaps and bounds. The only ones who don’t see it are those who don’t want to see it.»
The political opposition in our country (made up of the traditional parties ARENA and FMLN, NGOs, and related media, among others) continues to affirm that El Salvador is among the countries with the largest population seeking to enter the US illegally, contrary to what the official CBP reports show.
Last March, the US border authorities registered a record number of migrants intercepted at the border with Mexico, with more than 210,000, which represented an increase of 24% compared to the previous month.
These figures reflect the failure in immigration policy that the current US president, Joe Biden, promotes under the premise of reversing many of the actions promoted in this area by his predecessor, Donald Trump.
Thousands of those irregular migrants were removed under an order repealed by the Biden administration, known as Title 42.
Although the United States has become for years the destination for Salvadorans who left their land overwhelmed by the problems of the armed conflict, poverty, and insecurity caused by gangs, conditions are changing under the administration of Nayib Bukele, favoring the conditions for the population to be safe and be part of development.
On the other hand, the government continues to work so that compatriots who already have an immigration benefit such as TPS can have a definitive solution for their immigration status.
The benefit was recently extended until June 2024.
Foreign Minister Alexandra Hill Tinoco stated: «The management has been constant and will continue. As a government, we reaffirm our commitment to continue working in favor of our diaspora.»
