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Biden is set to approve the Engel list (formally called H.R. 2615). The law is known for one key section, where it will name people in the Northern Triangle countries who are corrupt, and then ban them from entering the US.
Supposedly, the idea behind such a move is to combat corruption in the region and thereby prevent the need for forced migration.
But law H.R. 2615 is more than this list, and the real question is if the US is actually going to confront the corrupt elites in Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador, given how many of them are its historical allies. The other question is if it should, given that US intervention in the region is actually one of the key underlying causes of forced migration in the first place.
Otto Argueta, a Central American political scientist provided us with everything you need to know about the “Engel list” and the concrete and political consequences of trying to apply it.
He notes, for example, that section 4 requires the appointment of a senior rule of law advisor in the Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs of the Department of State who will lead “diplomatic engagement” (read arm-twisting) with the Northern Triangle countries. In the past however, figures like this one ran the Central American counterinsurgency wars and shepherded military rulers during the region’s bloodiest armed conflicts.
“The U.S. has not shifted much towards a social and political approach to the problem. A social approach is needed because the violence in these countries is an expression of deprivation, but a deprivation of inequality not poverty,” Argueta writes.
Leaders who aren’t prepared to “go after corruption” won’t be US allies, says lead advisor to the US president on Latin American policy
“The clearest message that I could give to people who are thinking of migrating is: don’t do it. The immigration reforms President Biden is proposing aren’t going to affect anybody who wasn’t already present in the United States before January 1,” said Juan González, national security council senior director for the Western Hemisphere in an interview with El Faro.
González also took an anti-human rights stance on the recent caravan of thousands of migrants from Honduras that was largely dispersed and deported in Guatemala. He congratulated the Guatemalan president for “managing the migration flows.”
On corruption, he mentioned the US$4 billion the Biden government has committed to Central America, making it clear that such financing was dependent on governments taking on corruption in a serious way.
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