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The United States has deported nearly 400 gang members to El Salvador so far this year, indicating deportations to the country in 2017 will likely surpass last year’s total of 534. In particular, U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration has focused on deporting gang members from groups including MS-13, leading Salvadoran officials to hold meetings to create plans for handling a likely growing number of gang members in the country. What will be the security and economic effects of increased deportations to El Salvador? How should the Salvadoran government address the threat of increased violence as a result of gang members returning to Salvadoran soil? Should the United States do more to address the consequences of increased deportations of Salvadorans from the United States?

Dan Stein, president of the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) in Washington: "One of the few conditions we set for legal immigrants to the U.S. is that they not engage in criminal activity. It goes without saying that we should not tolerate the presence of criminal aliens who are also in this country illegally. No country should be burdened with and endangered by another country’s criminals. Lax border enforcement, the Obama administration’s catch-and-release policies that turned hundreds of thousands of illegal border-crossers loose in the United States, and state and local sanctuary policies that shield criminal illegal aliens from removal have resulted in the presence of large numbers of violent foreign criminals in our country. In particular, the notoriously violent Salvadoran Mara Salvarucha-13 (MS-13) and 18th Street gangs have established beachheads across the United States, terrorizing communities from coast to coast. The U.S. government not only has a right to deport foreign criminals, it has an obligation to do so. Moreover, all nations should be expected to accept their returning citizens. For far too long, corrupt governments, like El Salvador’s, have ignored the basic social, economic and justice issues of their citizens and have been happy to have the United States relieve them of those obligations through illegal migration. The phenomenon of mass immigration and the emergence of foreign criminal gangs in the United States are direct results of countries, like El Salvador, failing to address systemic corruption and malfeasance at home. The United States can offer reasonable assistance to our hemispheric neighbor, but ultimately the responsibility rests with them. It is unreasonable to expect the United States to absorb endless flows of migrants, much less allow violent gang members to remain here."

Douglas Farah, president of IBI Consultants: "The deportation of hundreds—and perhaps thousands—of gang members back to El Salvador will have significant negative security and economic effects in a country already reeling from gang violence, massive corruption and increased drug trafficking and consumption. Where the state has proved largely incapable of keeping the existing social chaos from worsening, the returnees will be fuel for the fire of the near-failed state. The returning gang members, especially those with specific military skill sets or training, will be welcomed into the local gang structures and provide a quick and significant boost in capacity, as well as a wealth of contacts in the United States that can help grow the relationships with drug-trafficking gangs and other criminal groups. The government of El Salvador should have a full identification process for the returnees and family reunification programs to avoid the returnees joining the gangs by default. It should also have a mandatory reintegration program to help those who have never been to El Salvador avoid some of the worst of the culture shock. But the Salvadoran government is essentially insolvent, in no small part due to the endemic corruption of past and current administrations of all political stripes. This, and the administration’s plummeting approval ratings, limits what the administration of President Salvador Sánchez Cerén can do to meet this looming crisis. Much of the U.S. aid, with the notable exception of support for the attorney general’s office and some other programs, is harder to justify, due to the lack of trusted counterparts. In that poisoned environment, there is little more the United States could do except delay the execution of the deportation program."

Christine Wade, professor of political science and international studies at Washington College in Chestertown, Md.: "El Salvador has struggled (and failed) to reduce gang violence for more than a decade. Successive administrations have relied on militarized policing and other repressive policies, which have intensified violence rather than mitigating it. The one exception was the ill-fated gang truce of 2012-2014, which has since been criminalized. Little has been done to effectively address the root causes of violence or mitigate the growing displacement crisis, and the government has few tools available to address the repatriation of violent deportees. The Trump administration’s focus on deporting MS-13 members will have a serious impact on El Salvador. It is nearly certain that the repatriation of gang members will increase violence and further limit the meager funds available for violence-reduction and other social programs. Mass deportations of other Salvadorans will compound the crisis. The United States has a moral obligation to assist El Salvador in addressing the consequences of increased deportations, as El Salvador’s present-day security crisis is a direct outcome of U.S. policy in the country. Moreover, current U.S. policy in the region defies logic and the national interest. These deportations will exacerbate the security and displacement crises, strain El Salvador’s economy, and increase migration, placing pressure on both Mexico and the United States."

Adam Blackwell, vice president for international at Development Services Group and former Canadian ambassador to the Dominican Republic: "There are many ironies here; El Salvador was originally designated for the short-term status known as Temporary Protected Status (TPS) in March 2001, in response to a series of earthquakes. Since then, the United States has announced extensions of TPS for El Salvador 11 times after determining that conditions in the country remain unsafe for return. What makes the country unsafe is no longer a natural disaster, but a very human one. The big gangs; MS-13 and 18th Street, were formed in the United States by Salvadorans fleeing the civil war of the 1980s. Those who have already been deported back were well-trained in the United States and have helped form strong and violent cliques that prey on each other and fellow citizens, turning El Salvador into one of the most violent countries on Earth. Like with TPS, it would be more helpful to both countries to put a temporary halt on gang deportations until the conditions in El Salvador have improved so that the government and institutions can effectively and humanely deal with them. Regardless of any deportation or immigration policy, we need an integrated transnational strategy to help deal with these gangs, whether on the streets of the United States or Central America—a plan that focuses not only on the crime, but on the social vulnerabilities that cause the crime and drive gang membership."

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