Quick news items
An assortment of stories in the Salvadoran press recently:
El Salvador decided not to advance its clocks forward one hour. Although other Central American countries are making the time shift in the hopes of saving energy, the government in E Salvador found the forecast savings to be too minimal.
Central American countries and the UN World Food Program met in San Salvador to discuss coordinated responses to emergency relief when hurricanes strike. The countries will establish a Regional Emergency Center in Soyapango, outside of San Salvador, where relief supplies will be pre-positioned. Hurricane season officially starts on June 1.
El Salvador's archbishop Fernando Saenz Lacalle stated in his weekly news conference that the church is aggrieved by the anti-immigrant measures being proposed by the US government. He pointed in particular to the proposals to send 6000 National Guard troops to patrol the southern US border and to build hundreds of miles of border fencing.
El Salvador decided not to advance its clocks forward one hour. Although other Central American countries are making the time shift in the hopes of saving energy, the government in E Salvador found the forecast savings to be too minimal.
Central American countries and the UN World Food Program met in San Salvador to discuss coordinated responses to emergency relief when hurricanes strike. The countries will establish a Regional Emergency Center in Soyapango, outside of San Salvador, where relief supplies will be pre-positioned. Hurricane season officially starts on June 1.
El Salvador's archbishop Fernando Saenz Lacalle stated in his weekly news conference that the church is aggrieved by the anti-immigrant measures being proposed by the US government. He pointed in particular to the proposals to send 6000 National Guard troops to patrol the southern US border and to build hundreds of miles of border fencing.
Comments
The text regarding the National Guard and fence is very specific, covers several days and branches of the U.S. government, and is not in between quotes. Looks more like "context" provided by the "journalist."
It seems to me that Monseñor did not point in particular to the two items you point out as him having pointed out.
Curiously, the "journalist" failed to mention tiny little items such as the oppotunity for amnesty and path to citizenship that apparently will be offered to millions of foreigners. Opportunities El Salvador does not afford, to the best of my knowledge, to any illegal immigrants itself, and in fact, is known to deny to some legal temporary immigrants, such as Asians.
One might be forgiven to think the itsy bitsy little left-outs might provide some context, too.
I was not at the press conference and can't comment on what else the archbishop said. However, articles in El Diario, La Prensa, and the cited report on terra.com all reported on the wall and the National Guard troops in the context of his remarks and what other aspect of last week's developments would he say "aggrieved" the church?
It's worth pointing to what else the archbishop said, as quoted in El Diario:
Sobre la falta de empleo en el país, considerada una de las principales causas de la emigración hacia Estados Unidos, dijo que "no solamente las autoridades, sino todos debemos hacer un esfuerzo para crear fuentes de trabajo".
Según Lacalle, en el país existen muchos capitales depositados en los bancos o invertidos en industrias extranjeras, por lo que recomendó que "debe haber un interés por crear fuentes de trabajo en el país y un esfuerzo para capacitar a los jóvenes".
"Es un esfuerzo que se debe hacer para que en el mismo país se puedan encontrar fuentes de trabajo y gente que sea capaz de trabajar con eficacia", apuntó.
POLICARPIO
As for El Salvador’s immigration policies - is it not hypocritical for the Salvadorian government to deport Asians while complaining about U.S. deportation of undocumented Salvadorians? It’s not like half the world is desperate to earn Salvadorian wages while being preyed upon by street gangs.
Note that in the early 90’s other Central American countries like Panama accepted Haitian refugees, El Salvador refused. The Salvadorian President announced that the best contribution El Salvador could offer was the help of its “very professional Army.” This was just coming out of a Civil War where the military was most famous for massacring peasants and raping nuns. Little surprise the world community said thanks, but no thanks.
There are also a lot of people who would love to cross the U.S. border to kill infidels for Allah and win their 40 virgins. So the borders have to be controlled, something Mexico and every Central American country endeavors to do as well. In doing so, the door for workers crossing the U.S. border looking for a better life is going to be closed, to what degree the political process will decide. I wish that weren´t the case. If I couldn´t support my family, I´m sure I´d do the same thing. But this is not an anti-immigrant issue, this is a survival issue. It´s very probable that El Salvador will face this same issue in the coming years as her standard of living, as bad as it may look to a lot of it´s citizens, grows increasingly attractive to her neighbors. That will happen even quicker if the tide of people going to the U.S. is choked off. Will it be seen as an anti-immigrant issue then, or will we realize that controlling a country´s borders is something every government is obligated to do?
Wally’s blanket statement about the economic unsustainability of immigration is plain bunk. Like international trade and technology growth, immigration increases average economic well-being for native citizens and that’s ignoring the benefits to the immigrants themselves. All three may increase economic inequality, but why just go after immigration. We can all be luddites and collectively farm plots of land within 50 kilometers of where our great-grandparents were born.
Immigrants benefit El Salvador. The poor agricultural workers keep agriculture alive. People are dreaming if they think farmers in a tight, immigration-restricted labor market will earn much higher salaries – the sector would collapse. The agriculture sector can barely survive at international market prices as it is.
As for immigrants from further afield, such as Asia – name one instance where a concentration of Chinese or Jewish or Lebanese immigrants has not helped an economy. Malaysia? Spain? History has shown that immigrants from far away consistently bring entrepreneurial energy and new ideas. Yes, they make excellent scape-goats, but I think Salvadorians are mature enough to avoid the traps of bigotry that so many countries have found themselves in since Queen Isabella expelled the Jews. Is anyone here willing to say that Salvadorians are too small-minded and racist to tolerate a little diversity in the interest of creating a more prosperous, vibrant country?