Violence and International Migration in Illiberal Times: The Case of El Salvador’s Authoritarian Transformation

• In Event: Migration Policies

Abstract

Across a new transnational wave of illiberal, authoritarian leaders, tough-on-crime approaches to public safety are growing. The case of contemporary El Salvador’s State of Exception policy, in which President Nayib Bukele suspended due process protections and imprisoned suspected gang members with little to no evidence, offers a window into how a dramatic reduction of non-state violence through authoritarian means might shape international migration. Presenting descriptive visualizations and difference-in-differences models using U.S. Customs and Border Protection data, CDC data on births by nationality, and cross-national surveys, we do not find convincing evidence that President Bukele’s State of Exception uniquely reduced Salvadoran migration to the U.S. Instead, migration trends appear more closely linked to shifts in U.S. border policies. Our results contradict many media reports and politicians’ claims of a dramatic reduction in Salvadoran migration, and they call into question tough-on-crime strategies and authoritarianism’s promises.

Authors

• Jeffrey Swindle, University of California, Irvine

• Matthew Blanton, University of Texas-Austin