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A caravan of migrants leaving El Salvador marches to the United States on October 31, 2018 (image for illustration). REUTERS / Jose Cabezas

In the United States, the Trump administration announced an agreement with El Salvador on the thorny migration issue. In the future, US authorities will be able to return asylum seekers, who are on the US-Mexico border, to El Salvador. The deal is the latest in a series of disincentives by the Trump administration to curb the flow of migrants across Central America to demand US protection. And it already arouses strong criticism.

From now on, migrants waiting at the US-Mexico border can be sent back to El Salvador. They will then be forced to apply for asylum in this Central American country which is among the most violent in the world. This is the heart of the agreement signed this weekend in Washington.

The goal of the Trump administration is clear: to make El Salvador and more generally of Central America a vast area of ​​immigration detention. The NGO Refugees International castigates a " cynical and absurd " strategy. An opinion shared by José Miguel Cruz, director of the Center for Latin American Studies at the University of Florida.

" I believe that in the medium and long term, this agreement will be very detrimental for El Salvador and for Central America in general, " he says. Because the majority of people who want to migrate do not leave for economic reasons, but because of insecurity. And currently the Central American countries, including El Salvador, can not even guarantee the safety of their own people. "

The Salvadoran government hopes to obtain American financial aid in return. New President Nayib Bukele has also put in the balance the more than 200,000 Salvadorans threatened with deportation to the United States. But neither their fate nor the American financial envelope for the benefit of El Salvador were mentioned during the signing of the agreement.