Comment by _DeadFred_
8 months ago
Protection rackets are pretty big in central america. Look at the publicity about the avocado industry. Protection rackets only work when you go after those people that escape your 'protection' payments. So yes, it's reasonable to assume every person that said no to the racket and fled to the US becomes a pretty big target, it's part of the founding principles/business model of running a protection racket.
So you are saying that anyone who leaves central america can never return home because they would then be murdered? I don't think you are saying that, because people move back and forth from central america every day without being murdered.
An awful lot of people move every day, even from areas where there are protection rackets. Do the protection rackets kill everyone who comes home to visit after moving to another city? How do they keep track of who is 'escaping' and who is just moving because they got married or found a job somewhere else? Again, you aren't suggesting that these rackets ban all movement in and out of the areas they loosely control?
People come to the US primarily to find work at a much higher wage than they would be able to find where they are from. Often there is no opportunity for work whatsoever where they are from. They can have a life here that they would never be able to achieve, they can have healthy children who get medical and dental care and will have a chance at an education and a good life here.
If I were in their shoes I would absolutely try to come here illegally if I couldn't do so legally. If I was caught I would, without hesitation, lie and say I would be murdered if I returned home, or whatever else my lawyer carefully prompted me to say, just like Mr Garcia and almost everyone else claiming this. The reality is if these protection rackets were here in the US and not at all in El Salvador, Mr Garcia would almost certainly still choose to live here and just pay the protection money rather than returning home. I doubt that he was ever influenced by gangs in his decision to move here, and I doubt that he has any fear of them if he would return, and I don't think it would change his decision either way.
You based this off of nothing: "he did this by almost certainly committing perjury by claiming there were criminal gangs who would kill him if he returned to El Salvador."
"I don't find it to be credible"
I explained why it could easily be that the many coming from El Salvador when MS13 was heavily active could in fact be making this legitimate claim. It's a small world with social media. Yes, local MS13 that didn't get paid can catch when someone is back in the country. These are very sophisticated/organized gangs at higher level (at least according to the current US administration).
Nothing you said here negates that.
So you believe he is being honest. That's perfectly reasonable. Do you really belief that if there was no threat to him at all he would admit this, stop appealing his deportation order, leave his wife and children behind, give up any possibility of being supporting his family financially and go back to El Salvador?
Which one of our beliefs seems more credible to you, that a man would claim to be in danger (which doesn't hurt anyone) to let him stay with his wife and children and access to employment which pays hundreds or thousands of times higher, or that he would say he's not in danger (even though it doesn't benefit anyone) which hurts his wife and children very badly, and forces him to be separated from his family and the country he has lived in his entire adult life?
The situation he is in is beyond cruel and unjust, but that doesn't mean he's telling the truth.
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