Gangs

Roberto Lovato’s new memoir traces his family’s history between El Salvador and the United States, examining intergenerational trauma and political forces that shape his own family’s story as well as those of tens of thousands of Salvadorans who have fled violence and warfare. 

Right groups condemned El Salvador’s president on Monday for releasing startling photos of hundreds of jailed gang members stripped to underwear and pressed together in formation, part of a punishment for an outbreak of violence.

For some Salvadorans, the promise of the “American Dream” has been tainted by coordinated deterrence efforts from Mexico and the United States. They’re looking to places like Costa Rica for refuge — for now.

Since 2014, some Central American youth were given temporary permission to join their parents in the US. The government acknowledged the danger they were in. But now, the Trump administration has canceled the programs that brought them. Meet one family, who waited 15 years to reunite, but whose time is almost up.

Alex Sanchez, a former MS-13 member, says “people don’t see that we’re human and that we could change.”