Everyone Who Is Gone Is Here: The United States, Central America, and the Making of a Crisis

Asylum in the context of Everyone Who Is Gone Is Here refers to protections given to individuals who are no longer safe in their home countries. US law, in theory, offers asylum to those who face persecution or fear of persecution based on “race, religion, nationality, or membership in a particular social group or political opinion” (48).

Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, was an executive action signed by President Barack Obama in 2012 to grant temporary legal status to “Dreamers,” undocumented young people brought to the United States as children. The program grants temporary work permits and relief from deportation to over half a million young people.

The Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front is a Salvadoran political party that began as a group of leftist guerrilla rebels in the 1980s. The FMLN fought against the military government in El Salvador’s civil war. When the war ended in 1992, FMLN fighters laid down their weapons, and the group became a political party. In 2009 and 2014, FMLN candidates were elected president of El Salvador.