UNITED STATES: The State Department of the United States has recently added a dozen of more Central American big-wigs to a special list of “corrupt and undemocratic individuals”, simply those lawyers, former officials, diplomats and business tycoons who pose a national threat to American safety.
Reuters reports that El Salvadorians, Hondurians, Guatemalans and Nicaraguans have been added to the Engel list, a list sponsored by the then-US representative, Eliot Engel. The State Department publishes this list every year, and it includes those criminals and thugs who will have their visas cancelled and won’t be allowed into the US.
In a statement, the US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken said, “These individuals through their significant corruption, efforts to obstruct investigations into corruption and undermining of democratic processes and institutions, weaken the ability of governments in the region to respond to the needs of their citizens, contributing to irregular migration and destabilizing societies.”
For the first time, Nicaraguans were added to the list. This comes at a crucial time when Daniel Ortega, a former Marxist guerrilla, won a fourth term in office in November after jailing his opponents and imposing strict surveillance on critical media.
US President Joe Biden refused to acknowledge the election as legitimate and dismissed it as fraud, thereafter placing penalties on Nicaraguan leaders.
US authorities believe one of the major reasons for the border crisis in the US which witnesses large swathes of migrants coming in from Central American countries is due to the record-breaking corruption in these Latin countries, doubled gang violence, drug abuse and corrupt politics.
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